Digital Records Workstream Meeting 2 12-07-2024

DIGITAL RECORDS WORKSTREAM MEETING 2 12-07-2024

ADINA PONCIS We are on our second digital records session, we’ve had a quite insightful session about two weeks ago with interesting conversations and debates. Some of you on the first session might remember me saying I was under the impression that this was going to be the least challenging out of the three workstreams. By the end of the session I was eating my words and scratching my head at the many complexities that we talked about and the many points that we tried to join together. So, Adam and I were talking this morning trying to formulate a plan for today, so I’ve got an agenda that I’m just going to share with you…

I think the purpose of this group is just to identify some clear goals and scopes that we can feed back into the business case. In a way, we probably need to break down and interrogate all of the current processes so that we can integrate an efficient management of assets and then reconsolidate them. And in doing this we have to come up with a very, very practical and simple solution, whether this is going to a plan, a guide, a specification, it’s something that we still have to figure out and we can feedback into the business case.  George, if you’d like to give us an explanation on what we do overall and the other workstreams.

GEORGE (shares screen). This is where we’ve come from, and this work is still going on in BIM4Housing. We’re producing a lot of significant resources that are very applicable to all types of buildings. This is all available on the BIM4Housing website for you to download and the way in which we’ve made that up is by having a methodology and bringing together people who may be competitors, but grouping together to work collaboratively. So, this is informing the process by using examples. That’s very much what we want to do in this workstream, to say why do we need digital records? And what’s the impact of those? So, in this particular scenario this is growing the value of the safety case. So, looking at things from a point of view of why we are actually doing it, why do we need records of fire door inspections? Why do we need to know this specification of dampers, and the like?

The point is the ultimate goal is to prevent people being hurt through maybe the spread of smoke, in this scenario, and therefore also making sure that the whole of the compartment works and if that does’t adequately perform then you’ve got smoke control and detection systems. So it’s looking at the digital record, not from a point of view just that you’ve got a record, it’s actually why are you doing it, which is also feeding into the business case. What we’re doing now is looking at this from a perspective of looking at the various different gateways to manage that process through. So, looking at how individual assets are performing and what information do we need about them. All of this information is now available on the BIM4Housing website and also we’re looking at things that break the golden thread.

So, in other words, going through that process of saying when we’re getting a record, for example, of what the fire damper is or smoke damper is that’s being installed, how can we make sure that we’ve got the proper records of that. And that the information about design and construction is then being managed properly and the continuity of the asset information through that process. This is obviously the BIM In Asset Management group, and I wanted to explain that we’ve got basically four workstreams operational. That’s a data for your diary, the next forum meeting on the 11th of September. There is a team working on business case, so to try and understand or articulate why it is that clients and the team need to be looking at the business case for better information in asset management. The digital record group which is meeting now. Interoperability, so a lot of this is how it all connects together. And then we’ve also got the fire critical assets group as well.

Could we now do the poll? What we’re trying to do, on the last meeting there was discussions about whether the digital record was maybe a fire door inspection, for example, or was it actually just as-built drawings? The PFI teams were saying that that’s one of the big gaps that they’ve got. So we’d like you to choose what you think are digital records that you either need and also whether you’ve got them or not. This is going to help us steer forward what we want. So could I ask you to go on to the chat, open up that form…

ADAM SANDERS What if you don’t need them and don’t have them?

GEORGE Leave it blank. Good point. If we can give people a couple of minutes to fill that out, it’s going to make it a lot easier for us to get people’s view as to what they consider to be important.

JONATHAN FURLONG What do you mean as in you might have a 3D model of one of your buildings, but you might have 400 buildings.

GEORGE Good point, Jonny. Not sure, maybe you just have some. We’re really just trying to get a feel as to what people see as a digital record. This is one of the big ones for me as to whether people have got fire and emergency files. I was talking with Balfour Beatty this morning and they were talking about inspection and test and reports and they were saying that when they’re doing the inspections there can be 300 things that they’re doing those against, so they need to get records for each of those things that they are inspecting. And they made a point that the impact on defects and problems, the industry is still getting a very high defect rate. And 40% of health & safety incidents actually result from people having to do rework which is quite staggering statistics.

