DIGITAL RECORDS WORKSTREAM MEETING 28-06-2024
RICHARD We’ve had two workstreams meetings already, the business case workstream were really keen, they’re having another meeting next week. I’d like to introduce Adam Sanders and Adina Poncis, who are the leaders of this group.
ADINA PONCIS I’m Digital Delivery Director for a principal contractor. I’ve been in the industry for 20 years working across sectors, architecture, client and now principal contractor. It’s worth mentioning, ever since I’ve started at the principal contractor the world of construction makes so much more sense to me. We work across new builds, so we work directly with clients and consultants, subcontractors, product manufacturers. But also we have a division for retrofit and refurbishment where we work directly with asset managers and facility managers. So, I do have a wider picture of what the issues on the ground are, there are so many complexities of it, so hopefully we’ll somehow get to the bottom of it.
ADAM SANDERS I work for RiskBase which is a software company that helps consultants produce risk assessments and surveys, mostly in the kind of safety and fire spaces. But most all of our clients are managing property, and one of our biggest frustrations is that they’re not managing the data within those properties very well which is why we are now quite interested in BIM. And this particular area, especially purely because there is so much data that gets lost in the day-to-day operational activities, and if we can try and get BIM to work better for those asset facilities managers and the risk teams, I think there is some really interesting stuff to do.
(shares screen). Really, all these slides are for is to try and give a little bit of a brief to what we’re doing so that we’re focused. And we want to try and define a few things, if anybody disagrees with anything that comes up on this, please stick your hand up, interrupt us, because let’s get this right and use it to define the future sessions. The idea is that if we can agree these next couple of slides and that we’re roughly on-point, we could come up with some problem based scenarios so that we can come up with some solutions and a bit of a functional specification to work on. I had a chat with Adina yesterday and this is what we broadly came up with.
Although we’re talking about the digital record, most of what facilities managers and asset managers do are digital. So, if some work is instructed it’s probably already done on some form of digital system, on some software. The problem is that that software is not talking back to a central repository. So, if you go and instruct a boiler repair but with Mears/Meers??? 4mins 2secs, or a boiler installation with Mears/Meers?, that would be on some kind of a job management system, we’re just not getting the data back. SO even if you’ve got a BIM model, or BIM information, it’s never really getting updated for our asset facilities managers.
BEN EVANS I’m from Albany Infrastructure Management. I disagree with the first statement. We work in the PFI sector, so a lot of the buildings were constructed 20 years ago and predominantly records are hard copy and hundreds of drawings stored away. So, we have little digital recordings. What we want to achieve is digitisation of said data.
ADAM SANDERS I agree with that and we need to clarify that point. I’m thinking that from the operational stage the work that we instruct, whether it’s capital works, new capital works or ongoing maintenance, is done on some form of a digital system. Yeah, you’re right, we might not have that initial digital model.
STEVE ROGERS I’m from the University of Wolverhampton. Just picking up on your point about the data bidirectional back into the BIM model. Is that actually required? We don’t take that approach here, we only export data from the models into CAP FM system and then that holds all of that service record information.
ADAM SANDERS This kind of comes back to the next point which really is what do we think BIM is? And a lot people will turn round and say it’s just a 3D model, retrospective point clouds being done, it’s hugely detailed, expensive information to capture. My take is, I’m sure that lots of people will disagree with me, is it could be very little information. It might be a set of floor plans and saying I’ve got these rooms, and these rooms might have some of this equipment in it. And what we want to try and do is make it easier to build up that information. I have lots of people obviously disagreeing with me.
GEORGE You’re absolutely right, BIM is about information. A 3D model may be a good way of looking at information for certain purposes, but it’s about the information. I’d also say, picking up on what Ben was saying earlier, when we talk about the digital records, i many cases what’s happening is that we’re recording the activity, because that’s what people get paid for, rather than the information about what it was that they did it to.
And that’s really quite important from Ben’s point of view because he needs to know that it’s that piece of equipment that the activity was carried out against. So you may have a digital record in your CAFM system or in your work order system that says we did this work. But unless it’s actually related to a particular unique asset then you don’t have that connection and that’s really part of what we’re talking about there.
ADAM SANDERS And I guess that’s what I’m trying to get to with this first point, that these records exist, they’re just not talking to each other. So, the CAFM bit is not talking to the BIM nit, is not talking to the asset management solution. Does that sound right?
GEORGE Correct.
STEVE ROGERS Just on that point again with data. How we manage of use a typical BIM model, we stop referring to it as a BIM model, we refer to them as asset models. To us, from a client point of view and an FM point of view, it’s an asset model to us more than a BIM model. But each to their own as to what they call it.
ADAM SANDERS I guess there’s two things. We either need to scrap calling this BIM because too many people are thinking it’s very detailed information. Or, we adopt the BIM4Housing idea which is BIM s better information management and it’s the asset model and everything else talking to each other. It’s just all of that information in the round.
STEVE ROGERS Yeah, I think so. So, again, how we handle the models. When they get handed over to us we have built internal models ourselves, so we use those models as more of an identifier of where assets are. Yes, there’s a hell of a lot of parameter data attached to those assets that we export and populate the CAFM system. We currently don’t bidirectional that information, so to us, for instance, a boiler is always a boiler in the model and the location is probably going to be always quite static. But manufacturer and seal number information would get updated and re-exported out. But service records and things like that, we don’t store that information in the model.
ADAM SANDERS So the key thing is that that information from the BIM model into all of the other operational systems needs to become bidirectional so that when that boiler is changed it gets updated.
STEVE ROGERS Yes, we use Plan.One at the moment, we’ve just introduced that over the last 12-18 months, so yes, we could bidirectional data back into the model. But we’ve got in-house expertise to actually update the Revit model and just export the data out. So yes and no, we don’t necessarily need for us to be bidirectional because we can update the data and re-export it out.
ADAM SANDERS But that’s out of the reach of most asset managers.
STEVE ROGERS Absolutely, I understand that.
PHIL THOMPSON I generally concur with what everybody is saying. Again, the use of digital, I think you should remove that because a lot of the records are part analogue. And I’m keen to highlight that if you look at the actual records people still talk about BIM and yes, I agree, that better information management is a better acronym. However, what about the records that sit in the supply chain, the transactional data? And again, I’m seeing very little if any evidence of any records of any reliability on transactional data.
ADAM SANDERS When I’ve written here most AM and FM records are already digital, that’s what I’m talking about, those transactional ones. And they’re the most important ones to run.
PHIL THOMPSON OK, so give us an example on a record that would be digital. Let’s start from the beginning, the manufacturer information.
ADAM SANDERS I’m thinking about the operational side of the building. So whether or not you’ve got some BIM information, if you go and do some work on an asset within a building there will be some kind of digital finger print somewhere. So, if I go and install a new door, or fix a door or have the air-conditioning serviced or boiler changed, that will be digital.
PHIL THOMPSON OK, so the activity is digital, but not necessarily the information relating to the item, material or product that’s been procured, selected, collected, transported, installed.
ADAM SANDERS Yes.
SIMON NEWTON If we look in the construction side of things obviously we get into the O&M handover, on Higgins Partnership, coming from that side of things. Ideally, on our post-construction 2-year warranty period before it goes to handover. You are going to have a digital record of all delivery of information to site. Maybe not on every project…
PHIL THOMPSON I have to take umbrage with that because I’ve seen these records and that’s my experience of nearly a decade. You can still get information from the merchants within the supply chain, they’re sending notes which are of no correlation to the item that’s been delivered because they’re just picking the item based on an experience.
