BIM Management and Collaboration: The Role of Standards and Classification

JORDANA VILLAGOMEZ: Hello, everyone. Today the topic is BIM management and collaboration-- the role of standards and classifications. First of all, I would like to thank Autodesk for inviting us to present such an important topic. And I also would like to thank the audience for taking your time to learn more about it.

So let me introduce myself. My name is Jordana Villagomez. I'm a Brazilian civil engineer with master's in global BIM management from Spain. And I also studied architecture and urbanism. In my career, I have worked for different countries, including Brazil, England, Saudi Arabia, Denmark, and US.

I have a multidisciplinary background with experience in infrastructure, MEP, structure, architecture, and interiors for a variety of project types-- residential, commercial, civil, and industrial-- in both the private and public sector. I have worked for projects ranging from tiny, tiny bathrooms to large data centers across the globe, and because of that, I like to say I'm a duck-- I can swim, I can fly, and I can walk. And I'm very grateful for having these experiences that have given me a better understanding of the challenges and opportunities in all the corners of our industry.

JASON DIAMOND: Hey, everyone. I am Jason Diamond. I am the digital practice manager at the Perkins&Will Atlanta office. I have an architectural background. I'm a licensed architect. I am a LEED Green associate. I've had plenty of experience in the industry. And I've worked with a variety of project types over the years, a lot of big, complex projects, and I've worked with a variety of different types of designers. I've worked with architects, interior designers, urban planners. And very happy to be speaking here at AU again.

JORDANA VILLAGOMEZ: Why this session? Have you ever been part of a project where communication was a challenge? So I grew up in a construction company. In that environment, I saw how difficult and stressful communication can be.

I often saw simple conversations escalate into big fights. And as a result, we tended to avoid communication, which led to even bigger problems. At some point, I started to wonder if that stress was unique to our company or common in the whole industry.

[INAUDIBLE] how successful companies handle their problems, I decided to burst my bubble and work for other companies.

On my journey, I worked for many companies, seeking challenges that would help me to answer my questions and become a better professional with a deeper understanding of our industry. I also thought that with my knowledge and experience, adapting to a new company would be easier. But I was wrong. Even after years of exploration, it still took me months to get familiar with the organizational diversity of those companies, which included new people, new technologies, new processes, and operations.

So I often come back with the same question. How can we work together?

Even with the same goals, different companies, people, teams, and disciplines don't talk with each other. We don't even share the same language. And after all these considerations, I'm not afraid to say that the biggest issue in our industry is called collaboration.

Collaboration is the process of individuals or groups working together toward a common goal, sharing ideas, knowledge, resources, and efforts to achieve outcomes that would be difficult or impossible to accomplish alone. Collaboration requires effective communication, which involves exchanging information, talks, or methods.

But how can we collaborate, communicate with an entire industry with thousands of people from different backgrounds, from different languages, different interests? How can we ensure that all these individuals and companies work together on the same page to guarantee project safety and success?

When we talk about collaboration, we need to pay attention to a few things-- people, technology, and process. Collaboration also depends on communication, which is not just about verbal speaking, but also includes written communication, such as documents. And that's where standards come in. These standards create a common framework that enables effective communication.

JASON DIAMOND: So basically, today, we are going to cover a few topics here. First we're going to start talking about, we're going to identify and understand the most relevant BIM standards for us. And then we're going to dive into a few classification systems and tell you a little bit about those. And then lastly, we are going to talk about interoperability tools, and we are going to tell you about a set of tools that can be used to help support this BIM implementation and improve our collaboration and efficiency as a team.

JORDANA VILLAGOMEZ: Speaking of standards, ISO is an International Organization for Standards that has a series of standards that will cover the whole project life cycle. ISO 19650 is the leading standard for BIM management. So let's focus on it.

ISO 19650 is a standard that provides guidance on how to organize and manage digital information using BIM. It provides a better connection between data, enabling stronger decisions and insights, as well as greater efficiencies across the built environment. It's a guidance that will not specify organizational or project details, but it will guide you to the best practice with BIM.

In other words, ISO 19650 is not a rigid set of rules or procedures. Instead, it provides a framework for best practice to help us to get the most out of BIM. It has five parts-- concepts and principles, delivery phase of asset, operation phase of asset, information exchange, and security. The sixth part is under development, and it will cover health and safety.