And then the next one is what software are people using? So this is largely for the interoperability group because if we can understand what software people are using. And this isn’t an exhaustive list, if there’s others that you’re using to capture digital records, then please put them down, but if you’re using some of these it would be helpful if we could get that on.

ADINA PONCIS Let’s bring the slide back. We tried to summarise from our previous session and a topic that keeps coming up, not only on digital record sessions but pretty much on all of the other workstream is around the stock that we have of existing old buildings where digital records may not always be available. So, we tried to produce a very basic simple diagram with some generic use cases of buildings with different levels of digital maturity so we can break these types of building down wit different levels. So, we break them down and look at what are the issues. So maybe with the help of the asset managers and facility managers on the room today we could look at what exactly are the problems that they are facing.

So, the key to these diagrams is, if you look at example 1 slide A, it’s a building and the shapes within that are asset types or components. The blue field one represents digitised assets, the nude field represents assets that are not digitised, and the bold outline represents assets with digitised asset types using BIM principles. If we look at example 1 and then go through and look the other examples and then maybe do a raise of hands on how many are using the example 1 type of building, example 2, example 3, and then we break it down into what the typical issues are for these type of buildings. If you look at the example 1, this is a building with fully digitised assets following BIM principles and transparent from delivery to operation as an asset information model. So when we see that we feel like wow, wonderful. But actually it turned out from the previous sessions that we hear from people in the room that actually there are loads of issues that this type of building can have.

An example of the issues could be that the data is not portable and they might have difference systems and they might have to work elsewhere and the data is not portable. Or asset information requirements were not very clear from the onset and therefore they produced low quality data which is not interpretable and facility managers are struggling to find the correct information. I think also what Daryn was mentioning last time, they are asset owners who have invested heavily in smart digital solutions, but if you have a poor quality data file you obviously can’t really have a good return on your investments. So, if your data is not trusted you would definitely be struggling, even if you have digitised assets.

Example 2 could be a portfolio of asset facets…a housing association, perhaps, with limited or non-existing digital records. so you have site A that doesn’t have any type of digital records, you might just have some hard copies of floor plans somewhere stuck on a dusty crate. You might have some other type of asset where, due to the new building regulations, they start producing some type of digital records, for example, they started doing work and replacing their fire doors. So, you would see the blue triangles across several sites where they do have some type of digital records and as they move on from one project to another they will eventually end up with some type of digital records.

Now, the issues with these this type of buildings, an example from my field of work, we do a lot of refurbishment and retrofit work and we work with housing associations. We found typically that they don’t have an accurate list of properties, they don’t really have asset lists or they don’t know what the current state of their assets. What do they have to do? They have to order some surveys which costs them money and costs us time because we’ve already started mobilisations when we win the contract. So, these are typical examples, and how can we find solutions to these type of issues? I was talking to David Carrie? 22 mins 5 secs the other day, who has a fantastic wealth of knowledge and he was talking about digital solutions and I thought we’re kind of putting the horse before the cart and we need to make sure that we have some good quality data first before we move into the solutions.

But then he said no, that actually the solutions out there like drones or laser scanning where you can just scan the building and produce a floor plan and then maybe install a 360 camera, something an example that you showed us on our first session, George, which had really good positive feedback. And so you install this fairly inexpensive camera and you capture and tag all of the important assets. So, maybe we can look at the cost of this, these are very inexpensive solutions, but I think when we think of feeding back into the business case it would be ideal to have some kind of ideas on the costs. So if we have a residential building in London, X amount of square feet, 6 levels and 80 flats, how much would it cost to produce all of these type of information? And when we present it back to the client, whenever we were trying to present a business case, it might be, well, I don’t really have a budget for this.

