BIM IN ASSET MANAGEMENT MONTHLY FORUM 11-12-2024
RICHARD FREER It’s about 6 months since we started this and we’ve built up quite a following here, but also we’ve had some noteworthy achievements already which I’m going to run through briefly. (shares screen). We started off with three workstreams, digital records, business case and interoperability. I’m happy to say that two of those have pretty much completed their work which will be written up, in theory, over the Christmas break, but could run into early January. Digital records, well done Adam and his team on that one. We’ve defined what a digital record is and what it should contain, so relatively straightforward, that one.
The business case was a lot more complex. So, we decided that the first step in that was to come up with the value proposition as to why better information management should be used. We’ve now done that and we’ve had a lot of examples too of how that is in practice, specific problems that have arisen, specific events that have happened where better information management would, if not fully solve the issue, would have mitigated the outcome. We’re still looking for those examples. The business case basically is now, we’re calling it phase one, is complete, we’ll be writing that up over the next few weeks. But we’re now moving into phase two which will be gathering as many examples of the different types of issues that happen as we can get hold of.
Interoperability of necessity was required to wait until we got something out of digital records and business case which we now have. So, they’ll be cracking on and winding up probably sometime in January/early February. So, well done everybody involved in that, it was tough going some of the time, but we’ve come through it very well. The next three workstreams that we’re focusing on into 2025, 2025 is going to be focused on digital handover. So, we’ve got standardising technical submissions and O&M and health & safety as one. We've then got digital asset capture and the golden thread. The PFI workstream and the international workstream will be launching probably February/March.
The international one, anybody whose business is international, or has just got an interest in it, will be particularly welcome. We’ve done a certain amount of that already with George in Hong Kong, for example, we’ve done some work in the States and George and I met government ministers from Ukraine the other month, so there is stuff going on in the background. And last but not least we have the working group which is a fire & safety critical working group…To give you an idea of the kind of response we’re getting here. Digital asset capture, golden thread, O&M and international. They all promise to be very lively and interesting workstreams.
GEORGE STEVENSON (shares screen). What we’ve been doing, obviously this event, the reason you’re coming to this is because I think you’re interested in learning and also sharing your knowledge. And what we’re trying to do is, that’s what we’ve been doing in BIM4Housing, and one of the key things that we’ve been looking at is some of the legislation to look at how we can make sure it’s easier for people to interpret and apply the legislation. One are that we’ve been looking at closely is Regulation 38, if you’ve been on the previous events you’ll know that we’ve been banding on about this. Broadly, what this requires you to do is actually have as-built plans of the building with all of those key assets on them.
And the reason it’s particularly important is it’s now part of law that you have to have this information at handover of any building. And the responsible person, people think this is only about HRBs and it’s only about the Building Safety Act, but it’s not. It’s actually for all buildings and therefore the client has got to sign a declaration to say that they’ve got everything they need to keep the building safe. And also the supply chain, the contractors, have got to declare that they’ve provided everything and also that they’ve got a notification from the client to say that they’ve got it all. So, one of the things that we’re trying to do is to make that a lot simpler for people to understand and interpret. And to look at things from an overall building perspective, not just do we have the information on fire doors, for example.
And it’s a matter of making sure that we know how all of the elements in the building work together to keep the building safe. So, that’s one of the critical things that we’re trying to do in BIM In Asset Management. And therefore if we’ve actually got a range of different golden threads, how can we tie them together so that when, for example, people are doing inspections using whatever software they’re actually inspecting the same asset. As part of that process we’ve built information sets in BIM4Housing which you can just download on some of the fire safety critical assets. These are all shared resources and we’ve also had over 70 or 80 subject matter experts in fire doors, for example, working to come up with standardised ways of doing fire door inspections.
This is to overcome the approach of people procuring fire door inspections without taking due account of the amount of work that’s involved in that. And these are quite powerful documents, so if you download them you can see that we’ve got detailed information in them. This has come from the BIM4Housing members and also from the NHS. And what we’re also doing at the moment, this is in draft, one for dampers, fire stopping and cavity barriers. So, these are all free resources that we’re working to. The one thing I’d also say is that the BIM4Housing meetings, this one last month for example, we had on it owners, landlords, who are explaining their engagement with the Regulator. So, what their experiences were and how they were overcoming them. It’s a really worthwhile one to watch.
ANDREW COULDRIDGE In regards to the comment that was made in regards to the Regulation 38, the as-builts being crucial to that. And there’s a declaration that we’re saying needs to be signed by the client and then by the suppliers, and I’m guessing suppliers of those critical components. I generally work within and around the new development schemes, so working with the client, a house builder. But lots of questions at this moment in time and I’ve spoken with Adam at Riskbase in regards to this. Some of my concerns in regards to what’s just been said is that I’ll often ask what the developer has bought and paid for with their supply agreements.
And if they’ve got someone fitting a fire safety system, is it just for fitting, is it for servicing and maintenance thereafter and if so, for how long? There’s a lot of say grey areas, it’s almost black because that’s how dark it is, in terms of understanding of what that might be which is a real worry. And I fear that the as-built information that I’ve asked for in the past which I tend not to get, is going to be a problem going forward. We’ve now added to it that the contractors, at the time they were signed up for these schemes, probably haven’t been asked to sign a declaration to evidence their compliance to this and their ongoing compliance to it for what might be a 2-year period under the defects liability period.
How do we think is the best way to manage this? I think the focus is the developer in this particular case and their understanding of this. But the developer almost needs to make sure that their suppliers are understanding of this, which at this moment in time I’m not convinced that is the case.
RICHARD FREER I’m going to bring George in on that and then open the floor on that because it’s a very pertinent, crucial point. But I just want to let George finish this first and then we’ve got a Q&A session and that will be top of the list.
GEORGE STEVENSON I think the thing is, Andrew, what I’m just about to show you now is the collective view of some of our team. What we’ve been doing is exactly what you’ve just said there, trying to navigate through all of the regulations and work out what’s going to be needed. I’m just going to show this, it’s a recording of the session that we had at the last development meeting. I think it’s very helpful because it explains how we’re getting to where we want to get to. So, you’ll be able to engage with this process and we’ve got subject matter experts who are all contributing.
(George Stevenson plays an excerpt of the recording of the Development working group meeting 28-11-2024).