Some of the 1192 standards, which form the basis of the UK approach to BIM, are being replaced with the ISO 19650 series of documents as they are developed. The evolution of these standards facilitates a consistent approach to information management at national and international levels.

Let's talk about the parties. ISO 19650 series depends on each party taking responsibility part of the overall process. According to the standard, a project team is composed of an appointing party and delivery team, which are made up of test teams and lead appointed party.

Let's digest it. Appointing party. If you are a client or you are managing information on behalf of a client, this means that you are fulfilling the role of appointing party. You are the part owning the project.

Lead appointed party. If you are responsible for coordinating information between the delivery team and the client, this means that you are fulfilling the role of lead appointed party.

Appointed party. If you are tendering for or appointed to a project, this means that you are fulfilling the role of appointed party. You are part of the test team. And furthermore, your organization may include a number of test teams within it.

Let's see this example. Here, you have a client that owns the money and the idea. The client will contact the main contractor, the builder. This lead appointed party will connect with the task teams-- the designers, the architects, the engineers, architecture, structure, MEP. And here, everybody needs to work together.

For the information exchange, every part is responsible for delivering the information needed following the workflow below. The appointing party is responsible for delivering the OIR, PIR, and AIR. These are Organizational Information Requirements, Project Information Requirements, and Asset Information Requirements, which will be used as basis for the EIR, Exchange Information Requirements.

The appointing party will send the EIR to the lead appointed party, who will develop the BEP, BIM Execution Plan, with inputs from the appointed parties. The BEP will include all the information needed for a successful BIM execution, and it will be used to guide the entire project. Later, a newer version of the EIR will be delivered, including all the decisions made during the project that were not covered in the first EIR. It's like an as-built, but for BIM.

So can you see that? It's all about collaboration and information exchange. And a successful outcome of this workflow will include clear definition for the information needed by the client, as well as clear definition for the methods, procedures, deadlines, and protocols that will be used.

The quantity and quality of the information processed has to be just enough to guarantee the defined information needed without compromising health and safety. Too much information when not needed represents just wasted effort. Furthermore, we want to guarantee efficient and effective transfers of information between those involved in each part of the project.

And speaking on transfers of information, let's see the status of the common data environment. We start with the work in progress, with the information in its first section. This information can be Revit model, an IFC, any document.

At some point, the information will be shared to be checked by others. If the information is not good enough, it will be sent back to work in progress, carrying comments for revision. These comments will be traded, and the information will be shared again.

We can repeat the circle many times, but let's say that after the first revision, the information was authorized. Now we can publish it. Finally, this information now can be used for construction, for design, for maintenance.

And the last folder will be the archive. The archive folder is the final resting place for information that's no longer current, relevant or needed. We do want to keep this information in the archive so we can track the evolution of the information, and recover it if needed in the future.

Classification systems. Have you ever counted how many ways can we name restrooms? Some people like to call it toilet, bathroom, restroom, lavatory, or [INAUDIBLE]. In Portuguese, we call it banheiro or [PORTUGUESE]. And in Spanish, we call it baño. There are thousands of ways to call the same thing.

To improve communication, we need to unify. We need to define a common language that we all understand. The UniClass is a well-known classification system that serves a shared language that will provide a single and universal code for each element. The UniClass have been created by UK, in UK by NBS with industry groups and the government, and its structured in tables to support various parts of the project.

JASON DIAMOND: Another classification system we'll talk about today, this is primarily in the US, is UniFormat. And this is a structure that organizes construction information by major systems, which it's mainly used for an early cost estimate because the beginning of a project, it's easy to compare these different major systems, like exterior wall systems, roof systems, mechanical and electrical systems. And so it takes that sort of overall general approach to this.

And so inside of Revit, what that means is all of our systems families actually have this type property that's assembly code. And so if you go into the type properties of a wall, in this case, if you see the screenshot of the wall here, we're going into type properties, we're hitting that assembly code, and then we're able to choose from the giant UniFormat classification table in there and find our exterior wall tape, and assign it to the type properties of this wall, which is going to apply it to any of these walls that we place across the project.