SIMON NEWTON If you look at what we’re recording or evidence in our 2-year warranty period. Obviously we now have to record all of the installation or replacement of all of the damaged items. But we also have to evidence the tickets and the warranted installation, warranted product is being delivered to site and also that that particular item is in its box, it’s got scanned QR code or the bar code of the actual product. And then it’s being replaced and evidenced in the installation. Obviously that’s going forward, previously you’re going to turn up with a plumber and he’s going to fit a new boiler, you’re not going to get that evidenced.
ADAM SANDERS But if that plumber goes out, if you use a large contractor the thing that I’m thinking is that contractor will have some kind of work management system to say this job has been completed. The question is will we be able to get that information back? And is there enough information within that system to say we fitted this new boiler, it’s this many kilowatts?
RICHARD Adam, do you think that we’re putting the cart before the horse? We’re coming up with examples which is what I think you’re going to come onto actually.
RICHARD BACON A lot of what you’ve discussed so far seems to be assuming that there is a building model that exists somewhere where all of the information can feed back into. Most buildings actually haven’t got that, so looking at the ideal and where we can go if we’re starting a project today is one thing. 90% of the industry that we’re going to be feeding information towards have got existing buildings that haven’t got proper building models in place. It might be that lots of designers and architects over the years have done stuff, nothing has ever been supplied to clients in a digital format, they always get hard copies of drawings, or at best a set of PDFs.
So in this particular context, we’re looking at BIM as looking as being better information management rather than talking about BIM models of buildings and trying to get everything in to relate to those. So it might be that we have to look at it a bit more nuts and bolts in the approach, rather than we’ve all got this fantastic building model that we need everything to feed into because most places have not got that.
ADAM SANDERS I think we know this slide, but what we’re trying to say is (and I completely agree with what’s just been said) we need to encourage people to understand that you don’t need to have this big, fancy BIM model, 3D model. You could have a simple set of floor plans, you might not have any floor plans, it might just be asset information to start with, and you can build this stuff up over time. But if you start to have this better information model these are three broad sets of benefits that they can fit into. And we’ve got to give, and I know this is the business case side of things, there needs to be an ROI on whatever we’re doing, and either it’s your saving money or you’re going to be more efficient.
Or there is some kind of compliance requirement which is probably around fire or building safety, or you’re going to meet your decarbonisation goals or measure your energy use, or whatever. But broadly, when we think of benefits or requirements, they’re probably going to fit into one of these three streams. And those things need, when we apply or we think about these problems, either the problems or the solutions that we’ll come up with, broadly it needs to work in every single sector. I am always very biased towards residential and housing stuff, so hopefully there’s plenty of other people doing PFI and other commercial activities that can put us back on track. This portability bit I think is probably not brilliantly described, but in fire safety we’ve got this idea of a single source of truth and this golden thread.
Lots of people need to be able to contribute to this information that we’re collecting, this digital record, but the digital record has also got to be portable. If you are a university you will have a whole load of CAFM systems and a whole load of other systems that are talking to each other about your building. But if we’re in residential, we’re in commercial, the people that own and manage those buildings will change over time. So whatever we do with these digital records they need to be able to jump between lots of different systems. And I know that’s being dealt with by one of the other workstreams, but actually what we don’t want to do is overcomplicate this stuff, it’s got to be quite a flexible data management system.
And also there’s this transparency is becoming a bigger thing, there’s lots of the information that needs to be shared, it’s not just the people responsible for running those buildings that need to get to this information, there are different stakeholders. What would be good, the way to run this workstream, is to try and come up with scenarios to talk through either problems ore requirements that we’re looking for this stuff to achieve. Fine, I’m coming from an IT perspective, but this is generally how we spec out software or solutions, which is to go what’s the problem that we’re trying to solve. And there might be 20 problems, what do these things need to do? And if we come up with these scenarios it’s a relatively easy way to list them and then hopefully we can try and split some of these specifications out to different people who can elaborate on a few of them.
This was just a couple of examples that I came up with, whether or not they’re relevant we can talk about. But it’s just the simple day-to-day operation of a building and the assets within it. What’s happening? What information is getting transferred? It’s all very well grabbing this perfect BIM model on handover of a building which just gets lost. if we want these digital records to be valuable, it’s the operational stage which needs to be able to benefit from the information. Does that make sense? Does everybody agree that we should go down the scenario route?
ADINA PONCIS I think really excellent questions from people attending. If we go back to the why for a bit, i really like the idea of previous workstreams looking at the purpose, what are we trying to achieve, and then kind of like jumping on the other subjects. If we look at the overall picture what we’re trying to achieve with digital records are important and I think on the interoperability session the other day, they’ve done half of our job for the whys. They’ve identified a lot of the whys, a lot of the purposes. So, I think if you look at the broader picture, the why would be, what we’re trying to achieve would probably be to have a safer building and people. And then if you look onto the granularity of this, it would look into what are digital records, or any kind of records, important for?
For an asset manager or building owner it would probably be to mitigate risk, to comply with the legislation and to operate and maintain the building to ensure that the building works efficiently. And all of these things, it would break it down to smaller chunks and we look at what sort of information, and if we do some reverse engineering as you suggested. if we look at some of the practical examples like Ben mentioned earlier, and look at all of these issues and breaking them down, doing it in reverse. Looking at what the solutions could be, what can we achieve from looking at the practical problems and issues the asset managers and facilities managers are facing on the ground. So, if we work backwards we can see why is it important to have some sort of digital records.
IAN FIELDING There’s such a huge challenge, I audit often against ISO standards where we’re looking for that traceability cradle to grave where we’ve had handover from principal contractor to asset owner, to then how do we demonstrate competency etc from the individual service maintenance engineers. The conclusion that I’ve come to, and we’ve been working for the last 3 years now on the IT systems and the integration of IT systems, is I don’t think there is going to be any one system that’s going to achieve it, mainly due to the fact that so many different organisations are working off different platforms.
But the only logical conclusion that I could draw on this is a BIM system needs to be heavily built and designed with APIs to be able to connect the data from all of these other different, whether they’re large multinationals, whether they’re smaller SMEs or individual contractors that can maybe update asset information through scanning of a QR code. If we don’t have tools that have APIs and integration designed at the heart of what they aim to achieve, I think it’s going to be incredibly difficult to pull this together in a meaningful time frame.
ADAM SANDERS You’re absolutely right and this is what the third workstream is for which is basically that portability of that data. And it’s not just saying I’ve got three different systems and these three different systems have APIs, it’s every single external FM contractor that you’re using that needs to go, OK, I’m servicing your air conditioning, so therefore I need to access everything to do with your ventilation systems. I’m working on your plumbing, I’m working on your electrical system, I’m your grounds contractors. So, it’s loads of information and it’s lots of different systems, lots of different data. And that’s up to the interoperability.
So, we’ve got the first workstream saying, right, what’s the business case and they’re saying, well, it’s going to save you money, it’s going to make everybody’s lives easier. We’re saying, well, what does it need to do? What are the problems that we need to solve? And the interoperability group are going to come up with the magic solution which says some kind of schema-less? 26mins 46secs design means that all of this stuff can talk to each other at the same time.
DARYN FITZ I just want to explain a few things. I work very closely with the Institute of Asset Management and I’m completing a PhD in data quality in asset management, so I’ve been studying this for quite a while. The global forum for maintenance asset management published their new global landscape documents on the 5th of July. It breaks down the function of asset management into 40 parts now, included in there is asset and information as a separate section. The Institute of Asset Management are going to publish the anatomy documents which is a high level document about asset management, that also has content in there around information and asset data. That’s going to be published on the 4th or 5ht of July. These are two very high level documents, so don’t get too excited.