ANDREW DE SILVA ‘DAS’ This is basically the Miro board, it’s essentially just an unlimited space and what Jarek and I and the team have done is create this 6 or 7 pages with the information that we’re aware of at the moment. So if you did want to comment on it you can come in here, click on this, write something and then the only thing you’ve got to make sure is you click on this blue button to save that comment. I’ve done that in the past where I’ve written things, forgot to press the blue thing and it disappeared. So, once you do that then it comes up with a V for visitor. So then the idea is that Jarek and I or others can amend the document accordingly to capture the comment once we’re happy that it’s OK. That’s just an interface thing.
In terms of what the contributors, on the left hand side we’ve tried to capture all of those that have inputted into it. As you can see there is a lot of people who’ve commented or been in the sessions etc, but the reality is the community is growing more and more. So we’re hoping that there will be more input from others because actually what is really interesting and important is yourselves are going through the processes and therefore we’re learning as we go through on an iterative basis, as George was saying. What we’ve done here is just scrolled through, we try to give a little bit of a one page crib as to the history behind the Building Safety Act, what it is, a couple of key definitions and then identify what is applicable for all buildings or high-risk buildings, for example.
So this is like a one page overview and then what we’ve tried to do is just to map out the key legislation. Again, some of these things will become out-of-date and as Jarek was saying what we tried to do is put hyperlinks into the document. And those hyperlinks we’ve chosen only to be the gov.uk websites, so you can click on this and it will take you to the actual website, or the HSE website. So we tried to keep it just to those two and to ensure that our sources are essentially from the horse’s mouth, as such. So what we’ve tried to do here is to identify the key legislation changes and some things will come in, for example you have the Building Safety Regulator, building control authority, then there is the construction products which is a bit behind, I think, plan. The new homes ombudsman and then we put a link into if you wanted to find, for example, registered architects in this case.
And so this page this page is really about identifying some of the key legislation changes. The main part of this document are these process diagrams. Each of these workflows is there to help whoever may come into it and go OK, if you’re a client or a designer or a facilities manager. The first thing we felt to understand is if the new buildings or existing buildings must undergo the gateway process. I think some of those discussions today about if you’re going to change the doors does that kick in the gateway process, for example. So we tried to start from the very beginning. i won’t go through the whole workflow, but the idea is that you can it’s a new building, so you know whether it’s a new building or an existing building, that’s fairly straightforward to understand.
If it’s a new building then the height and the number of storeys is the next thing that obviously determines whether it falls into the HRC category. And again, we’ve tried to put a couple of links into here which are in more detail about how to maybe define what a building is. Which sounds quite an unusual thing to say, but there are quite explicit definitions of what a building is, or building work is. And we’ve tried to put in a couple of things about caution. For example, I think a lot of people would have come across the idea of when you’ve got buildings which are attached to each other does it then trigger 7-storeys or the 18 metres or whatever. So, we just put a couple of things in there which are about prompts or just look out for these because it’s not as straightforward as measuring 7 storeys, for example.
The first process diagram is about understanding whether your building would fall into the high-risk building or whether the works that you’re doing to that existing would then trigger the gateway process. Again, I’ve added, for example, this after Jarek and I did it because one of my colleagues was looking at a document and she’s like I don’t think you’ve got these diagrams in your workflow, so we need to add that into this version. so in the same way it would be great to get real life input as to you don’t understand what you’re doing here, it doesn’t make sense or this symbol doesn’t make sense. It doesn’t matter what the comment is, we just want to hear back from you. And the idea is that the following pages are OK, if your building is an HRB then this is about gateway 1, so page one is about gateway 1.
Trying to put in some links about what the fire statement needs to include, some links to the templates that we’re aware of that can be used. And then the process diagram 2 is now you’ve got the gateway 1 approval or you’ve gone through it, then you’re getting into gateway 2. Again, some documentations, some information about maybe the cost of the applications in terms of when you do the application itself and then you get to the end of the approval of gateway 2. So therefore you move on to leading up to gateway 3, what is the process to that, and then there’s a couple of questions, I’ve just put in these 2 new ones here which were one’s that George, you talked about, from Pete Patton. These were his comments about his experience of going through the gateway process and safety cases etc. We ned to embed that into the diagrams.
And then the idea is that you get through gateway 3 and then what do you need to do to register the building before it can be occupied because getting gateway 3 isn’t the end of the story. That’s the overview, as you can see it’s essentially a series of workflow diagrams. We’ve tried to use only the two main sources, the HSE and the government websites, but what would be really useful, as you had before already, is people commenting on whether they can understand, whether these workflow diagrams are accurate, whether the links are accurate. Anything on these which either doesn’t make sense or has got some incorrect information or links. There’s additional guidance that’s out now that we need to incorporate in here.
(The excerpt of the recording of the Development working group meeting 28-11-2024 ends here).
GEORGE STEVENSON I hope you found that useful. I think the important thing about that is it’s work in progress and importantly we need your contribution to it, so if you find that’s useful then I think Jiss has put in the chat the detail. I’ve also put into the chat a questionnaire that we’re supporting which is around digital twins. So, if you could fill that in it would help the process. That’s from UCL, for a large European project. What we’re trying to do here is pick up on what we’ve done with the digital records. What was specified, what was actually installed, who installed it and how was it installed, how was it commissioned and maintained. And when it was replaced what replaced it.
And part of the challenges of that is that we’ve got information typically in O&Ms that’s structured by work package, there is no connection back to models. A lot of the product information isn’t standardised. So, one of the things that we’re trying to do is address that and the industry has been seeking to do that, that was the whole point about what was known as Level 2 BIM years ago. And we have COBie as a mechanism to do that which, in theory, should have been delivering high quality asset information through to O&M. But Bill East, who is the original author of COBie, he contacted me at the weekend and he’d sort of come to the same conclusion as me.
COBie is great and there’s no question in my view that we should be using COBie, but it’s not being implemented properly because everybody is thinking of it as coming through from the models. So, there’s a whole mechanism around that that we’re trying to address and fixing the handover to asset management piece is that we’ve got 3D models, we’ve got CAD data, we’ve got COBie data, we’ve got the O&Ms and we’ve got 360 photographs, but the problem is that those things are often not connected up. And therefore one of the things that we’re trying to do, and this is the whole purpose of what we’ve been doing with asset information models, is try and remove those silos and bring them together in a more joined up way.