So we can establish this for roofs or the mechanical systems and structural systems. Any of these system families we can set this. And it's primarily used at the beginning of a project to estimate when you can compare a lot of different systems at that point.

OK. The other system we'll talk about is the Omniclass system. And it is a comprehensive classification system for the construction industry, and it encompasses key elements of both the MasterFormat and the UniFormat, which you just saw, and for building life cycle and project management. So it has numerous applications, and it's primarily used for facilities management.

You can set this in the family property. So if you open up a family, you'll see in the properties box where you can set this Omniclass. And then later on, we're going to be talking about a few tools that Autodesk has that will help you with classifying these on your projects.

JORDANA VILLAGOMEZ: Interoperability. It is the ability of different systems to work together, even if they are made by different vendors or use different technologies. It depends on unification, interchange, and compliance. Unification is the use of common standards and protocols, interchange is the ability of systems to share data, and compliance is the adherence to standards and protocols by developers and users.

Interoperability means freedom. Oops. Freedom. It doesn't matter what software you or your collaborators choose to use, you can still work together.

Here we have closed BIM and open BIM. The difference between them is that in the closed BIM, you cannot collaborate with others if they are using a different app. However, in open BIM, doesn't matter what program you work with, you still can collaborate with others. So the idea is the closed BIM would represent just the native file format, and the open BIM would be the native file format plus the open standard.

Let's see a great example of open BIM. IFC is an open standard. It's used in BIM projects to facilitate interoperability and collaboration between different apps. You can think of it as a container for big data, allowing you to transfer geometry and data from one big application to another, regardless of systems or vendors. For example, you can use IFC to transfer data from a native Revit file to another BIM application, such as Archicad or Tekla.

COBie. COBie is a data standard that helps us to manage and exchange information about building assets. It can be used to extract data from BIM models and transfer it to operations and maintenance. This ensures that all the key information about the building is in one single place, and that this information can be shared with all the stakeholders. COBie works very well with classification systems, and consistency is the key for getting the most out of it.

And we have great news. Autodesk, NVIDIA, Adobe, Apple, and Pixar form an alliance to drive open standards for OpenUSD. USD means Universal Scene Description, and it is a powerful and open tool for working in 3D worlds. It's not just a file format. It's an ecosystem that allows artists, engineers, and other professionals to create, compose, simulate, and collaborate with the industry.

USD is quickly becoming the standard for data exchange between different apps. It offers a rich common language for 3D data and powerful collaboration features.

JASON DIAMOND: All right, we're going to talk a little bit about these Autodesk interoperability tools and how they can help with this whole, with data passing between models, and passing checks, and things like that. All of these tools that you see I'm going to talk about are really simple, small tools that really help these collaborative workflows and dealing with any data transfer or setup of that.

And so the first thing we'll talk about is the shared parameters tool for Revit. And this is pretty good because if you have, let's say you had 20 project files, and they all needed to have these shared parameters, if you have someone to go and you just give them the text file, they may not-- they're going to mess something up. Either they assign the wrong category or they make it type instead of instance.

This ensures that all these parameters for all your files in your project are going to get applied exactly the same way. It uses this XML file format here to assign everything. And all the other tools I'm going to mention today, most of them are going to use this XML format for their sort of configuration files.

And so the next tool I'll talk about is the Autodesk room and area sync. Formerly, this was known as the spatial data tool for Revit. So that's what it is called now. All of its functionality is not changed. They just changed the name. And just like the other one, all these settings can be exported for use.

Where geometry aligns between rooms and areas, you can sync the data between them, just seamlessly transfer the data between them. And this is big for facilities management apps. And just like the previous tool, you can also add shared parameters to your rooms and areas here as well.

Next is a big one. We've had to use this on a couple of projects. This is the Autodesk model checker for Revit, and it runs a standardized set of checks on models to ensure that a level of quality has been met, that compliance has been met with the BIM requirements of the project or the client. And it's a nice tool that can quickly identify areas of noncompliance, runs on the active files, it can be automated to run checks when Revit opens.

We've been involved in the projects where the client provided the design team with a check set to run, and we would run it at certain milestones so that by the end of the project, we had run it so much we knew we were in compliance, or close to it. It wasn't a big deal to hit the finish line on the model deliverable.