I’m on a mission this year to tell everyone this is the year of asset management because there is just so much going on in this space, which we’ve always wanted, obviously. The other thing also is ISO 55000, a major update, it’s going to be in at least 6 different parts. One of the parts will be finance, which is 55000 and 10. More interesting for this group, ISO 55000 and 13 is all about asset data. I’ve already seen the document, it’s a really good standard. Unfortunately with all ISOs you have to pay for it. Let’s put it this way, I think you’ll find more value that just a normal buying an ISO and finding out you only find one paragraph that’s of interest and the rest of it is not very relevant to you, I think you’ll find everything relevant in that particular standard. It’s expected to be coming out in July, I’m expecting it to be published in August because they’re going to publish the other documents associated with that.
What you’re also going to have is the Institute of Asset Management have their SSG documents which is their how do you deliver this, which will be updated. They’re very out of date, so there will be some work going on to update all of those documents as well. Finally, my concern, and I think for a number of you here, is when we talk about asset management it’s all very well when it’s focused on utility companies, big transport organisations, but there’s a lot of other people that do asset management out there. And when we look at case studies they are always on the bigger projects, we need more case studies from those that are actually running asset management, whether it be a school, a university, NHS.
We need those sort of case studies out there about improving. I know we’re talking about housing as part of the group, but we need those smaller case studies, those smaller portfolios to start coming forward. Because there’s too much conversation about the bigger portfolios, those national portfolios, they’re too much in the conversation in my view.
ADAM SANDERS On the Teams chat, when those documents are available, if you could post that in the chat that would be brilliant.
DARYN FITZ No problem at all. By the way, there’s a few technology people here as well, how I use the Global Forum for Maintenance Asset Management, that group is members from asset management professional institutes around the world, all part of the GFMAM. Their landscape document is the main document that everyone uses to actually write their own guidance in their own regions. So it’s the Bible, almost, the ten commandments, it’s like that sort of reverence for asset managers. But how I use it is you look at the 40 areas of asset management, and you turn around and if you’re providing technologies you say do you know, we don’t support technologies in finance blah, blah, blah, bit we’re very good at providing technologies in these spaces.
And obviously capital investment projects will be a big one for those supporting BIM projects and BIM software etc. So, break it down, you can understand where your technologies might support the process and also turn around and say you don’t do everything in asset management, which obviously is the case.
JONATHAN FURLONG I’m trying to figure out what exactly are we aiming to do at the end of this. Are we trying to produce a document, a standard, an example? I know we don’t know what the outcomes going to be now, but I’m trying to get my head around what it is…
ADAM SANDERS We want to produce a functional specification that says if we want to have the adoption of BIM (better information management) within the asset management and facilities management sectors, this is what digital records needs to do. So it’s a whole load of outputs…
JONATHAN FURLONG That sounds incredibly broad. So, we need to have digital records for what? Is it the handover, the management of assets? The billing or retail units? The scope seems very big and I’m just trying to figure out…trying to have a specification for all vast management sounds challenging.
ADAM SANDERS But most of that should be relatively generic. So yeah, your’e right, we’re not going to produce a 500-page specification, but it should be it needs to be able to achieve these things for asset and facilities managers. The fact that an asset type might be different shouldn’t increase the complexity of the specification. Because we’re not going to define a whole load of fields that needs to go on each asset type, we’re just talking about use cases.
GEORGE I agree with you, Adam. I see what Jonny is saying and we do have to make sure that we can do something that is achievable. But one of the interesting things here, I think it has been really useful having this conversation because what’s flushed out is a whole range of different ways that people are looking at digital records. You’re looking at it, understandably because you’re looking at things from the point of view of recording an activity against a thing, which is a fire door, perhaps. Whereas as Ben is saying, he’s got a hospital that was built 20 years ago and therefore his view of digital records is the records of what the building was done. And then if we look at what Phil was saying, the record of the product that was shipped and installed and it’s governance there.
So, all of those are digital records for different purposes, so that’s why I think coming back to your scenario point is where we need to look at things from. Because you’re actually looking at things and you’ll be able to flush out what are the touch points.
ADAM SANDERS I agree with all of that. If I talk about a typical issue that I see day to day in housing, and I’m sure that everybody else can apply it to their fields and similar issues. We’re in a situation where there is new building and fire safety legislation. There’s lots of existing buildings, some of which will have fairly detailed plans, most of which will have almost nothing. But what we broadly have is at least a set of basic floor plans, probably not to scale, but it will be a floor plan that says there are 6 flats here, I’ve got a lobby, I’ve got a corridor, here’s a lift, whatever it is, and from that we’re then starting to put assets on there and we’ll say this is a fire door, and we might have some installation information, we might have some product specification information, we might have some test evidence for that door.
And we can go, oh, well I’ve got 50 doors and they’re all the same and I can put them in a system and I can say here’s the door. They were installed by this company with this third-party certification. They were then inspected 3 years later by this company and they’ve got this certification, this work came out of these doors. And then I’ve got regular quarterly inspection for those doors, and then a fire risk assessment happens and the fire risk assessor looks at those doors and says that’s got a hole kicked in the middle of it. So, there’s a whole load of really technical information. Yes, there’s some design information, but most of the stuff that we need to make this useful is the operational element, the day to day management of that building.
And there’s so many people looking at those products and re-collecting that data all of the time. What we want to be able to do is to go I’ve got a door survey happening, I’m going to push out all of that door information to that door surveying company and then they’re going to come back with all of their updates, and then I’ve got this nice audit trail of everybody that’s touched that. And the same thing should be able to happen for any kind of asset, whether it’s compliance related or just day to day management. Is everybody else on a similar page to that?
IAN FIELDING I think you’re spot on, Adam. Everything that you’re saying in the sense of the challenges from a point of view of the different disciplines that interact, whether it’ fire door inspections, boilers, service maintenance, it doesn’t really matter. That’s the real challenge that we’re all facing because most of them are going to be independent subcontractors that are just going to walk in, and we need cradle to grave analysis. Because when I’m doing ISO audit, whether it’s 55000 audit or a 45000 audit all I want to see from an audit perspective is when was the asset installed, what’s the competency, who’s the supplier, where’s the documentation, what are the manufacturer’s service maintenance records requirements and how can you evidence that that’s been achieved. And that crosses so many different areas.
ADAM SANDERS You’ve just laid out three things: competency of everybody that’s touching it, so that’s one requirement; who’s the supplier; and then the manufacturer’s service and maintenance. To me, this is about coming up with all of those things and then probably spitting out a few edge cases on each of them. So that we turn round and go OK, look, this is the shit that we need to be able to achieve. And then we let the interoperability group figure out how that might happen. Let’s not be under any illusion, this is not going to be a standard that everybody is going to adopt, this is about trying to promote it within the sector and get other people talking about it.
BEN EVANS A couple of questions, is there any principal FM contractors in this group? And are they exposed to PFI contracting? (no response). That’s disappointing.
ADAM SANDERS Can we go and get some people?
BEN EVANS I think yeah, there’s some representatives from Sodexo, Equans and Mighty on previous discussions.
GEORGE Yes, we definitely need to get more of the contractors onboard.
ADAM SANDERS I just mentioned those three things: competency, supplier information, manufacturer’s service and maintenance records. Is there an existing standard that lays out those kind of areas?
IAN FIELDING I would say there is a fairly generic standard that most organisations would be able to adopt and follow. Certainly, something as basic as ISO 9000 under legal requirements and infrastructure of property, the clauses of 9000, which most organisations have, will be familiar. That will certainly help from a point of view of tracking and tracing their legal obligations and competence and awareness and also the 45 and the 55000 standard.