So, what I’m going to do is hand over to colleague Paul Oakley, who’s been working on this. We’ve got quite a wide take-up from lots of people in the industry now, supporting digital handover and one of the key things about this is what’s known as the technical submittal. Construction people on the call will understand this, but in essence it’s a matter of taking what is being proposed as a product and then verifying that’s the one that’s actually going to be used. And then that can then be used to then do comparisons to make sure that the specification of what was required actually is being delivered by the proposed product.
And part of that process is that if that technical submittal is then signed off at that stage it means that you’ve got a record of what was actually installed. And therefore we’ve got something to base things on. Paul, you’ve been working with Bouygues on this, can I ask you to step in.
PAUL OAKLEY (shares screen). We have a process, this is one we’ve actually used with Bouygues, but basically main contractors have either BIM models or lists of things, bill of quantities, specifications etc. Then where main contractors are either proposing changes or they have design liabilities, they will produce a technical submittal to actually identify which actual products will be used against those types of things within the project. This is just a sample from Bouygues where basically the subcontractor will identify what product is being used on that and they’ll fill in all of the appropriate data and provide technical information with that. What we’ve been working on with Bouygues is basically where you have a type, which in this case has come from COBie, that we link that technical submittal as a document to the type.
There’s other ways of doing it, it could be a parameter in a BIM model, it could be a reference within a schedule or whatever, that just links basically a type as a unique ID and the PTS as a unique ID and you tie those two things together. And then we have a product library which basically has all of the manufacturers’ information against that, so therefore you’re linking the PTS to the product library and it’s therefore linked to the type. One of the things that we’ve talked about within the interoperability group was the requirement for unique identifiers and how we deal with that. And there’s various industry work going on at SEN/send? 30mins 54secs level, that’s looking at unique identifiers and product passports and also within the BIM object modelling, there’s requirements for unique identifiers with types and for components.
So actually that helps them bring all of these things together into a common way of doing things that needs to be developed further. One of the things that we were working on was, this is sort of the straw man of technical specification into the submittal process that goes through and captures what needs to be done. So really we’re looking at what was the original specification information that was provided on that, then what’s been proposed. So basically we can then match the requirements versus what’s been proposed to meet those requirements. And then there is an approval process that needs to be gone through, who needs to carry out checks or reviews etc of those.
As I said, this is like a straw man document that’s been put up for the group to look at to come back with feedback to try and agree a standard way of dealing with this from that we can used within the industry and help tie these things together.
GEORGE STEVENSON The next step in the process fo what we’re trying to do, we’ve been working with the HSE to try and standardise the way O&Ms are structured. Cliff Kneale, could you talk about what you’ve been doing with Origin? Origin Housing have been doing a lot of work on standardising O&Ms and using that to validate what information is in the O&Ms. We will perhaps try and pick up on that later.
The next step that we’ve been working on is reality capture and we’ve got from the last forum meeting we’ve got about 15-20 people which have signed up for this. So, we’re going to be running a session early in the new year on this. So, I’m just showing an example of the way reality capture is being used, in a very simple way, to validate the information that has been provided as asset data. So, here is COBie information that’s come through on a project. In this particular case, this is Sodexo checking that the information that they’ve been given actually does represent what’s been installed. This is a couple of years old, but down on the right hand side you’ve got a list of all of the information from the BIM model which is the COBie data, about all of the equipment that’s supposed to be in this room.
And you’ll see there it’s actually connected back to the proper detailed information and product information, but then they’re able to then go and click on that and then when they see that, those speakers, they can actually select them and it counts back in the database to say that those have been checked and validated. If they don’t have any information at all that they’re working from scratch, what they do is they use the same sort of methodology but they just use 360 cameras where they can walk through a building. 360 cameras, it’s taking 15-20 seconds per space to record this information, but the key thing is it means that experts back at the offices are able to actually carry out this exercise of doing the tagging.
So, they’re not having to send expensive people to site to do the surveys, they can get somebody to go and take the 360 photo and then they can have a team of people working remotely, and these could be anywhere in the world, to actually go and tag the assets that they can see in the 360 photo with what they are. And those are then connected back to a library of asset data which can then also be connected back to other intelligent information like maintenance information and specifications. So, product data, but also in this particular case it’s tying it back to their SFG20 maintenance requirements. So essentially what they’re doing is creating intelligence from a 360 photograph.
Where we see this going is we can take information, as Paul was saying earlier, from the models and that probably will populate 60-70% of the information that’s needed. But there are things that are needed from a maintenance point of view that aren’t modelled, so those can be picked up through the process that Paul was just talking about there which is technical submittals. Those include things that maybe don’t get modelled, but are still8 provided and recorded. And then the third element of that are things that maybe haven’t been picked up at all. The as-built, effectively, is the 360 photo so it means that we’ve got a better way of then capturing that information going forward.
And that can be used to both verify what’s been installed, but also so experts can do that, which can then be used to train the next generation of people so that people can understand and have a common understanding of what those items are, but also to train AI. So just to put some sort of context on this, a surveyor that’s sent to site can typically identify probably 100-120 assets a day. This methodology, they can improve the quality because they’ve got more experts available because they’re not having to send then to site, but also they can do probably a thousand in a day. So, it’s 6-8 times faster than doing it traditionally, which obviously is a big productivity increase.
We’re promoting this concept and also if anybody is interested in that we’ve got quite a lot of people already signed up for the digital asset capture group that’s going to be getting together in January. But we’ve also got some 360 cameras that we can share and get people to actually start doing this. In particular high-risk buildings in London there’s a strong rationale to actually just go and take some 360 photos. It takes seconds and it doesn’t require a lot of expert training. Here’s an example of this for what’s happening with Tower Hamlets. They didn’t have any floor plans, so surveyors Ridge & Partners are actually doing this at the moment for the portfolio.
And this particular one, you’ve then got intelligent floor plans that you can have the 360 photos that the building safety managers can then go and tag them with whatever assets they can see and that then becomes much easier to manage going forward.
RICHARD FREER We’re going to now have a Q&A, has anybody got any comments on anything that George has been showing you?
PHIL THOMPSON Good presentation, George, and I’ve seen similar things, but I’m really concerned that there is a level of integrity that’s missing in all of this. It’s all very well mapping with some intelligent solution, but where is the actual evidence and the audit trail that demonstrates the integrity of the product selection and the delivery and the installation? There’s a whole transactional piece still not being addressed here.
GEORGE STEVENSON I agree with you, I think that’s a procurement process largely, isn’t it? And part of the technical submittal process at least gives you a hook as to how to manage that. We’re not saying that we’ve solved all of the problems, Phil. As you know, I’m a great supporter of GS1, for example, but what we’re trying to do is just move that forward.