You can run batch set checks on multiple files. You get instant feedback. You get a little score here. It tells you exactly where you failed if you failed, or if you passed all of them. Great. It directly integrates with the active file, and then you can export any of these results to an Excel or an HTML. Sometimes you need to run these on multiple project files, and then having a folder of these Excel files where you can really dig into what work needs to happen there.

And then there is a configurator app for the model checker, which basically establishes all of these metrics that are going to be checked, and gets into a lot of detail there. You don't have to know everything to use this tool. There is a little wizard, and there's also a little pre-built check system in here that you can use with a lot of good options.

If you just came in here just because you wanted to just check a handful of things, there's probably some good things on this menu that you can use for pre-built checks to get started on this tool. So check your configurator.

And then this one, Autodesk COBie extension for Revit really helps users export the data from Revit that's required with the COBie format, which is the data standard during this construction handover process. You can choose how elements within the model are ID'd, whether it's a Revit element ID. You can choose whether you're using rooms or spaces to locate these different things.

And then you can choose which parameters you need to export. It's a pretty useful tool. And then you can also have it create schedules in Revit that help you maybe fill in the information, or at least start with a schedule that you can export, and maybe you update it in Excel and push those changes back in. But it sort of helps out with setting a schedule for you.

So a lot of tools here just at your fingertips. None of these tools are super complicated. You could totally pick these up and learn them in five minutes probably, and know what to do. So they're just very useful tools in a very simplified interface.

The next thing I'll talk about is the standardized data tool for Revit. So we talked about these different classification systems a bit ago, about the UniClass, Omniclass format. And this tool is handy because you can actually classify multiple objects at once, and group things by category or subcategory, and be able to apply large amounts of elements, whatever Omniclass code or UniFormat code that needs to be. So another simple, useful tool there.

And then the Autodesk equipment data tool for Revit is nice. This, actually, it doesn't run on the project file. It only runs on the family files. And again, this is another sort of, fills in parameters, fills in subcategory information on all of these families. You can batch run it on all the families in the project to run this. So another useful tool there.

And then moving on to here's a nice little BIM 360 tool, Autodesk replication tool. Some call it ART. For docs, you can copy files, models between any versions of docs or ACC, Autodesk Construction Cloud. And you can even copy from other hubs. Like we work with associate architects or contractors all the time. We can set this on a schedule to run weekly, and copy over these files, let's say at the end of the week every week.

And then, of course, it has reporting features on the back end. If you start using this on several projects, several files, then the report may be helpful in tracking down if there was a problem, or if something was successfully transferred or not. So this runs in the cloud. Very handy tool.

And then our last tool I'll talk about today is the Autodesk validation tool. This also runs on the cloud, and it's basically like a model checker that we saw a couple slides ago, but for cloud models. And just like the last tool we looked at, this can also run on a schedule. So you could potentially run this model checker every week, every other week if you wanted to, or once a month to see where we are in compliance with the BIM standards for this project.

That just about wraps it up. I'm going to pass it back over to Jordana for a conclusion.

JORDANA VILLAGOMEZ: In conclusion, let's see a brief overview. Standards and classifications play a vital role in BIM management and collaboration. They provide a common framework that enables effective communication between different parties, companies, teams, and disciplines.

ISO 19650 is the leading standard for BIM management. It provides guidance on how to organize and manage digital information for better collaboration and communication. IFC, COBie, and OpenUSD are open standards that facilitate interoperability.

Autodesk, understanding the importance of collaboration, provides a variety of interoperability tools to help us implementing BIM and best practices.

Finally, let me answer my first question. In the beginning of the presentation, I asked, why this session? And this session is to encourage you to think about the challenge of the next person. Sometimes when we are focused on our own problems, living in our own bubbles, it's difficult to see the big picture.

However, we must remember that we all depend on each other. It's important to step outside, go out from our comfort zones, and understand the impact of the information that we are providing, and how it will be received. We need to work together. We are not just architects, engineers, or mechanics. We are a team.

By working together, we can create a stronger industry. If you like this presentation, if you like the session, please hit the comments, share with your friends. And you are more than welcome to follow us in LinkedIn, or LinkedIn, and send us feedbacks, or talk more about this industry. It would be a pleasure to hear from you.