ADAM SANDERS I’m thinking about the areas of information that we need to look at. so, we’ve talked about competency, supplier information, manufacturer’s service and maintenance records, there must be another 20 areas that we need to capture. is there an existing asset or facilities management standard that’s going to list those categories for is? Rather than us trying to come up with them.
GEORGE There may be. One of the ones that we’re looking at the moment is the updated 8536 which is soft landings I’m thinking of that because it would encapsulate a lot of the things across the board. Soft landings was developed by BSRIA (Building Services Research and Information Association) and it’s intended to improve the handover between design and construction and operations, but it’s not just that. The principle behind it is that the asset management team is brought into the design and delivery stage of any building so that they’re familiar with what is going to be given to them. And also they’ve got the opportunity to influence what products are being selected and things like that. Now, that’s part of asset management, looking at things in a big way, but also it’s got the potential to do that on an ongoing basis because it does include post-occupancy valuation and all of that sort of stuff.
It was then adopted by the government, BIM Task Group, 12 years ago to be the mechanism…BIM Level 2 was the mandate that all government buildings were supposed to be delivered to and at the heart of that was government soft landings which is an extension of soft landings. But, coming back to your question, Adam, the one that we should perhaps look at is 8536. I could get somebody from Sodexo, who was a director at BSRIA, to give us an overview of soft landings. In fact actually she did mention it in the first meeting that we had on the 20th.
ADAM SANDERS So, there is, on that soft landings document, some activities from 8536, on page 19 which might help us, but maybe it doesn’t. I’m kind of keen that we get an output from today, even if it’s something that Adina and I go and work on and try and flesh out. I’ve seen the comment about maybe a Miro board. If we think about how we’re trying to use or manage assets and information, I wanted to go through scenarios, but they don’t seem to be forthcoming. I don’t know whether that’s because I haven’t asked for them in the right way.
But if we think about, for instance, that competency argument. What are we trying to manage with assets within a building? I’m guessing we’ve got some kind of lifecycle management in terms of how long is this asset going to last, what’s it going to cost, how do you replace it, what does the asset need to do, what’s the functional requirement of it. How are we maintaining it, is it servicing, is it basic checks and inspections, the regular PPM that happens. That’s the stuff that these digital records need to manage. I guess a lot of it is covered in asset facilities management and a lot of that information is also held in BIM. But the thing that this group is trying to do is get all of those systems to talk to each other, so there is crossover.
GEORGE The interoperability group will talk about that. Let’s not give up on the scenarios thing, I’d be amazed if they’re aren’t people in this room who’ve got examples of how they would like digital records to…what does a digital record mean, from your perspective?
DAVID CAREY The scenario I would suggest is more of an international perspective, which is where I sit. I’m in New Zealand at the moment, but I’m normally based in Riyadh in Saudi. I was involved 3 1/2-4 years ago with the Istanbul Grand Airport opening and 8 months before it was due to open on what was destined to be one of the largest airports on the world, they were on time, under budget and with zero defects. If anybody has ever flown through Istanbul airport you can get all of your steps in one day by going through one security point to the actual departure gate, it is that big, and that’s the phase one. So, I’ve got information from that, the reason I was collecting it is because I’m now in the final year of my PhD research into this very topic that everyone is talking about which is the reason why I’m particularly interested.
And what I’ve been trying to draw together is for the lifecycle costings, the 85% of the operational life of a building and the costs that go with it are that operational phase. And that there is so much emphasis on building information modelling which I hear, or feel, and part way support is a term that was brought in to describe a process that has achieved its aim, and we’ve moved on because of technology. And that to try and find a case study, you could pick them up, and I totally support what George is suggesting, you can find them, but people tend to work in silo mentalities and keep them to themselves. Even on some of the newest and biggest projects on the planet there are organisations that have got it, they get this interaction between them. In terms of standards which I feel would contribute to the group’s understanding, it’s not just 8536 as George has suggested. Can I just ask for a show of hands for about 41016? Is there anybody who’s come across that or who has read it?
41001 was published 5 years ago and it’s now on its first iteration review which is the series, all starting with the numbers 410, for facilities management system. 41016 I worked on the last 5 years as a contributor and on the editing committee, it was published 2 months ago and specifically it’s aimed at the ontology and all of these different terms and how they react and interact with each other. So I recommend to everybody to get an understanding of where these different systems are, and it’s one of the most satisfying and frustrating activities I’ve ever taken part with because the moment we were ready to publish, it was out of date because AI and Chat-GPT started having bigger influences.
So, you’ve got these issues where 41016, that working group, and it’s something that I only got into about 10 years ago, but part of ISO, or the European part of SEN, a national expert via BSI, but BSI don’t just make standards, it’s also a point of getting information to be shared between different organisations. And what I would commend is the fact that I’m quite happy to give you a synopsis presentation on 41016 on the next iteration that we have of this event, but it explains the definitions, it explains the abbreviations aimed at C-suite level to convince people that it’s worth the investment of the money and the time and the resources to make the best use of all of these different technologies that are available according to what you need.
ADAM SANDERS David, what might be really helpful is if this is going to outline the operational requirements and what the software needs to do and can do, if you went through that with me and Adina we could try and pull out some core things. And then we could take it to the next meeting and say here’s10 sections that we want to go and brainstorm and then we can try and get people to talk about these problems. At the moment, I feel like we’re struggling to get those few sections going.
GEORGE And also we could feed this into the interoperability group as well, David.
DAVID CAREY Absolutely, and the thing is that what I’ve found because of the research that each tiny little rabbit hole becomes underground caving in terms of mammoth opportunities and all of these different people who are working on parallel universes. So there is what has now become Nima, from Digital Built Britain, and all of those that are working on Building Smart and the Building Smart international, across the globe…you and we are not alone. There are thousands of other people all trying to achieve the same, some of which are further ahead and have gone through this process.
So, rather than recreating the wheel or spending the time to do it, if I can introduce this and say have a look at some of these individuals, reach out to them and say can you give us a potted summary of what you do. Because collectively we will achieve what everyone is edging towards which is understanding what type of technology can be used for your organisation. You don’t have to do it all, but for goodness sake…
ADAM SANDERS I don't think it's about trying to tell people what technology to use. It's about trying to say what does the technology need to achieve? And it’s not even the technologies. What does the data need to hold? The information need to hold so that all of these different systems can talk to each other because we don't want…there’s 100 bits of software that are being used. And the only way this becomes useful is if every subcontractor, whether they're a 3-man band or they're a multinational provider, all need to be able to talk similar languages, or at least exchange some information.
DAVID CAREY In terms of an RFP, going out to subcontractors part of the stipulation for PQQ level is have you considered or are you already qualified or aware of the following international standards. So, it’s encouraging people to up their game and therefore make use of the technology. We haven’t heard terms today of things like GIS and GPS to micro-position those boilers in those hospitals and buildings. So, 41016, and the next one which is just forming up this month, the next committee, is for working group 6 for the next task which is to produce a road map which links all of these different processes together so that you have an understanding.
ADAM SANDERS The bit that we want at this meeting is that GIS and GPS information because we need to be able to position something, sometimes to a high degree of detail. Other times you won’t, you’ll just be roughly it’s here on a floor plan. So, that the kind of requirements that we want to build.
IAN FIELDING I think having listened to what everybody said, so the ISO standards mixture across different standards are a way forward. But I think absolutely trying to organise a standard approach to the type of documents and what those digital documents requirements need to achieve is the key thing forward, definitely.