PHIL THOMPSON Yeah, I just think we’ve got to be honest about the gaps here because if you’re coming to this as a layman it looks brilliant, wow, we’ve got technology, AI, fantastic, it’s going to solve all of our problems. That’s not the case and it’s in the earlier slides as well when we’re talking about the information the contractor uses, it’s just not true. The contractors don’t have that level of information, some of them are still using the back of a fag packet calculations to process transactional data.
GEORGE STEVENSON Yeah, are you talking about the…
PHIL THOMPSON ? 42mins 27secs where there was a reference to information that they used to then drive their technical submittals. Where are they getting that information from? Half the time they’re just making it up.
PAUL OAKLEY They must have bill of quantities, they must have schedules, they must have drawings. They count in what goes on when they’re pricing the stuff up, so all of this is not going to be in BIM models etc. This is part of the process that needs to happen in identifying how do they come up with what they’re actually going to put onsite and who is doing that. And then how does that, the PTS process then feed into that. So, this is all of the stuff that we need to document and discuss and to agree a process that actually works for the industry.
PHIL THOMPSON I’m yet to see evidence of it, but I’d love to be convinced.
NICK NISBET Just the two comments about standards and some of the things in the chat. The aim of COBie was always to go from construction to operation and that can’t be repeated often enough. There is a COBie 3 which was released over a year ago which extends COBie to include the transactional data about the state of the assets, to support the transfer of an asset from one owner to another or to support transfer from one operator to another. And so in the situation where you’re trying to transfer information, and residential got a special mention, COBie 3 is available, with templates and so on. So, that has been addressed and it’s available for you to use.
And the other thing that I wanted to mention in connection with the health & safety is that January will see the publication of ISO 19650 Part 6 and the withdrawal of the PAS and on the 5th of February there will be a launch event by BSI about the contents of ISO 19650 Part 6. So, I think those two things are relevant to the discussions that have been happening, happy to answer any questions if they come up.
RICHARD FREER Nick, could you just put that in the chat so people can refer back to it.
PAUL OAKLEY Nick, when he wrote 1192 Part 4 would have remembered actually you’re producing COBie at the design stage. Actually by doing that it gives you a list of the types from the BIM models and actually then being able to use that list of types to tie that into the PTSs we found very useful on some of the projects that we’ve been taking forward. That’s before we actually know what the manufacturers and things are, so that’s a very useful use of the design stage COBie.
KEVIN BAYLISS Just a comment about I’m doing a lot through gateway and working a lot with Wolverhampton Homes going through their golden thread, writing some stuff for that at the moment. And we’re doing a number that are going through HRB. One of the comments I was just going to mention on the technical sub was we’re looking at what there, so if you’re thinking about the HRB, for example, if you deal with an HRB you’ve obviously got a change control log. And as it goes through that process in construction it’s very critical in understanding what the change is. So, if you are changing a product or submitting a product as a change then that technical sub really needs to consider the compliance part of it, the reason for the change, any research information. And then that will be evidenced on the golden thread on a system. So, I think that technical sub really needs to consider those sort of things as well.
My question was about handover material, we’re also writing an AIR for the client at the moment about some of those materials. Where people have had issues with all of that information was an AIR in place in those situation, or was it just a lack of clarity and a lack of information from the client to say this is what we require? And then the only other thing on the COBie stuff, have we thought about the FIREie in terms of those sort of elements in terms of that data tagging?
GEORGE STEVENSON On the FIREie…that’s something that I’ve discussed with Kevin and i think the key thing is that the information that is required that’s been put into FIREie is exactly what obviously them as users need. There’s been some questions as to whether they could have dome that in standard COBie which I think they probably could have accommodated that. And there are issues with whether that can actually be generated from models. But the important thing is that we’re actually getting feedback from the fire experts as to what information they consider that they need.
PIERRE VENTER I think there’s two aspects which are really important and that’s about new build design versus the as-built, as-constructed existing building conditions. And Phil, it ties in with what you were talking about is that from a design point of view we populate the building with components, let’s call them in 2D forms blocks. We have data and we have documents which have defined what the performance of that product is going to be. It then gets handed over through the procurement process to the builder who supplies a new product, the actual product that’s going into the building. And where there is a chasm here, the technology is not going to resolve it.
The technology of the 3D scanning, the scan-to-BIM kind of abilities that you saw, have one serious problem is that it demands an audit. The audit is actually physically looking at the model number or the component because some of these, the components all look identical, to the Ai they will be identical, but at the same time it could be a product which, as in the Grenfell Tower, was incorrectly or fraudulently presented. And so my thought is it’s really important that there is an intervention for the physical check onsite. And I’m not pointing fingers at contractors, but if there’s enough ducking and diving that’s taking place in the world right now, this is an opportunity to put a gateway in the process to say has it been checked onsite, and yes, it’s part of those inspections. You can’t get around that.
The other point is about the as-built as-constructed side is that we’ve documented in the design right from the first get-go, at any one point a set of components as they change, that’s your golden thread. And I think it’s really important to maintain that as a very clear set of gateways to control that.
RICHARD FREER George, do you want to pop in very quickly on auditing?
GEORGE STEVENSON I think that’s why we’re trying to standardise some things here, Pierre, rather than make it so that we’re reliant. You’ve got projects where people are handing over 10,000 documents and the likelihood of people actually being able to find the right information and verify it is a real challenge. So, what we’re trying to do is make that so that can be more structured and standardised so that people aren’t coming at it fresh each time. So, I absolutely agree with you, Pierre. I’d be really interested in you engaging in the technical submittal process and also standardised O&Ms because that’s so important.
PIERRE VENTER I’ve singed up there for the digital parts, but the technical part would also be useful because I think that we’ve got people who are specialists in various different things. But I would always appreciate that we actually go back to simple methods, almost like a pen and paper, except that that just doesn’t work, not in the digital form. And not with the volumes of components that there are in buildings, elements, components and assemblies. It’s incredibly complex and if we have gaps in it all we’re doing is hanging ourselves. So, I’m happy to get engaged in it.