Then, if you look at the risks of not having the information and trying to weight this risk to the costs incurring to produce this type of digital records. So, if we look at this type of scenarios and maybe flag out more issues and potential solutions. Example 3 would be you do have a building where you produced a digital information model, but you’re actually going through some maintenance or you are just have to replace some of your components, like boilers, for example. And I think there was an example on the last session that they are not necessarily updating the asset information model with the new data. So again, you will end up with two sets of records which you wouldn’t really know which one is the updated one. So if we go back into the room and go and do a show of hands of how many people are seeing Example 1, for example.

DARYN FITZ Everything that you’ve articulated, I am seeing on projects and with clients everywhere. However, I just want to put a different spin on this. The issue that we’ve actually got at the moment is that you’ve got this like EIRs and AIRs being written in isolation, just around ISO 19650. They are not considering standards around O&M deliverables, guidance that you might get from BSRIA. They are not considering things like COSh and things like that. so when we’re talking about data I think you need to go back to actually understanding why we’re actually requesting this data in the first place, first of all and being really explicit on that, whether it be regulatory statutory requirements or other reporting. Then, when you’ve understood that, there is enough guidance out there already from various professional organisations and will turn around and give you guidance and say this is what we consider good practice at the moment.

You can then adapt that and then bring that back into the BIM process. And for me at the moment there’s too many documents and processes being written out there that are just very much focused on the BIM process, not considering all of the other stuff that’s going on out there, especially why are we collecting this data in the first place. For me, it doesn’t matter whether it’s 3D, 2D, point clouds, we need to understand what the purpose is in the first place. So, a lot of my work I’m doing at the moment is completely different to what I was doing four years ago, completely breaking this all down. I’m looking at things like the Internet of Things at the moment, connective devices, risks of those to buildings and asset owners at the moment, and looking at standards and specifications around that.

And that then gets integrated into your electronic asset management systems, your risk management systems, all of those processes, which will then go back and actually inform things like soft landings and actually the BIM processes as well. So, the BIM is the enabler, I would suggest, but we need to think about all of these other things. You are talking about an area that I’m looking at extensively with multiple clients who all have the same issues, currently, without even talking about trying to keep their information up-to-date and keep it relevant. If we can get away from actually paying out the hundreds of thousands of pounds every three years to do conditioning surveys and actually understand what assets we’ve actually got out in our portfolios, I think we would have done a good job across the industry.

ADINA PONCIS Thank you, you’re points from the previous session, they’re really good and we actually covered a lot of them on our next slide.

CHRIS JEFFERS Actually, I was going to say quite a few of the bits that Daryn said there in terms of the world of the documentation that we need to all relate to it. Just to add that I completely concur with that and also to add one small point as well, we’re seeing this and it’s part of the discussion I wanted to raise today. You’ve got there in terms of Example 1, you used the words digitised assets, Example 3 where you talk about different digital formats and digitised components. I think ti would be very helpful, indeed others on this group may think I can point in the right direction there, it would be helpful if we had something that defined and told our customers and our clients and the people in our world what that means. What does it mean to say that you have a digital asset? Or a digitised asset? Because I don’t think that’s very well understood.

ADINA PONCIS Do we have anyone in the room who would like to share their thoughts on the first example? No. Anybody that’s working on typical buildings of Example 2, existing buildings with no digital records or a mixture of digital and non-digital?

CHRIS JEFFERS Absolutely, we’ve got plenty of customers and clients who…I think it might even be more fundamental than that. If you were to ask them they would say no, if they were to actually go and look they may have some, but they wouldn’t know it. But in effect the graphic that you would show would still be blank because they wouldn’t be using it in the right way with other systems in the way that they should be. And I think that’s predominantly what I find, I certainly don’t find Example 1, I might find a bit of 3, but 2 is where most of our work seems to be, pretty much.

