Nowadays, the changes of global environment are rapid and tremendous. Considering the impact of changes, risks and opportunities could be identified. For business operation continuity, organization needs to deal with the risks and opportunities in resilient manner. In built environment sector, traditional management approaches are applied. 2D drawing and paper-based process result in inefficient management system. Concerning the complexity of the project scale and multiple stakeholders across built asset lifecycle, the organizations in built environment sector undertake extremely high risk in cost and time. In fact, the needs for conducting resource leveling and remote design collaboration are increased in 2020 due to supply chain broken and travel restriction. In order to survive the economic winter, the transformation for AEC industry is needed to establish effective management system.
BIM-enabled transformation in built environment
When it comes to the technology and process revolution in AEC industry, Building Information Modeling (BIM) has the lead from past to present. With the first international standards in BIM management which are ISO 19650 series, integrated management approaches could be applied. Therefore, we propose a BIM-enabled transformation roadmap in built environment (Fig 1). The introduction of the roadmap is following.
Figure 1. the road for BIM-enabled digital and sustainable transformation in built environment
- Quality Management（ISO 9001 & ISO 19650-1）
At first, ISO 9001 quality management is the most fundamental management system for organization. The PDCA cycle with high level structure supports the basic requirements in ISO 19650-1 information management principles. The corresponding individuals in organizational structure should be assigned with information management function. The IT infrastructure and workflow process could be enhanced to be Common Data Environment (CDE) compliant. The evaluation criteria in BIM is part of supplier evaluation process. The production of BIM execution plan (BEP) is part of planning activities to response to client’s exchange information requirement.
- Project Management（ISO 19650-2 & ISO 21500）
When it comes to project management, ISO 19650-2 defines the requirement for capital phase of asset with reference to ISO 21500. In illustrating project stages, RIBA plan of work 2020 is applied in the roadmap showing project stages. For project initiating and planning as project owner, identifying stakeholder and defining project scope are key steps in establishing exchange information requirement (EIR). In preparing Pre-appointment BEP (Pre-BEP) for tender response as delivery team, information delivery strategy should answer EIR and federation strategy should be aligned with design strategy in defining model breakdown structure as project work breakdown structure. With Pre-BEP, supplier evaluation summary, mobilization plan and risk register should be provided for stakeholder realizing project risks before appointment. After appointment are agreed and resources are mobilized, delivery team produce information following job allocation in Post-appointment BEP (Post-BEP) and collaborate under CDE process (WIP/Share/Published/Archived). Through the CDE process, information verification and validation are conducted according to EIR to ensure reliable information deliverables for decision making.
- Asset Management（ISO 19650-3 & ISO 55001）
After project is moving to handover stage, the built asset is delivered to asset owner to start the journey of asset management. Based on the foundation of ISO 55001, ISO 19650-3 inherit the asset management concept and reference the project process control from ISO 19650-2. When it comes to project handover stage, the data within project information model (PIM) could be amalgamated as asset information model (AIM) and aligned with asset information requirement (AIR) to be the input of the asset management system. For initiating asset management from asset owner perspective of view, organizational strategy of the asset owner indicates the direction of asset portfolios and management plan. In the asset portfolios, the reliability, maintenance cost, asset performance are considered. The corresponding asset management system should be capable to handle daily operation and unexpected accident as trigger event management. The delivery team create information as well as project stage, and they need to update AIM following CDE process. Through the management process, refined organization information requirement (OIR) and AIR could be captured continuously and be lesson learnt for the future projects which is another information delivery cycle.
Besides quality, project and asset management, there are three arrows across the roadmap supporting built asset life cycle.
- Information Specification（BS 1192-4 & ISO 16739-1）
For the foundation of ISO 19650 series is information management, information specification is required in supporting management system. Considering technical and cost issue in long-term operation, open standards such as industry foundation class (IFC) and construction operation building information exchange (COBie) are preferred. IFC defined in ISO 16739-1 is information schema used to represent BIM model containing geometric and non-geometric information in open and structure way. COBie defined in BS 1192-4 (Updating to ISO 19650-4) is data table in spreadsheet pattern representing non-geometric information, and it could be “dropped” from IFC as subset. For UK BIM Level 2 strategy requires Datadrop at each project stage covering model, drawing and COBie, the content of COBie plays an important role to be validated according to EIR as project stage deliverables. part of Datadrop to be validated with EIR during project stages.
