The raise of the openBIM with buildingSMART international (bSI)

“Recently both the World Economic Forum and the EU BIM Task Group have published leading texts supporting open digitalization and openBIM. So it is very clear that openBIM – that buildingSMART International leads, is very important, and must improve over and over. That is why our work is so important and the International Standards Summit is one of the very moment to do so.” Richard Petrie, CEO buildingSMART International home of openBIM (bSI), explains the issues of the next International Standards Summit that is host in Paris, march 26-29, organized by his french chapter buildingSMART France-Mediaconsruct.

Registration link : https://www.buildingsmart.org/paris-registration/

What is the purpose of the International Standards Summit of bSI ?

bSI hold twice a year an International Standards Summit, which is primarily intended to be working sessions for our Rooms, Projects and Working Groups where they can meet face to face and work on activity initiation, consensus building during the execution of activity and the sharing of outputs. Although we talk about Standards it is important to point out that we are equally interested in the development of open Solutions and Technical Reports so the scope of activities includes all the creative solution building, information sharing as well as standards development. A lot of the work needs to be done away from these Summits as there just isn’t time for all the meetings needed in the large formal Summits. Indeed, our Technical Room members are starting to meet separately to avoid schedule conflicts. The International Standards Summit are key to the formal operation of the Standards Process as they provide the opportunity for the broader leadership teams to meet and develop plans.

In Paris, the opening plenary on Monday 26th of march, is accessible for everyone to show our mission and works, and also to explain concretely what is openBIM (the conference will be translated). Registration : https://www.weezevent.com/journee-du-26-mars

Why will this summit in Paris be interesting? what do you expect of this technical congress?

Our current openBIM priorities are :

• Extend IFC Data Schema for Infrastructure Domains
• Greatly extend workflow functionality (Exchange Requirements, Process descriptions and Model Views supported by tools such BCF and bSDD) and provide user guides.
• Enable tradeable exchanges (addressing scope, status, provenance and security needs and the underlying technology) and archive functionality.

The work of the Paris Summit will focus on activities addressing the first two of these bullets.

I am looking for our Room Leaders to increasing focus on packaged deliverables which can provide full clarity of the functionality needed to software vendors and easily accessible data exchange instructions for users. There are a number for important defined activities underway in the Infrastructure area. I am looking for the Buildings and Users rooms to develop similar clarity around their work plans.  Progress in the Individual Qualification enabling activities will also be a key outcome.

From now on, what is the status of openBIM in the World?

There is a very clear demand from government and client organisation for vendor neutral open solutions. World leaders and governments increasingly realise that the proportion of our collective GDP who’s efficiency and effectiveness is fundamentally driven by the quality and functionality of our built assets is very high indeed. (The UK estimate is above 40%). They also need to access the benefits available from open data in the building and operation of built assets. Not to do so would be irresponsible. For example, for how much longer can major construction sector companies be allowed to fail financially due to poor information availability.

What are bSI’s perspectives and strengths to succeed ?

We have some very important features which are unique and provide a very strong platform.

• We have developed and are the worldwide centre of excellence for IFC data scheme which is uniquely developed to address built asset data exchange requirements.
• We are world-wide community with strong and growing engagement allowing us to go beyond pure standards making and address implementation and adoption issues through our User Program and Chapter network.
• We are also addressing the practical implantation needs for defined digital terms, types and objects and for error correction workflow management in the form of tools such as the bSDD (buildingSMART Data Dictionnary), the BCF (BIM Collaboration Format).
• We need, of course, to do more in addressing the functionality required for the future. Our approach is progressive : we are seeking to do things today that can make data exchanges and interoperability more reliable and trustworthy.
• We also have technical teams exploring the needs of tomorrow and are confident that if we can build the right engagement we can address all those issue in time. 

To discover buildingSMART International : http://buildingsmart.org/