GEORGE I think the interesting challenge with that is that because they are normally asked for that information for a particular purpose, like Adina’s point earlier about retrofit maybe, and therefore the easy answer is just to commission a new survey, rather than actually doing a little bit more work to try and find out what already existed. And that I think is part of the problem because it means that nobody is ever addressing the fundamental, getting to a baseline that can then be built from. And I think that that’s what we should be very much within this group encouraging people to do. Not creating a new set of digital records, but really revisit what you’ve got and then try and improve them because then you’ve got a chance of moving things forward.

CHRIS JEFFERS I completely agree with that.

ADINA PONCIS I agree, George, and we discussed last night about trusting the data and how can we find solutions of trusting the data and reusing the data. A typical example, if us a contractor is going to do some major works and then they have a different contractor in a year or so trying to do similar type of works, are they going to be trusting the work that we’ve produced? Are there going to be conducting different surveys? Again, it comes with a cost. But I think it’s fairly important that these clients realise that amount of money they are losing by not having the proper records, not knowing what their properties are or buildings, or not even having the residents’ profiles, they don’t even know who are the people who are living in their buildings, which just eats away from their other budgets.

SUE NEWTON I’m on Example 2 and it isn’t about not having the data because most of us will have the data in the digital form in some form or another in some area of the business, whether that’s handover files or whether it’s on the tenancy records and things like that. So, we will have it somewhere, it’s pulling all of that data together, validating it and then putting it into a system that can then be used better. Because at the moment I look for data, can’t find it easily, when I do find it it’s missing some important bit of information that we need, and you end up as you say going to do a new survey again or doing some intrusive works to find out what you need to know.

So, we do need to find that data and bring it together and that is the main point for me. So I’m looking at bringing all fo our data into a SharePoint site ready for when we might be in the process of moving in to a new system for maintaining our asset data, but I think we need to do that before you go ahead and buy a new system because you need to know what you’ve got already before you can put it in to the system.

ADINA PONCIS Absolutely so you need to work with having robust information management processes or using standards for data formats so that the data can be portable from one system to another. So this is another topic that we’re going to touch on the next slides. Yeah, these are the real issues where the people in the operation teams are facing, so if we can focus on putting all of these issues together and trying to flush them out to find the most efficient solutions.

GEORGE Just to build on what Sue was saying there, we do quite a lot of stuff of pulling together documents and drawings and schedules and things and one of the most important things to do is to make sure that if you’ve got references that refer, for example, schedules to drawings or products to schedules, that you make sure that you don’t lose those connections because that is something very easily done, and once it’s done you’ve lost a valuable relationship there. You need to make sure that, for example, room references and space references are not lost but they are retained, even if you create a new name for a space, because that is very common, people will rename spaces. But from a database point of view you don’t need to lose the old name for it, the old reference, you retain that so that things that have been done that refer to those aren’t lost. So, that’s an important thing to consider.

ADINA PONCIS If we don’t have any other raised hands we should move to the next slide. There is already a lot of work done by other people and loads of other standards and unfortunately this might not have been practical enough to be implemented. So we need to find good solutions and one of them would be to have a long term strategy so the information is consistently used across the lifecycle of the building. And I’ve put a couple of examples on how can we achieve that, we can start by simplifying the BIM terminology and promoting it as better information management that can be implemented without a high budget. I know in the construction phase we’ve gone a lot of work in the past couple of years to promote BIM not entirely as a 3D model, but as a process. And I know we’ve started on this kind of sessions, we need to think what can we do to promote this?

And to get the attention of the clients and that BIM is not all about technology, BIM is not only about the 3D, you don’t really require a high budget or a trained team of skilled people to implement it. Another solution could be, which George raised a couple of times and to me sounds like one of the major things to implement, it’s including a soft landing process at an early engagement with operations team and to establish a clear asset information requirement. So, soft landings is a strategy for an early engagement of both building users and those who will manage the facility. Clear data requirements, if we establish these clear data requirements by actually working with the asset managers and involving facilities managers and asset managers really early in the process. It is key to resolve quite a lot of the issues.

