Friday 6 February 2015

BIM Toolkit - Update

It's full speed ahead now on the BIM Toolkit developments. We have just updated our website with an online video demonstration of progress and information on how to keep in touch with the development.

I also summarise things with a few screenshots below.
Watch our video showing the progress so far at our NBS web portal
The BIM Toolkit will be a free-to-use digital platform made up of:
  • A new unified classification system for the UK that is based on the ISO 12006-2 framework
  • A set of level-of-definition guidance pages for BIM objects
  • A digital plan of work tool defining who in a project team is doing what and when
1. Information exchanges
Fundamentally, the BIM Toolkit is being developed on behalf of the UK Government's BIM Task Group to support their level-2 BIM process.

As an introduction to the project life-cycle the PAS 1192-2:2013 standard is the best place to start:
bimtaskgroup.org/pas-1192-22013
(this is essential reading)

The BIM Toolkit will support this full process. It will help clients generate sections of an Employer's Information Requirement (EIR) document.  It will also help bidders and the supply chain develop their BIM Execution Plans and Master Information Delivery Plans in response to the EIR.
At the Strategy/Brief stage - the project participants may not be known
Tasks and deliverables may be defined that will answer an employer's 'plain language questions'
As a project team is appointed the roles are assigned to organisations
2. Level-of-definition guidance pages
In addition to BIM being about managing the process and the key tasks, it is also about modelling the project in terms of digital objects. The BIM Toolkit will include thousands of level-of-definition guidance pages that assist with this process. These will give bandings for level-of-detail (LOD) that covers geometric detail and level-of-information (LOI) that covers the associated information.

Each of these bandings is indicative of what is typically required for that stage of the plan of work. So the banding "2" is typical of what is expected at concept design, the banding "5" is typical of what is expected as part of the construction process.

Examples of LOD and LOIs are below. Thanks must be given to our expert partners BDP (buildings) and Mott MacDonald (infrastructure) who are doing amazing work supporting us in this area.
LOD-4 for a bridge expansion joint
LOI-3 for the same bridge expansion joint
LOD-2 for a floor covering system
LOD-2 for a boiler
LOI-6 for a boiler
3. Responsibilities
The default tasks and the object definition reference library may be used to set the responsibilities within a digital plan of work. This information may be exported to a digital format (COBie) for verification and comparison - or to a Microsoft Office format for more traditional exchange documents for briefing, tendering and appointments (ultimately PDF).
Objects may be added to a digital plan of work for a project
Responsibilities and notes can be defined against this object for a particular stage
In terms of verification, I'll blog more about this in a few weeks' time. But BIM Academy are doing some amazing work around their xBIM technology. This will include 3D viewing functionality around buildingSMART IFC and full use of the buildingSMART COBie data schema.
3D IFC viewing technology showing design information being verified against the requirements
Hopefully, this all looks interesting to those involved in the UK construction industry. If it is, please visit our official web portal:

...and if you want to meet the team face-to-face, come and see us at:
...and, as always, I'll sneak a few things up on this blog for those interested in some of the 'behind the scenes' stuff under the label BIMToolkit.

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