ANA MATIC George, thank you for that presentation, as ever concise and on point. I particularly liked you slide about the kind of handover, the complexity, I think we’re getting very much mature about this now. I think a few years ago we would be hoping to get almost everything either out of a model or out of a schedule. And we would imagine this very neat world where everything is in one place in a beautifully designed kind of system, I think we’re now learning that it’s difficult to do that. And what I like about your diagram is that it is actually a combination of stuff that will come from the BIM which is i.e. from models. Which will then have to be validated onsite, so Pierre, a very good point.
And then helped, possibly, by some kind of onsite scanning of areas that have changed dramatically during construction. If it’s an existing building it’s very similar as well, we’ll have some BIM data, we will then have some scheduled data. We’ll then have to send somebody to site to validate stuff and then we’ll combine with stuff that might need to be scanned by 3D photography. And, in a way, I don’t think any of the projects will be able to get away without that sort of hybrid approach. So, I just wanted to say well done for putting that slide together because I think that this is where we are right now as an industry, you’ve summarised it, basically in one slide. And I think if you’re advising clients, if any of you are working basically advising clients, this is kind of the stuff that they will have to look at, at least in some shape or form.
GEORGE STEVENSON Thank you, Ana, can I just build on that. One of the things that we’ve all been trying to do for many years is follow the process of the BIM process and the BIM model actually driving everything. And although that is still very much our aspiration, what we’re actually finding is because a lot of things don’t get modelled that need to be installed, in particular detailed M&E information, then it doesn’t get captured. So, that’s why we put that together. But the interesting thing with that is if you actually look at what commercial teams have done, I remember 10 years ago people were trying to use the 3D model as the driver for cost management.
And what we actually discovered was that the models needed to be recreated differently to accommodate the needs of, because the design models, the way they’re structured for design, doesn’t actually reflect what’s needed. And what they’ve now done in recent years, they’ve used 360 photography as a bridge, because that’s actually what’s actually being installed, so the as-built is actually the reality capture. And I think that’s what we should be learning from as far as asset management is concerned because that’s a simple way of addressing it.
NEIL YEOMANS It feels like every time COBie is mentioned I have to come in with the same sentence. We’re at risk of doing what has been done previously with O&M manuals and Regulation 38 in the past where it has been driven by the construction industry because of the skewing of the EIBA stages towards the construction process. And actually the collection of construction based information is the easy part. Maintaining that information over a hundred years for the landlord is the hard part. Trying to get out of what I call the Trigger’s broom situation where that building will be completely different in 50 years’ time, relies upon sub-component level information to a degree that COBie does not provide.
In addition, COBie does not provide anything around the legalities, the customers, the residents, there’s whole host of post-occupation information that’s critical that COBie does not accommodate. And from the same sentence I copy and paste a lot of the time, it is increasingly likely that the residential and social housing sector, and potentially wider, will adopt the UK Housing Data Standard. It is unlikely to adopt the COBie standard because of the issues we’ll have management side. It’s more of a statement than a question.
GEORGE STEVENSON Neil, COBie is just a schema, so the decision as to what goes in it is very, very flexible. There’s people on this call that know it a lot better than me, but the determination, for example, the subcomponent level and things like that, you can accommodate that.
NEIL YEOMANS You can accommodate it, but then it’s no longer a standard. The more you accommodate and you as the client, or as the construction or me as the client, change away from the standard, the less and less standardised it is. And therefore us speaking the same language, which is the panacea of using a standard, is actually watered down to a point where we’re still end up with loads of different…For example, we have tried COBie and we have found that it only contains about 40% of the information that we require to manage the golden thread. Whereas UK Housing Data Standards are just under 80%.
GEORGE STEVENSON I think we’ll pick this up later, Neil, because I’m not arguing against the housing data standards at all. All I’m saying is that COBie, Nick will confirm I think, it’s not limited in terms of what you can capture in COBie.
NEIL YEOMANS It’s the same as any standard, you can change it as much as you like. I get that, it’s a platform from which you can build.
GEORGE STEVENSON No, the content isn’t part of any standard.
KEVIN BAYLISS On the side comment around tracking where HRBs are concerned, obviously from that there’s a construction control plan. As part of that process we’re working through with Wolverhampton Homes at the moment where we’re looking at how they get that data. They already do inspections with that information going onsite and then that is then recorded into the golden thread onto their element. There’s different ways of doing it, but that’s where it’s recorded. But the construction control plan should dictate and say how that is done and that is a client document which will say this needs to be done. And that might be asking the contractor to do stuff, it might be verifying. And the important point is people who are looking at that installation and checking it needs to demonstrate competency, I think that’s incredibly important to that.
The only other thing I wanted to make a comment about was the point about COBie and so on and generally, every single project for something like an existing building will need an element of specific element for the accountable person that runs that site, whichever way it is. So you're always going to have a specific AIR that says this is what we require from handover material. All we’re saying is, I think, is you have a standard system to allow you to facilitate that.
NICK NISBET Just to say that COBie is for transfer from construction into operation. Paul mentioned its use at the end of the design or as part of the design handover. It is not a tool for managing the built asset over its lifecycle. COBie 3 does do that role and certainly for transfer of information, but it’s the asset management systems that have to contain that information. COBie has the depth to contain, it is a standard and it does specify what you should handover and it is doable. And yes, people will try and extend it and use it in defective ways, I would include FireIE as a defective way of using COBie. I would include one or two other things that COBie’s been trying to do.
But, if we’re talking about the asset in use we’ve got to decide what information we’re going to track and COBie primes that pump but it is not the ongoing golden thread process. And it really does no one in the industry any favours to damn it for what it never set out to do and ? 1hr 3mins 33secs to.
RICHARD FREER Andrew Couldridge, did George’s presentation answer your question from earlier?
ANDREW COULDRIDGE Yeah, it was very interesting, very informative. Just moving on from that, we talked about the importance of as-builts, I want to bring to everybody’s attention the importance of what was as-planned and then what is the as-built. I’ve got personal experience of challenging the developer, a big house builder, in regards to what I actually see onsite. I’ve asked for a copy of what was as-planned and what was as-built directly with the contractor and miraculously overnight I’ve seen assets appear and installed to be told, actually, sorry we missed it. So, as-builts as a measure I think is fine, but you need to compare the as-built against what was as-planned because that’s going to give you what your deviation or variation may have been.
RICHARD FREER I want to move on. We’ve got an interesting presentation now by Terence Horsman from Orca. It’s on impact, but there’s actually some figures in there, i like to see figures around things.