- Information Security Management（ISO 19650-5 & ISO 27001）
For information management are critical activities across information delivery cycle of built asset, information security should be managed whenever information exchange activity exists especially for critical infrastructure project. With core requirements of organizational information security management system defined in ISO 27001, ISO 19650-5 extends the principles capturing project specific security information requirement across project life cycle and supply chain management. For security-minded approach, the organization should conduct sensitivity triage process to determine project security sensitivity. After identifying high sensitive project, security risk assessment should be conducted in establishing security strategy. In order to deal with security risk, security management plan following security policy should be implemented according to security information requirements. The control measures in security management plan should prevent security incident from resulting in negative impact toward asset and personnel. Once security incident happens, security breach/incident management plan should be implemented to handle the circumstance. Overall, the security management approach should be considered from the capital phase to the operational phase of the asset, and the supply chain should be managed according to information sharing agreement.
- Occupational Health and Safety Management（PAS 1192-6 & ISO 45001）
The effective management approaches for the built asset are proposed as above. In the meantime, we could enhance better occupational health and safety (OHS) management as the last arrow in the roadmap. Following the key requirement in ISO 45001, PAS 1192-6 provides a methodology in health and safety risk information management with BIM. The concept of risk information cycle should be applied by owner, designer, contractor, commissioner and end user. There are four functions in risk information cycle including how to identify health and safety risk, use risk information, share structural risk information and generalize lesson learnt. PAS 1192-6 provide specification in considering risk information handling in built asset life cycle and also solid instruction in risk assessment with COBie. With ISO 19650 wording, appointing party could specify health and safety risk requirement through EIR to lead-appointed party, and lead appointed party could further cascade the risk content into lead appointed party’s EIR of Post-appointment BEP to the rest appointed parties. With BIM-enabled risk information management, better control measure could be conducted earlier to prevent occupational injuries.
Shaping a Smart and Circular Built Environment
In dealing with global change in built environment, the above systematic approaches are presented as risk management. At the same time, the opportunity of industrial upgrading may come with risk. In order to conquer the challenge, it is critical to capture the insight of opportunity and conduct improvement for the long term ideal vision. Looking at the big picture, the organizations in built environment sector share common vision: To build and shape a better world. In response to the shared vision, the journey of BIM-enabled transformation roadmap leads to smart city and circular economy.
In order to explore new possibilities of a smart city, digital transformation is needed for AEC industry to release the potential of innovation from organizational management and individual built asset maintenance to urban planning. In supporting digital transformation, ISO 19650 series provide principles and process requirement of information delivery cycle as fundamental of built asset management. For achieving the macro benefit of effective built asset management, city planner could apply ISO 37106 which is the first smart city international standard and ISO 19650 series. With clear structure for smart city development as top-down approach, smart built asset lifecycle management in city scale could be implemented with reliable information process for decision making.
Considering sustainable aspects, the principle of circular economy could be adapted in smart city. A smart city is not only consisted of intelligent infrastructure, but also effective in resource consumption and less impact to natural environment. In promoting sustainable transformation of smart city, economic growth and natural capital preservation should be considered at the same time. Coupling with information delivery cycle of ISO 19650, BS 8001 as the first standard provides well-defined framework for organization creating innovative potentiality in circular economy could be realized and introduced in defining information delivery strategy and federation strategy. Once circular economy consideration is applied in early project stage, the possibility of sustainable environment could be explored to be affordable.
Envisioning the future of built environment, we could imagine a smart and circular wonderland in the end of road. For a journey of a thousand miles begins with a single step, let’s step on the journey of BIM-enabled digital and sustainable transformation. The next article will introduce about BIM qualification related to the transformation roadmap. Please stay tunned!
Alaric Kuo, Built Environment Product Manager, BSI Taiwan
June 2021