DARYN FITZ I don’t know if I’m taking us on a slight tangent, but just listening to the conversation something springs to mind. You’ve got your electronic asset management systems, CAFM systems if you want to use the old term, or CMMS systems. In my experience of looking at the data sets in those systems, they’re pretty poor in most cases. If it’s outsourced to third-parties you can see they started to intend to start putting information in terms of things like Maximo and Plan One and things like that and then gave up. You’ll see about 50 bar codes and then they just don’t bother with anything else. So, we’ve got real issues at the moment with the inherent electronic asset management systems we’re actually using already.
ADAM SANDERS Isn’t the reason that that barcode, they stop putting the barcodes in because the contractors can’t get to that information because they’re using a different system. Or, their system doesn’t support the QR codes or the barcodes…
DARYN FITZ No, they’re trying to do things at the lowest price on the projects, for the lowest cost.And when it comes down to data and information, that’s the first thing that’s going to get dumped. It’s not in the contracts, and with a number of clients you talk to and say who actually owns that data at the end when I go out to a new supplier after 4 years plus 1 break clause, it’s not in the contract about the data management and who owns it and how you’re going to migrate that information across.
ADAM SANDERS But the information has to move from live, from that subcontractor back into this asset system, whatever that asset system is. So, as soon as they’ve touched it, as soon as they’ve added that barcode, that has to be there because there might be another contractor that needs to go and work on that asset.
DARYN FITZ Yeah, so your next contractor comes in and turns around and says you’re going to send me all of this data, I don’t trust it, I’m going to have to go out and resurvey everything, but I can see it’s not complete. There we go and off they go for extra money. This is a big issue in the industry anyway. For me, when you look at things like electronic asset management systems, where they just give a unique identifier that’s just a sequential number, we’ve got no understanding what system it’s associated with, there’s no classification systems in these systems. You’ve got inherent problems with the ways that these are actually being managed. And it’s not the software itself, because it’s got the capabilities to be configured anyway you want.
But the problem you’ve got, the base systems are actually using at the moment, the data management within those and the data collected is insufficient and generally poor. I’ve seen one example of very good data, and what did they have to do? They had to employ people who were called data integrators to go out on every single project and daily collect data and put it into the systems as an extra resource. So to me, a great conversation about all of the other stuff about BIM modelling and GIS and all of the rest of it. I just want to highlight that the fundamental systems that a lot of these organisations are using are not being used n the best way.
ADAM SANDERS I’m hearing what you’re saying and I’m really frustrated to hear a lot of that. We’re doing lots of projects at the moment with lots of different software providers. So, one thing that I’m thinking of at the moment is we are storing about 10,000 buildings across several block management companies and they have got an asset management system which is not an asset management system, it’s a property management system. They’ve got another system which is for reactive repairs. They’ve got a company which manages, it’s not an FM company, but it’s a company that then subcontracts a whole load of work, they’re connected to it. And then our product is connected to that also because it’s providing most of that asset information in the first place. And then if a consultant goes out and checks a door, or some fire or safety related asset, it’s also providing that.
These systems are exchanging tiny amounts of information, but if there is one single source of truth which says I have all of your assets, everybody could touch it. These APIs are really simple, this idea of huge integration teams, it’s half a day’s work to get these things to talk to each other. The difference is that they’re relatively small software companies that are managing assets and buildings on a fairly simple level. Whereas you start looking at the likes of Maximo, it’s a big cumbersome product…but then you want to try and do something nimble it’s just not agile enough, or easy enough to talk to. We’re literally throwing QR codes out onto loads of assets, it’s a piece of piss, t’s the tiniest bit of data and you can do anything you want with it.
You can make it into a website, you can link it to an asset ID, you can have as many new IDs on an asset as you want. And multiple contractors can use the same thing because it’s an open, easy to use standard and somehow we’ve got to get people to understand that.
DARYN FITZ I agree, what I’m saying is there is fantastic technologies out there, I’m just saying inherently these systems are not being managed in the best way. Those that are actually investing in any systems like Maximo or Archibus and stuff like that, they’re not actually currently maximising their existing investments in those solutions. And I’ve seen so many data sets, because part of my research is to look at these data sets, and they are absolutely shocking. You don’t have to run any data quality analysis across them, you can just look at them and see where all of the gaps are and things like that in these data sets.
ADAM SANDERS And if you’ve got 2% crap data, you can’t trust the 100% of it. I totally agree with that, but what we want is more people to touch that data so that they can improve on it.
DARYN FITZ The reason I was highlighting this, it’s a bugbear of mine, just come on, maximise the solutions that you’ve already got. It’s the fact that any conversations have to start off with let’s look at maximising your investment at the moment, you’re already paying fo these solutions, Maximise that usage and then we can start looking at the clever stuff. There’s no point even talking about AI and all of this sort of thing if the data sets can’t be trusted, aren’t believable, missing, omissions everywhere. There’s one that I was working with where they turned around, just a reference for a door was written in 26 different ways, form DOR to DAR etc.
PHIL THOMPSON It’s both frustrating and rewarding in equal measure listening to this conversation. And that’s part of the problem, there’s lots and lots of conversations and lots of environments and very little action. I agree in principle with what everybody is saying, especially the quality of the data, it’s like the wild west out there, it’s shocking. And you mentioned barcodes. I chair the GS1 Construction Working Group in the UK, GS1 are the organisation, they’re not-for-profit, they provide the standards and manages the barcodes that are allocated to all of the products that you see in retail, pharmaceutical, and to a lesser extent, construction.
They’re on a journey to try and improve the adoption of the GT which is the barcode, but at the moment the problem is if you kind of like take this down to a base level, just having a unique ID against a product is a start of this process of the journey of information to start the golden thread. But so few people are willing to go and adopt these and make use of them, even though there is probably about 40,000 products in construction that currently have a barcode on the packaging. You can go into a merchant and you can see the evidence of this, but nobody uses it. Go into a wholesalers and see who is actually scanning the items, go and ask a contractor…GS1 is Global Systems 1. An organisation that exists across the world, they are in about 113 countries. Look at retail, they came together 40 years ago and the adopted the barcode.
We’re more complex than that and there’s a lot of products which need more thought than just basic items that you scan, butt the principles behind the adoption of a unique identifier, the construction industry first needs to get onboard with the basics.
ADAM SANDERS But we may need to make it easier for them to do it. So, could I walk up to a, circulate a pump with a barcode on it, scan it, go to the GS1 database, get the manufacturer, the specification and all of that kind of information from that barcode?
PHIL THOMPSON Not from GS1, no, because they only provide the standards. They basically make sure that the codes are unique and they’re done to a certain structure. You join them as a member organisation and then they allocate you a number of codes and they explain to you how you allocate them against your products. And it’s an imperfect system because some people break the standards as well, as you can imagine where there is ability for humans to do the wrong thing. However, it’s all about again the industry collaborating to make sure that the codes that they’re using then facilitate the different platforms that they’re using, the data that’s available whether you’re an end user or a contractor.
ADAM SANDERS How do I know that a code belongs to a certain manufacturer? How do I go and get to that information?
PHIL THOMPSON There is a look-upon GS1’s website which I can send the links to. The first 6 digits of the code define the manufacturer, so it’s a 13 or 14 digit number depending on how old the code. But when they give that Gtin which is the global trade ID number they give it then to a manufacturer and say this is your prefix code and then the remainder of the code, the manufacturer buys those in bulk, it’s a member organisation, and they allocate them against their products. I’m not gonna say this is a panacea to the industry’s problems, however, it’s a starting point.
ADAM SANDERS Let me go and do some research. I’ll probably come back to you with some questions because I think that’s one of the scenarios that we need to get in there because it makes things useable.
GEORGE Adam, I know them very well, so I can brief you on that as well.