CHRIS CRAGGS Can I just join is as well, I’m Terence’s colleague. Just to set the framework for this and it feels that we’re in a different party, I’ll be perfectly honest with you. In that our interest is very much the in life asset impact, rather than this critical phase which everyone is discussing about handover and effectively making sure you have got what you asked for. This is stepping back quite considerably and saying we think there’s a need for a different sort of measure. We’re talking about COBie and COBie 3, there’s a completely new set of parameters we’re suggesting that need consideration when you’re looking at critical assets.
And they might be composite assets, assemblies of assets that affect the actual operational impact of whether it’s a lift, a fire system. In our world, we come from kitchens, whether the ice cream machine is working properly and therefore dispensing ice creams at a $1,000 a day. And so far that’s not been part of anything that we’ve observed in BIM in asset management conversations over the course of the last decade. So, we’re just trying to put out there that there might be a useful working group that sat and considered whether this is a useful suggestion or not. If I can hand over to Terence who is the skilled practitioner of the presentation, to take this concept further.
TERENCE HORSMAN It’s a great pleasure of presenting in front of you all today. Just to clarify things, I work for a company called Orca Service Technologies. I’;m not pitching a software product here at all. We are coming forward with an idea, a concept that we’re thinking about in terms of measuring the impact of certain assets and their downtime towards business. And the goal is to map the operational impact of asset downtime directly within the BIM model to further operationalise. What happens to a BIM model once it’s reached that operational stage? My background is in facilities management and I’ve been involved with standard creation on the TC257 side as well, on the FM side, so a slightly different angle than the construction phase.
This is just an example of one of the customers that we’ve been working with, Burger King Saudi Arabia, a massive issue with ice cream machines and their standardisation and operation. Very popular in hot climates, but serves about 50 customers per hour, so a significant financial impact for Burger King Franchisee. But can also talk about assets as complex systems within buildings that perform a mission critical activities within that building, such as a purification system for the NHS, HVAC system. Many different components, but clearly business critical, f that asset goes down you might note able to use the operating theatre that it’s connected to.
What we’re thinking about is creating a framework, if you like, and that could sit within COBie, that could sit within other CAFM systems, that maps out the different parameters that we want to evaluate on what the operational impact is of such an asset or such a system going down. Compliance clearly comes into play there, what’s the legal framework? What is the likelihood of certain risk occurring? Really the classic risk management piece that’s coming in to play. But also what’s the operational impact? What process disruption happens? What are your alternatives? What are your business continuity plans? Financially, are there any losses that can be incurred by the organisation? Are there any opportunity costs we need to evaluate? Maintenance costs that we need to evaluate?
Green technologies, environment, clearly a hot topic as well, as well as repetitional. I think a lot of people are familiar with ice cream machines going down in America, McDonalds, I think there was a website built to track where their ice cream machines were operational at your local McDonalds in the States. That really harms your reputation, so we want to make sure that that is considered as well. And the way that we’re thinking about that at the moment is to quantify that impact. So could we, for example, allow business leaders when they are commissioning these assets and putting them into their system and operationalising that data around BIM, can they evaluate on a scale of 1-5 what the impact is of that asset going down and motivate that as well?
And if we can centrally capture that, our vision is that we could allow facility managers, building occupants and users, to come back to that data and evaluate best approaches for alternatives for their business continuity measures, as well as looking at what the maintenance regime should be for these assets to keep them in a good condition. And then on the next slide I’ve expanded this hypothetical case of the ice cream machine in pound value, if that makes sense. So, we’re looking at, we’re making a couple of assumptions, how many customers we can serve per hour, how many operating hours we serve per day, how many customers that we’re serving actually purchase ice cream, what the price is. But you can see that, based on those first principals, we can calculate what the appropriate cost is of that asset going down.
Total missed sales, opportunity costs, reputational damage, wasted ingredients, there’s a whole lot of costs that come to play, even with a small asset such as an ice cream machine. And if you multiply that by 50-100 franchises across the country then actually we’re looking at significant costs per store and lost revenues. So, we were thinking of expanding this model to fit a whole range of industries. Can we create a model that works for a whole range of occupiers? That could be housing, that could be office business and industry, schools, retail, hospitals, hotels, airports - can we make that work for a variety of asset classes? So this evaluation process becomes part of the handover process and becomes part of building occupancy, and again, to operationalise the component within.
GEORGE STEVENSON The collaborative bit, Terence, I’d like to do through BIM In Asset Management. And just to pick up on what Chris was saying earlier, the point that you’re making, Chris, is absolutely taken. We are actually working on that, it’s just that in this presentation you’ve not seen it. Matt Wilkie is an expert in PFI and a lot of what he’s doing is looking at things from the point of view of exactly what you’re saying there, what is the impact on costs? What’s the impact when something fails? So Matt, could you give us a set up? Because Matt is going to run a session with you if you’d like to participate in it, Terence, in January we’ll agree a day. But what we’re trying to do is look at this from a point of view of looking at operational effectiveness and also the impact.
MATT WILKIE There’s a few things you mentioned there, for example, the HVAC systems. I know for a clinic being down in a fairly major hospital in the UK the fines were £250,000 per day. Open a school late is about £10,000 a day, a whole school shut for a day is £30,000 a day, and these are all in the PFI PPP world. So, the risks financially are fairly excessive for fines on failures and a lot of failures are preventable. The one I was involved with around the HEPA filters on the surgery is the problem with the HEPA filters, it took the whole surgery out. So, you’ve got all of the medical teams, everything else taken out that was one project.
I had a couple of examples today just to bring up, similar thing but from a different direction because they are asset based. The first one was a call out for a fire alarm system that went to the help desk. A tenant phoned the help desk, the help desk then called out the engineer to go and attend. The engineer turned up and found it that it wasn’t a fire alarm system, it was a security alarm system which was a different contractor. So with that you’ve also got the fact that you’ve got to call out charges, the time it takes, because you’re suddenly going from somebody going for an hour to reset a panel to somebody having to be sent from somewhere else to do this later in the day, you may be going out of hours by now.
There is a lot of cost related to not actually knowing what the assets are. I have this with the help desk quite regularly where I just have four very simple things which is where, why, what and who. So who called, what it is, where it is, all of the basics. If you get that halfway there, everything else gets much more simple because you’ve got an asset number, you’ll instantly know if it’s a fire alarm or a security alarm system. That was a simplified one, but when you look at operational costs these ones can accumulate quite quickly. Because you can have an intruder alarm set off eight times in a month because a cleaner leaves a window open to dry something on the window sill, nobody knows about it because nobody does the investigation to look into what the problem is. And that just runs and runs for months or years, in some cases. So, that’s the issue with the fire alarm system which was actually an intruder alarm system, is one example.