Also, having a strong handover strategy including requirements, what exactly do you require as part of your handover process? What do you require for your digital O&Ms? George, you said we have ISG and Waites who’d like to have a bigger discussion around the O&Ms and what are the standard documents that we need to include in the O&M manuals or the asset information models. And again, using robust information management processes and standards, I think that’s also another key to the main strategy.

ADAM SANDERS I think one of the key points to take onboard here is that if you have a whole load of data or information about a building, unless you maintain that data all of the data loses its value very quickly. And I think other people have touched on it in terms of, oh, I don’t trust that data I’ve got so I go and instruct a new survey. And this interlinks with the business case group that are working, but whatever we do with these digital records it’s got to be something which asset managers can use which they could easily provide to FM companies. So that when an asset is touched, maintained, checked, serviced, replaced, retired, that central golden thread single source of truth, whatever you want to call it, is updated because the second you don’t trust 10% of it, the second 10% of it is inaccurate, you can’t trust 100% of the data. So I think really this digital records group is about how do we make these digital records accessible so that we have a long term strategy.

ADINA PONCI I totally agree, Adam. Do we have anyone else who wants to share their opinions on this?

GEORGE Adina, Martin or Andy from Waites, I think we ought to give them a couple of minutes to explain what they’re doing.

MARTIN McDONALD Me and Andy are trying to put together a group of Tier 1 contractors   to try and come up with a digital best practice and digital strategy for project delivery. But what I was going to say is if we’ve got the level of information that we need which should cover the whole lifecycle of the project, why don’t we just do one just for digital so that we’ve got a digital level of information need that spans right from stage 1, stage 2, right up to stage 6. And then we’ve got a digital record all of the way through, we’ve got all of the assets, how they’re delivered, who they’re delivered to, when they’re needed.. it will just cover the entire process.

GEORGE Obviously it needs to be digital, Martin, I think you’re going to have everybody onboard with that. But in terms of what information you’d want, that level of information need is informed by purpose, what the role is of the people that need the information. So, I think part of our mission here is to define what that needs to be from an asset management perspective, which is in itself very broad, isn’t it. Would you agree, Martin?

MARTIN McDONALD Yeah, there is a lot in there and it does cover a lot. I’m just trying to get to a way that we can do it that’s just like there is one place to go where you’ve got all of the information that you need for the entire lifecycle of the project.

GEORGE I agree, the principle of what you’re saying is very sound, I’m just trying to think about how we actually…part of that, this digital record group is there to define what information you need as a digital record from an asset management perspective, that’s really what we’re trying to do. So the level of information need, maybe what we do is do you have an example that you could give is?

MARTIN McDONALD I haven’t, unfortunately. I was just thinking about what Adam was saying about if you don’t maintain the data it’s useless. If there is something set out right from the project’s start that mandates that it’s got to be continued for 5 years after, 10 years after, it’s got to be renewed whenever something needs renewing, if we have that set up right at the start then it would be a lot more helpful.

GEORGE I agree, but can I just give you an example, Martin. I’m connected with quite a few building control people because I think they’re performing quite a critical role in all of this because they can actually stop the whole project from going forward if they’re not satisfied. And I was on a meeting the week before last with them and the Building Safety Regulator was actually on the meeting. I asked the question about the information that was needed for the fire and emergency file. I said my assumption is that it needs to contain everything that was requited by law under Regulation 38, which is the fire safety information. And I said is it reasonable to assume that the information going forward should include everything that was asked for at Regulation 38?

And he said, well, that’s really up to the responsible person. And I thought, wow, that’s a really political answer because it’s nonsense, in my view. If you needed that information as a digital record at handover, and it’s about fire safety, then why on earth wouldn’t that be part of what you need to manage going forward? I can’t imagine that you wouldn’t need to retain it. So, that’s the sort of practical thing that we ought to have in that level of information need going forward. Does that make sense?