SUE NEWTON I work for a housing association and the information that you’re giving out today is really interesting. However, it’s not really very relevant towards using it in the industry. We’ve got 7,000 properties, we use something called Propeller for managing fire doors, we’re not even using that to its full capacity. We need something and some way of getting all of this information that you’re sharing into an easy to use system. All of the housing associations are in the same position, there is so much software out there that dos different things and we’re not even using that to its fullest capability.
ADAM SANDERS I agree with you. This is what we do everyday and we get frustrated with systems like Propeller because they won’t talk to anything else. But we also get frustrated with housing associations because when we say you need to get all of your systems to talk to each other they just go blank eyed and go, yeah, but that will never happen. It’s frustrating because so many of them don’t value the data. It’s really not that difficult to get these things to talk to each other.
SUE NEWTON I mean we do value the data, in our housing association we’re just kicking off a meeting at the moment, a workshop to look at all the asset management systems and to look at how we can get them to work together so we can get the information that we need out of it and into it. We use QL as our housing management system and we use DRS for repairs and scheduling and all of these different things do need to talk to each other. Propeller does have scheduling in it, but we’re not using it for that, we’re just using it for fire door management. And that’s what we’re attending to do, trying to get together to look at all of these things.
I don’t work in asset management, I’m coming to this to try and see how I can inform the meetings that I’m going to, I work in health & safety. But it’s really important that we have this information, and I just think we’re very much higher level here. You talk about BIM modelling, so when I looked at the twins and things like that and tried to share that with my local fire & rescue service. Oh, we don’t want that, we just want a plan that shows, a simple line drawing that shows where things are in that building.
GEORGE Sue, we can pick up and show you what some of the other members are using as well. That’s great, that’s the purpose of this to a great extent to actually flush this out.
ADAM SANDERS I agree. Sue, I’d love to have a long chat with you about that because there are so many things that you can do. And it would be quite interesting to hear why you’re not doing them.
LAETITIA MARIE I wanted to say exactly the same as what Sue said. I’m working in a big company, we have the software but when we handover the information the client cannot use it. Which we can work on register, we can also work on Malta which is taking all of this information. For me, the most important is to have an MIDP, ??? 1hr 10mins 45secs which is all global for all of the projects and making sure that everything is updated by the MIDP. Which you should not be able to create an asset if you’re not implementing into this issue sheet which should be crosschecked by information management, but also by the BIM manager. Also, I’m a little bit worried about this barcode. The barcode on the stamp is put directly on the document by the document owner.
Sometime this information is not going through the process on this chain available. We need to make sure that this information is approved and validated to be visible because the information can be revised and you can be using the wrong information. If you have a new revision uploaded on the system, depending on the visibility it may not be approved or it may not be visible by the team. We are speaking about data sheet, we’re speaking about information drawing 2D document, this will be…stamped and this stamp is showing you the last revision of the file, correct?
But this information should be approved, you see what I mean? When you have a new PTS which has been submitted, let’s say, for example, changing the project which will be installed. You will have two different QR cdde. But you are the first PTS which was submitted and you have the second PTS, the new data sheet to make sure that in term of visibility only the second one will be visible to the team because the first one was not valid.
ADAM SANDERS Because you’ve updated an asset.
GEORGR Laetitia, I’ll pick that up with you separately, because we’re working together. We’re actually using the PTSs so I’ll share with you our experience on that.
LAETITIA MARIE I’m very sure, George, that we are working very well and I think this is the best way of working with the client. We have a big company and we have a good management, but it can go wrong if you don’t have the right people to crosscheck.
RICHARD Just back to the bit that someone was saying earlier about people not using the systems that they’ve got already to their fullest. I must admit, the list of names that we gave out of the largest contractors, Sodexo, Mighty, Equans etc earlier on, none of them are particularly using Maximo or whatever systems that they’ve got. The problem that you’ve got where, Adam I think you said earlier there’s some smaller companies who could very easily make all of these systems talk to each other and make the sharing and using of information right. You’re talking about the larger companies like Sodexo, Mighty etc, they’re so big that to get onto their approved contractor list you need to be a massive company yourself.
And the companies that are large enough are using their own systems, software etc that doesn’t communicate with anybody else because they’ve managed to get themselves large enough to be able to get onto these lists, they’re using software that doesn’t communicate with anyone else and they don’t think it needs to. So, one of the issues is everything much more open systems, how all of these different systems are cancelled to each other. Because that’s the trouble that we’ve got that I found out auditing…they’re not using the systems correctly in the first place and when yo suggest someone that can do it for them, they’re nowhere near large enough to be able to get onto their approved contractor list. So, it just doesn’t happen with the larger companies.
ADAM SANDERS Yeah, we get that a lot. But if we want to integrate with big software their APIs are clunky, a bit difficult to work with, everything just takes forever.
ANDREW SIMPSON I work for Waites Construction, I’m the information manager for digital handover.So essentially my role is to collect, review any operations and maintenance, health & safety file data to our customers. It was just an observation, somebody mentioned earlier about poor quality data and it’s sort of been banded around a bit in this session, and i completely agree. The issue that we’re trying to resolve at the moment is exactly that, we do have poor quality data, and I think one of the issues that we have in the construction industry as main contractors is just trying to change the culture around the information that we’re providing.
The reason is we often prioritise the actual building itself and the information that’s associated to the building comes as a pretty poor second place. So, we’re trying to influence how we can change that at the moment. We’re working alongside the likes of DLUHC? 1hr 16mins 33secs, we’ve got Jonny on the call, to just bring this up to the standard that it deserves. Another issue that we’re having is often we’re trying to engage early on enough in the projects with our customers. And the issue that we have time and again is the facilities management teams are the ones that are going to be interrogating this data. And the FM teams just aren’t engaged early enough, often they’re appointed a couple of months prior to project completion.
What we need is to have that early on in the project so that we can engage with our customers, engage with the people that are going to be interrogating this data, just to understand what their expectations are, what they want to achieve from the information that we’re providing them. That allows us then to build that into our contractor’s proposals, to make sure that we’re collecting that from our supply chain and from consultants. There is a just a massive knock on effect with regards to this. I’m putting a problem out there, I don’t really know what the answer to it is, other than just early engagement and trying to have FM teams appointed early on enough in our schemes.
ADAM SANDERS Could you give us a couple of examples of what you would want those FM teams to tell you?
ANDREW SIMPSON It’s essentially just what’s the key data that they’re going to be…to give you a perfect example we’ve got a project at the moment that we handed over in September last year. We’re still now trying to formulate our asset registers because we provided asset registers, our customer looked at the requirements with the FM team when their FM team were brought onboard, and realised that three was a lot of data that just wasn’t specified that the FM team needed in order to maintain their ongoing assets. I can’t give you individual circumstance because I don’t actually know what the circumstances are, but I do know that we’ve had to expand what we’re putting into our asset registers. We had an initial register that we put in front of our client and our client agreed it, but then when the FM team were brought onboard they were saying that the data we’re being given just isn’t sufficient to be able to carry on the ongoing maintenance of these assets. So we are retrospectively now, post-PC, having to go back, find all of that additional data and formulate that into our asset registers. Pulling data from our own O&M manuals, pulling data from the COBie, and it’s just been an absolutely mammoth task, and we’re still not there. And considering this handover was in September last year, it’s been a real challenge for us.
ADAM SANDERS It wasn’t a data quality issue, it was a resolution issue?
ANDREW SIMPSON It was partly data…this is another lesson learned in that it was data quality as well in that a lot of the data that was being asked for, when we went back and interrogated the O&Ms that were put together by a third-party, it just wasn’t there. And this is another issue that we have time and again.
ADAM SANDERS Could you convince somebody that was a bit closer to that project to join us? In terms of somebody that got that feedback from the FMs.