The other one that I thought would be quite relevant today around the Regulation 38 was to do wit fire doors and the strategies around fire doors. Because I work in PFI mainly, what I have is you’ve got the tenants on the ground, so for example, a large clinic may have 13, 13 different clinics, different departments. You could have midwives, nurses, doctors, surgeries etc., all mixed in there. But the fire strategy is supposed to be updated with the tenants and the main client which could be somebody acting on the NHS or on behalf of the NHS, or the NHS themselves and often these strategies don’t get updated.
So, when you have a tenancy change it could be that an area has changed from 6 tenants to 30 tenants, it could be the case of the building has been changed slightly to accommodate, but the strategies have stayed the same since construction. And they are supposed to be done annually, but because of the layers within the PFI industry, you’ve got your FM that reports into your SPV, the SPV may report into the local authority or the NHS or their party that’s involved in it and then all of the tenants on top of that. And so there is a massive risk on that.The reason i’m bringing up fire doors because I found on a few contracts now the risks on the fire doors have been quite big.
Just putting it into context, a small contract of 15 sites, because it took them about 13 years to agree what a fire door is because basically when your strategy changes, that may or not be a fire door. Because that may not be on your EVAC, your usage of the building has changed. And just on a small contract, that was £600,000 in one year to make the building compliant again once the strategy was agreed and then we actually knew what the fire doors were and then upgrading the fire doors. On another contract it was much bigger, £1.3 million. But I just wanted to give a couple of examples, a lot of this is how the building is used as well as what those assets are and the assets change.
For example, if you have a school which was built in the 70s, the corridor for the EVAC used to be down the middle of the schools. They refurb all of the classrooms, they refurb and they will new doors on and they go straight out onto the building outside, they’re no longer using the corridor at all which means there is no need for those fire doors down the middle, the actual usage has changed completely.
RICHARD FREER That’s really good, Matt, thank you, it slots nicely in with what Terence was talking about. Terence, you spoke about it maybe being a workstream or a working group, to pull something together on impact?
TERENCE HORSMAN Yeah, I think that would be fantastic. Thanks Matt, for the detailed response, I think it would be great to touch base after this meeting. And I see some great responses from Kevin and Nick in the chat as well. We’ve just come out of this to pilot the idea, we think this would work, I think there is some need in industry to grow this and we wanted to see if others are interested in participating more.
RICHARD FREER Anything that quantifies something in an industry that has got so many nebulous areas at the moment has got to be a good thing, hasn’t it, George?
GEORGE STEVENSON Definitely, and I think it fits in with what Will Borthen and Richard have been doing on the business case side of things. So, I would say this possibly can wrap in to that.
RICHARD FREER So, it could be like a subgroup, a sub stream.
GEORGE STEVENSON Yeah, we shouldn’t be working in silos.
RICHARD FREER No, absolutely not and as you say, these figures are part of the business case.
GEORGE STEVENSON Yeah, exactly, and Matt, for example if we can organise something, if anybody is interested in the things that Matt has just been talking about there. I don’t want to simplify it too much, but I’m just trying to for a degree of clarity. If you put PFI into…if you’re interested in what Matt was talking about, it’s not specific to PFI, it’s just that PFI is the one that is the most impactful in terms of this because of the contractual requirements. So, if you’d be interested in what Terence was covering and also Matt, if you could put PFI in the chat then we can invite you to a session after Christmas.
RICHARD FREER Would PFI come into business case?
GEORGE STEVENSON That’s what I’m saying, I don’t think we should be looking at these in silos. But yes, definitely, PFI would come under business case.
PAUL WOMACK This is potentially not for this meeting. I keep getting asked when they’re replacing fire doors in an as-built property, is that part of Gateway 2? Or is it exempt? Is it scheme works.
GEORGE STEVENSON From what I understand, it isn’t scheme works because there aren’t schemes that cover that exercise. Somebody mentioned earlier BM Trada, BM Trada apparently isn’t an authorised scheme. And none of the scheme suppliers are supporting, they’re not verifying the Building Safety Act work.
SALT WILMINGTON Just a comment on that, anything, Approved Document B1, B2, B4, B5 or B1, B3, B4, B5 is not exempt, so there’s no schemes or exemptions for any of that type of work in the building regulations. If you look up the 2010 building regulations, regulation 3 I think calls it out as to what is and what isn’t scheme work. So, an Approved Document B Part A and Document F are also not included within the schemes or exemptions.
PAUL WOMACK So, basically it goes through Gateway 2.
SALT WILMINGTON Yeah, well, it all depends on the definition of building work, what you’re doing. So, this is the debate that they’re having at the moment. At what point is it a material change? OS, if you’re removing intumescent strips from a fire door, is that considered a material change? If the strips have already fallen out and you’re making it better, so you’re reinserting the strips, then technically it shouldn’t be building control. If they are in place and at any time during the works the passive fire protection is reduced i.e. you’ve remove those intumescent strips, then technically it could be building control approval and say it would need to go to the BSR.
But, it’s getting that definition, there is no clear line on it. And getting a statement together to just sort of rationalise your approach, to show your understanding of why you’re making those decisions as to whether you are doing that building control request is probably quite a key thing around that. If you’ve got a statement that you believe supports your argument for not doing it then good luck to you.
KEVIN BAYLISS It was in connection to that point, that’s the importance of the change control plan in the HRBs. And from that point you’ve got, in the regulations my understanding is that if for a fact after you’ve done that and so on, and you think it’s a change and actually you think it’s a notifiable change and not a major, the BSR can come back and go look, sorry, we don’t think that, it’s a major. So, it’s really, really important to have that real concise research why you’re not doing that change to justify that. So, I’d be very cautious because they can come back and say we don’t think that that is a major, after the fact.
GEORGE STEVENSON I’d just like to ask, the 360 digital capture that we’re gong to do in January, it would be very helpful if we knew whether people were actually using reality capture, or if they were exposed to 360 photos on their projects. Either existing buildings, if you’re using 360 photos, or if the construction teams that are building new buildings for you, or if you are part of a construction team that is doing it, are you using things like MultiVista and OpenSpace and things like that. It would be helpful to know whether you’ve got those solutions in place.