CHRIS JEFFERS It certainly does to me, you absolutely would want that sort of information, it’s exactly what is needed if you are either someone who has gone through the whole process, whether it’s a new build and you take it over or you’re taking over an existing estate, you need to find that information as quickly as possible and it needs to be consistent. I know I’ve said this before and I’m sorry if people are getting bored of me saying it, but there needs to be a standardised way of presenting that information, there doesn’t seem to be any reason why we can’t do that. And I’m a bit surprised with what he said you, to be honest, because it definitely should be in there, without a doubt.

ADAM SANDERS The difficulty with having standardised ways of providing information is that people expect a standardised data structure, and the sooner we move away from that to something that is more flexible and we realise that fields between providers simply won’t match up and that you have to just accept the data that you get back, all of this will be able to move on much faster. Because otherwise we’re going to end up saying that you’re going to have data standard Version 1 which is going to collect asset information in this way, it’s going to have these fields, these options. And then everybody will migrate, or some people will migrate to Version 2 and Version 3 and we all get stuck anyway. To me, that’s the biggest blocker for all of this, it’s the biggest blocker when integrating systems together as well.

GEORGE Yeah, the good thing about this, Adam, is we’ve got the interoperability group that can focus on that. I think what we need to do is determine what information is needed, not how it’s being stored. I think that’s what you’re saying really, isn’t it? What you’re saying is that you don’t want just one way of storing that information, but what we do want to know is that that information is available.

ADAM SANDERS Yeah, so if you said I’ve got a whole load of assets and one of the fields is colour or size or whatever, and somebody measures the size in inches and somebody measures in millimetres and somebody describes it as red or somebody else describes it as mauve or whatever it is. You need to find ways to be able to operate with multiple data structures within these systems.

GEORGE And we can do that, that’s very much what the interoperability group is going to be looking at.

CHRIS JEFFERS I don’t really agree with that in principle, but I understand what you mean in terms of the fact that we are where we are, the reality of the industry, I agree with that. And that is for the other group, I agree, George. But I do see that there is a lot of other drivers and other players in that space, particularly commercial drivers, so I just think that that’s a problem.

ADAM SANDERS There are so many data standards out there and there’s so many you can choose, you can run multiple ones at the same time, there are so many different public and private standards. I just think we would get so lost, what we want to do is to define what we want the records to do and we either want to go, right, a record is either going to be some form of structured-ish data in whatever format that takes…or you’ve got a document which is a PDF or an Excel file or a Word document, or you’ve got some kind of image or video.

And if we could just try and start to focus on data being one of those three things, and if it’s structured data you can query it, some of the AI stuff that’s coming now in terms of trying to normalise unstructured data is getting quite cool, yes, it’s fairly processor intensive. And then you just go, well, look, I’ve got video records or digital images, and that’s a great audit trail for an asset or a room or a space or whatever.

CHRIS JEFFERS I think in principle I totally agree with you in terms of the fact that we need to accept the fact that there are lots of different ways of describing the same thing. We have real challenges when it comes to collect data when you go out and say how are we all going to collect it. And if I appoint company A to do it, I appoint company B to do it, I write a schema for them to do it, then it has to be in a particular way (question mark) and then how that data is used in the future. It’s all in the mix, absolutely.

ADAM SANDERS As an FM contractor are you doing that integration?

CHRIS JEFFERS I work for a consultancy, so I’m not a contractor myself, but in terms of what we see that others are doing, they are attempting to do it. And sometimes it’s successful and sometimes it’s not, and sometimes (not always) the issue becomes down to what people describe, how it’s structured and that’s where the frustration comes in terms of not having, maybe not one way of doing it, but perhaps a set of rules around what that information should be. And that’s what I’ve just put in the chat around the FMS series 02 because that’s a good start in terms of what you should think about in terms of the data fields.