ANDREW SIMPSON I’ve been pretty close to it, I’m trying to think who else I could involve. I think it would be worthwhile including somebody from the FM branch of our business, it’s worthwhile getting somebody from that side involved in these conversations. Our customer care team should probably be on this call because they’re essentially the ones that deal with the issues that come back from the FM teams, so it would be worthwhile getting their input on this as well.
ADAM SANDERS And if they haven’t got time for that, even if it was just a list of things that we can brainstorm between us.
OLAYEMI USMAN In addition to what Andrew has said, I agree on that because I could understand, actually I’m working as a cost and carbon data analyst. So there is a lot of…data that has been generated and what I understand is that a lot of this data is not usually being used either by the facilities manager at the operational phase of most projects. And at the end of everything we come to understand that there is a lot of software out there and most of these softwares, they just want to gain the known how by the investors, without doing the right works. So they just come, generate datas and those datas are not being used by the FM team.
So I believe if we can have a structured pattern, for example, looking at the common one, the NRA and ICMS. There are structured patterns in which we can talk to other professionals within the team, every detail that is generated should follow a structured pattern. So, in the FM team engaged at the early stage of the project they can understand what is going to be needed at the operational phase and what they are going to be using. Because at the end of everything individual subcontractors generate data, it’s given to the FM and in the long run the FM doesn’t have anything to do with those details. So, I feel if we can have a structured pattern we can help us build a digital record that we are trying to.
ADAM SANDERS What you’re talking about is a data schema. I think that’s for the next working group to talk about. The problem with data schemas is they become out of date quite quickly, so you need something that’s a bit more flexible, But certainly a client could specify that data pattern or that data schema, whether that’s fields that they come up with themselves of IFC or COBie fields.
JONATHAN FURLONG Jumping in on what Andrew said, it’s really interesting and brings me back to my first question. That part is is something that is something that we could tackle as a group, that handover part, O&MS are only technically a part of the handover package…if I’m right in saying this group is meant to be about how we’re moving away to proper digital records, away from PDFs. Because the reality is every single stage…done on the phone or through email, so in a wider sense everything we do anywhere is always digital. But trying to talk about digital records for the whole of asset management is just so hard to do. If you focus on that handover piece, I appreciate that is only a small section of the market because 95% of stuff is already built, but it is an easy way. And I think then you could take those use case that you’re talking about, when you go out to repair a door what information do you need.
Because that’s where it all starts and the reality is once you nail the handover piece you can actually replicate that for going out and doing existing condition surveys etc on your buildings. Because at the moment the whole O&M industry is, quite frankly, shit, where we pay people on a £100 million project the average cost is roughly £40,000 to pay somebody to collect information to collect a pile of PDFs and perhaps in Excel or some kind of other asset register that is useless. And we pay somebody £40,000to collate that information and actually you’ve already paid all of your supply chain to do that. And in Andrew’s case the one where he was talking about, I don’t know whether they paid a third-party or not, but in that case you pay somebody £40,000, they collect the information, you give them the £40,000.
2 months later the client says the information, although I signed off at the time, isn’t good enough. Having to give them good customer service and Andrew and his team come back and spend another £10,000 or so more to get that information to handover. And the reality is that was all under contract, those contractors should have paid that information and should have gone in, in a BIM world, into a CDE, into a COBie file, into a BIM model or whatever it was. But the process that we’re doing currently doesn’t work, it’s really bad, and I know Andrew, I’ve been working with him…I haven’t been involved with the ISG guy, but he was probably doing something similar where I think with some of the smart contractors now, we’re trying to do this in a better more digital way.
And I think that would be a really good case to look at. Sorry if I’m offending any FM bodies here, it’s not their fault, they’re doing the service that they get paid to, it’s just the service that we’re asking people to do is pointless. Why are we doing it? It’s because we’re not managing it and getting the information in a properly digital way.
ADAM SANDERS We need to know, though, what those FM people because that’s what defines that handover information.
STUART SOUTHALL I’m coming from the fire side, I’m technical officer at the ASFP. There’s multiple levels that I can see in asset management and how it works. What I’m getting from it is understanding what data asset managers need, what is the data that you’re needing to manage a property? To manage those assets. We can then go back to our numbers and get that information, so it’s in a format that’s usable when it comes through the pipeline, through the golden thread throughput each stage so that the information is actually readable in a way that you can use it. Adam you mentioned before about fire doors and about having a test report. A test report at the very end is no use to anybody because you need to have the certification to say that fire door is installed correctly. But a test report doesn’t do that, it just tells you that the fire door had a test, and it might do this, but in a real world situation you need to have the evidence of support that that fire door is installed correctly and it will do the system. That’s a misconception in the industry is on, I need a test report for anything that’s fire. You don’t, you need to have the design, how it was installed…all of that other information. So, what I want to get from this group at a very basic level is what data is it that you guys need to manage assets.
RICHARD BACON What should be the core set of information for an O&M manual.
ADINA PONCIS It looks like there is so many complexities to what we’re trying to achieve. To me, it sounds like we need to do whatever it takes to convince the clients to look at the information in the same way that they look at the physical assets, to look at the information as an asset. And all of this could be resolved from an early strategy from the client, from an early soft landing. From an early engagement with the FM, the client and the FM, to have this conversation, what are the assets that we are looking after? What are we trying to achieve. But again, in the wider picture we can have a lot of other conversations. I think we need to be mindful in the next sessions, what are we trying to achieve in the next session. Because I think on this session was a lot about the issues, the whys, the purposes. What do we need to focus on the next session?
GEORGE I agree. These first sessions are the opportunity for us to get to know each other. And obviously they are a lot more than that, I think we’ve achieved quite a lot today, but you’re right. Adam is also focused on what the outcomes are going to be, so maybe we should be picking up on that. Adam and Adina, could you coordinate and we’ll pick up on Monday.
ADINA PONCID What we do in terms of the timeframe, because it’s the summer so in July not many people will be available. When should the next session be?
ADAM SANDERS I feel we should have another session in July. I completely agree with Jonny and Adina that we need to get some outcomes. But I’ve got some notes and a couple of people I will tap up and get some ideas out of and I’ll come up with and circulate beforehand a list of areas that we need to talk about so that we can get to these scenarios. This data exchange thing, I will try and articulate what that should look like because I don’t think it is about collecting specific data, it’s just about moving data. So, I’ll come up with a list of fields.
RICHARD FREER Maybe a tight agenda next time. I’ll get Jiss to send out invites for 2 weeks today.
PHIL THOMPSON Will we have the Miro board set up then?
ADAM SANDERS Yeah, and then we’ll get a Miro board set up with some sections, I’ll probably try and catch up with a couple of you early the week after. And if we send stuff out and you’re like this is rubbish, please come back and say there needs to be another section or I don’t agree with this. Because if we can get that cracked up for the meeting then hopefully net time it’s a bit more productive.
PETE PATON I’m from L&Q client side, I’m interested in monopolising the BIM stuff, primarily to meet our obligations under the Building Safety Act. I think everyone who's on the call from a housing association will be in the same place. So currently we're focusing on structural and fire stuff because of the Building Safety Act stuff. And hats off to you, Adam and Adina, for trying to take the conversation forward. To me it's clear that BIM and digital records mean different things to different people and lots of us are looking at it through different telescopes, often looking down the wrong end.