In the chat, we out the questionnaire for the digital twin project, so if you wouldn’t mind looking at that and if you could give answer that. Like I say, it’s a very, very brief questionnaire, but it would be helpful to UCL.
CHAT
Ruben Romero Vivancos 10:48 am
We need to standardise more, we need to automate so that we can automate more so we can make things more easily audited, even by AI. But, at least the value of our input is being recognised
Hassan Ahmed (R5) 11:16 am
The declarations are from the Principal dutyholders and the client....
Pierre Venter 11:18 am
Comment: Andrew, there is a need for a Responsibility Matrix, Checklist for the Quality Control, and Deliverables. As part of the documentation and GoldenThread
Dumitru Minciu 11:29 am
Hi, did you specify COBie?
Neil Yeomans 11:30 am
there are also glaring holes in Cobie for residential properties
Phil Thompson 11:30 am
What about evidence based data?
Such as a transactional data?
Nick Nisbet 11:31 am
If you want transactional data see COBie3.
Bayliss, Kevin 11:31 am
I’m currently writing, Golden Thread policy for Wolverhampton Homes and have HRBs and putting projects through the Gateways now. I will review and comment on the workflows on document on Miro
Phil Thompson 11:32 am
Really, love to see some evidence
Pierre Venter 11:33 am
The Data needs a structured Container, O&M documents could be managed by the Manufacturer/Supplier, to ensure longevity and document maintenance in future. Model data is then a single source and managed by an owner (the Mnfr)
Connect the Model, to the External database, UniqueID abd one source in all instances.
Rachel Heaton 11:36 am
Thanks Paul. We should be looking at including GS1 Standards as the unique Product ID. I didn't see this in the straw man template.
Paul Oakley 11:40 am
Just added GS1 in
Dumitru Minciu 11:39 am
are they using Matterport camera?
matt wilkie 11:39 am
Theta
Pierre Venter 11:40 am
One failure is the physical ID, visual check, against the model. Substitue components are checked. Swop of Materials and documents in Grenfell?
I agree with Rachel Heaton, GS1 potential with the physical Audit connecting the installed component.. The AI is good butit still needs the physical check.
Bayliss, Kevin 11:43 am Edited
The technical subs needs if on site to indicate compliance and reason for the change, and research information for HRB's. It would be good to link to a change control plan log sign off process for evidence for HRB;s.
Paul Oakley 11:44 am
PTS process should include a schedule of components. Where substitutes are made this needs to be captured with a subsequent PTS approving the change. All this needs to be discussed in the group.
Karl Horner 11:45 am
The level of data that bmtrada need for example is a good example of this gap in data
Adey Badmos 11:46 am
There is no reason, why they should not have the information... Guess we just need to push for the information
Yes, BOQ
Phil Thompson 11:51 am
Depends on the lense you're using, some contractors are drip fed info, and cannot afford to wait, so just grab a catalogue and start making lists
Adey Badmos 11:53 am
I agree, we just need to get better at organisation and requests. More time needs to be built in for this at the design stage.
Phil Thompson 11:54 am
Hallelujah
matt wilkie 11:47 am
Phil Thompson I agree as I often see contractors pushed for information clients etc. should be giving them. Along with many contractors knowing their work is shared with others for competitive bids.
John Agar 11:48 am
We are working with our partner (Airsquire) to develop 360 image capture for sites that may be of interest to the forum. Their website is https://www.airsquire.ai/ The current direction of travel is to build in AI asset recognition into the software
Nick Nisbet 11:51 am
- COBie3 supports handover from owner to owner or from operator to operator, by including the state of components and intended and completed tasks etc
- ISO19650 Part 6 on sharing risk information will be released in January 2025. A BSI launch event will happen on 5th February.
Kwok Tak Wai 11:52 am
For sharing, technical submission should be as early as possible to take value from BIM
https://bim4housing-my.sharepoint.com/:b:/g/personal/bim_4_housing_bim4housing_org/EVgR-qRcandJsucuV4RD6SoBzW4OoWpOAj92SobFUnkTnQ?e=OHpNaE
Farghaly, Karim 12:05 pm
Datapoints based on requirements Vs Schema based Exchange Standard
Pierre Venter 12:07 pm
Ana, the hybrid approach is very good, because we get the best of all the tech and connection with people. Nice one
Christine Milling 12:07 pm
COBIE gives you a data snapshot
Neil Yeomans 12:08 pm
wasn't damning it Nick. I'm just saying that in the residential sector, it's not the standard I'd advise using.
Bayliss, Kevin 12:08 pm
we are using a number platforms for Wolverhampton homes to deliver golden thread not just Cobie to hold residents engagements, mor's etc
Adey Badmos 12:09 pm
Spot on.... The contractor could not verify material used, so Building control not able to sign off !
Pierre Venter 12:09 pm
Andrew Couldrige. Thats the correct process, as-planned, .priced, constructed, as-built and as-constructed. Nice one
Bayliss, Kevin 12:21 pm
Does this study deal with specific monitored of assets and recording it so we can use this to feeds into the modelling when in use? for refinement of maintenance and future design projects or alterations to existing during its life?
Nick Nisbet 12:21 pm
buildingsmart UKI has published a risk & asset & information management unification which can be used informally or with IFC or with OSCRE/HousingSchema. It is scalable and builds on what IS known about a facility.
William Borthen 12:24 pm
Thanks for the presentation Terence, I like the theory. Copperleaf do a similar approach for infrastructure asset management. It would need quite a lot of effort to assign a value using all the various measures, especially given it would need to be applied at individual asset level (as risk and consequence would vary according to the location and use of each asset). Keen to explore further.
Chris Craggs
interesting feature of these asset parameters is that they did NOT exist during construction - they become live only when used...we need FM experts to join the PFI group
Nick Nisbet 12:27 pm
Hopefully we are not going back to standard document structure for O&M. US navy thirty years ago?? "OMSI"
Christine Milling 12:28 pm
A lot about different templates to support data capture. We don't talk much about what is in asset management systems and how these can accept and validate data drops
matt wilkie 12:32 pm
I have been trying to get the business to go that way, I have bought the equipment along with several drones for the externals. As the 360 piece along with LiDAR is important as many of our buildings aren't measured correctly
Frazer Argyros-Farrell 04:50 pm
It sure did - Fire Safety is a significant part of asset and property management and there are definitely ways in which CHPK Fire Engineering and the wider CHPK Group can work with yourselves.