I was going to make a suggestion. Is it worth putting a poll out to everyone that's participated and asking them what does it need to do? What do they think it needs to do? In order that we can get closer to meeting the scope of what we're trying to do. Adina said on the why, it’s because we want to have safer buildings, I think it's also about we want to be able to evidence our claim and argument that we have safer buildings. We know which of our buildings are safe. We know which buildings have got challenges, but we're not necessarily good at stacking up the digital records, whether they're two-dimensional or three-dimensional, to help support that. And I agree it's worth it's weight to get an FM organisation on board so you can see it from their perspective as well.
On Adam’s shouldn’t this be Andrew? 1hr 34mins 45secs point from Waites, on the digital handover and the client asking for more, that's because many clients don't know what they want when it comes to maintenance and testing information. And it would be lovely to have an FM contractor involved
JONATHAN FURLONG Pete, you’re an FM, you’re the largest housing FM company in the country.
PETE PATON Bless you, and I’m happy to be part of that conversation. But I'm saying it'd be lovely to have an FM company involved from the start and during the design stage. But as you know, Jonny, some buildings are bought off the shelf, so there is no chance.
JONATHAN FURLONG But the housing association isn’t technically the FM company, they just might sub out loads of data FM to everybody else.
CHAT
[11:10 am] Adrian Mokus (External)
its AIM ...Asset Information Model as PEr ISO 19650
[11:11 am] Ian Fielding (External)
I regularly audit against ISO9001, ISO14001 and ISO45001 Cafan systems fall down as ultimately we need traceability. API's and AI Is in my onion is the only we we can solve this issue.
[11:12 am] Rene Van Zwijndrecht (External)
BIM to achieve AIM for facilities and ops. AIM is purely objects visual or virtual that reflect physical objects so information and actions can be linked to these.
[11:13 am] MARIE, Laetitia (Unverified)
product datas sheet
[11:13 am] MARIE, Laetitia (Unverified)
can be loaded into the bim
[11:17 am] Steve Rogers (External)
Product Information should already be built into the Revit/BIM families
[11:18 am] Ian Fielding (External)
BIM means different things to different people, so yes Better Information Management is the key point:)
[11:18 am] Johnny Furlong (External)
Disagree Steve, Revit is a deisgn tool not an asset management tool.
[11:19 am] Johnny Furlong (External)
Product informtion should be in some sort of product sheet, linked to revit and asset managment
[11:22 am] Simon Newton (External)
isnt this IFC and COBie? as a format Revit is a creation tool.
[11:23 am] Steve Rogers (External)
if the families are built correctly then the product information can be added in which may be easier to manage rather than linking product sheets to revit , which ill hold my hands up im not sure how you would do that ? all the product info can then be scheduled out for asset management
[11:23 am] Steve Rogers (External)
to me COBIe is just a structured approach to gather data within revit
[11:26 am] Joe Stott (External)
So what happens when an asset is replaced - this should not really require Revit input.. linking to product datasheets or similar avoids any requirement to update the model
[11:24 am] Daryn Fitz (External)
Its interesting to see the phrase Better Information Management back in vogue, I saw it first referenced in Steve Race's book BIM demystified back in 2012 although i am sure he was not the first to use the term. I find it easier to focus on information and data management and what problems we are looking to solve or scenarios we are trying to improve rather than confuse with terms such as BIM/Digital Twins.
[11:24 am] Steve Rogers (External)
IFC is the export process of models so they can be used in other modelling software
[11:25 am] Steve Rogers (External)
sorry IFC is a format not a process
[11:25 am] Adrian Mokus (External)
you can edit Ifc as AIM and insert data , no need for Revit...
[11:27 am] Adrian Mokus (External)
how is this group different from the Interoperability one? we talking about the same thing here
[11:27 am] Steve Rogers (External)
agree, we typically use generic families and add the data via parameter info which is then exported out to CAFM
[11:28 am] Adrian Mokus (External)
what about ISO 55013?
Daryn Fitz (External)11:34 am
First high level document to review: Asset Management Landscape v3.0 | GFMAM
2nd level document to review IAM - Asset Management - An Anatomy (theiam.org) NEW version will be out beginning of July
ISO5500 series to be published in August - ISO55013 brand new Asset Data
IAM guidance in the form of SSG's will be updated - IAM - Subject Specific Guidelines (SSG) (theiam.org)
Ian Fielding (External)11:38 am
www.FireIE.UK may be of interest.
Daryn Fitz (External)11:39 am
ISO19650-3 under review currently
Daryn Fitz (External)11:42 am
Over 50% of all asset/facility management is outsourced across western Europe.
Ian Fielding (External)11:45 am
https://www.ukbimframework.org/wp-content/uploads/2019/11/GSL_Report_PrintVersion.pdf
Pete Paton(External)11:52 am
ISO/TR 41016:2024 - Facility management — Overview of available technologies
[11:55 am] Ian Fielding (External)
Good document Pete, thanks
ISO Standards have meen mentioned several; times and maybe this is the startpoint?
Adrian Mokus (External)11:56 am
Olayemi Usman Information Delivery Specification (IDS) to specify requirements
Information Delivery Specification - buildingSMART International
Simon Collery (External)11:57 am
Agreed, Adam, even the KBIs for the BSR include locations of fire and emergency equipment and facilities.
Ian Fielding (External)11:58 am
I can share details on this as I have been working at Hinkley Point C and we achieved a huge success that allows asset managers and user to update information
Agreed, i do not see any other way forward
[12:04 pm] Martin McDonald (External)
trouble in a lot of cases when things are handed over is you may have a single source of truth... but theres zero source of trust.
Adrian Mokus (External) 12:11 pm
great way to pick up new clients!!
Ian Fielding (External) 12:12 pm
Can we start a list of the required information based on category: Designers, P Contractors, Contractors, FM, HSE, Finance , M+E etc?
Good Point!
Adrian Mokus (External)
12:17 pm
spot on Andrew Simpson
Martin McDonald (External) 12:18 pm
I’m doing the same thing as andrew at isg and having the same problems
Rene Van Zwijndrecht (External)12:23 pm
or do we make it easier to add by linking rather than trying to think or overload what we believe all will need? have basic keystone data that then enable upgrades of info? also should be able to do data audits from one source to maintain
Ben Evans (Unverified) 12:29 pm
Basically, it CDM first and foremost
Sue Newton (External)12:29 pm
It all starts with the handover sheet - then you bulk it out with the manufacturers info and how often it gets maintained for maintenance anyway - before that it is about CDM and designing out issues
What FM teams need in generally in most pla... by Johnny Furlong
Johnny Furlong (External)12:33 pm
What FM teams need in generally in most places is very simple. What its is. Where is it. How do i access it. How do i operate it. What is the PPM schedule. Where and how do i get spare parts. Warrenty info
Andrew Simpson (External) 12:35 pm
Great session. Just to summarise my points from a main contractor perspective, the key is a culture change within the industry to add equal credibility to project data as to the physical asset and secondly earlier engagement with our customers FM teams as the end users of the data
[12:36 pm] Martin McDonald (External)
some clients ask for everything and we have to ask them why they want it as there is literally no requirement
[12:36 pm] Simon Newton (External)
level of information need?
Martin McDonald (External)12:47 pm
Yes - in some cases the "why" doesnt get asked until construction.... its just been sold early as you "want"
[12:36 pm] MARIE, Laetitia (Unverified)
Online MIDP, shared with the team / Early defined Naming Convention, to insure everyone is working with the same codes.
[12:56 pm] David J. Carey (External)
It's not just the LOI definitions, I'd suggest: IMHO, too many designers and engineers have a habit of creating built environments that may indeed look beautiful, are classed as inspirational and innovative, yet fail every practical criteria for being safe for O&M resources; are inconsiderate of Soft and Hard routine activities; have insufficient storage and welfare spaces; and are too often either over-engineered in terms of capacity or show little regard for access or replacement routing.