PHIL THOMPSON Again, a great conversation. I just wanted to remind people, though, that from a strategic perspective we seem to be talking about information at the end, because we’re defining an asset as products within the building, but unless we get the data strategy right in terms of how those products become assets. And I think about the strategy here, we need to be addressing the things that we should stop doing. We always tend to focus on the things that we need to do, but what if we continue to do the things that we’re doing that are undermining those improvements. For example, I think it was perhaps Martin mentioned the information that contractors use, does that information…do the contractors take the information from the merchant and then they use that in their own systems? And then do they pass that information on then to the client as part of an asset?

And I think there is an element of people need to get their own house in order, we need to be doing the basics first rather than trying to address the more complex issues around the asset management. Because fundamentally the information that we take as part of the transactional process, part of the build process, and we pass to the client is flawed.

ADINA PONCIS Thank you, we do talk on our next slide about validation of information and also the data sets for the products and how we create these libraries of data sets.

DAVID CAREY It’s a frustration of two projects that I’ve worked on within the last year, both in Saudi Arabia, and it’s where the lack of generic understanding of data and its management by the end client meant that projects were going askew in that the procurement route was being dealt with by one department. They were looking to the IT Department to lead on the compatibility of IT systems and to do what is essentially a data mapping process for which neither organisation, two of the largest within Saudi Arabia, neither organisation the individuals were equipped, trained, qualified or capable of mapping out the data. And you’re talking about something of transfer of asset databases.

In each case the kick off meeting what astonished me, and meant that we had to include a lot more emphasis to get things rolling, was the lack of understanding, not just where you edge into data security and ISO 27001 and all of its attachments, but that the very concept that you only have one instance, that’s what they were thinking, it’s the database. And it’s a fundamental flaw to think that you wouldn’t have one with the mirror back up, but also for training and development, also for the research and development where you’re going to try to find different ways of things working. And normally I would expect to have about six different instances, all of which have to be kept at different levels of accuracy because in some cases it’s sensitive government projects where things have to be taken away for archiving purposes on a regular basis.

So, I agree exactly with what Phil was saying is that there are instances where it’s not necessarily within your control to look at the data. But there are, as I discussed with Adina, a series of ISOs to which I’m one of the contributors in 41016 where it tries to describe some of the terminology. But basically it’s an education part of the process and we do tend to get stuck in the weeds of the minutiae of the details, trying to solve problems and not look back at the issues which are taken for granted, they’ll cause flaws that cause misunderstandings. And that sets into place, as I’ve seen in both of these major projects, negative attitudes between individuals because classic male of a certain age and certain seniority, they cannot accept and own up to the fact that they don’t know what they’re talking about, they are loathe to take advice and on that basis things kind of get confrontational when they needn’t do so. And it’s all based around the quality and consistency of data.

ADINA PONCIS I very much agree, David, we’ve talked yesterday about you mentioned there are around 3,300 standards already for the built environment and I actually looked at the ISO 19650 Part 3 and I thought, oh my God, just a lightbulb, there are all of these solutions in there. But I think this working group, we need to define the practical solutions, I am aware there are a lot of other working groups the likes of ourselves which are trying to maybe do exactly the same things and why weren’t they successful? I think because there are loads of standards out there and when you try to look at all of the standards, a couple of hundred pages document, they could be kind of complicated. So what we’re trying to do is to have all of these conversations and produce practical solutions and, as Phil said, not only look at what we’re trying to achieve, but looking at what we’re doing wrong and maybe eliminate what we’re doing wrong.

JONATHAN FURLONG I think maybe to try to find a solution for it. I think we’ve all agreed there’s a standard out there for almost everything, there’s literally hundreds of them. And also I think that all of these information requirements, Reg 38 or any other information that might be required, it is all there, so all of the information is there. What we should maybe be trying to do in this group is figure out what do we digitise and how and not get caught up on the terminology. For instance, try to think about teams of information, so when people are talking about…when you get handed over information on the doors you might get tonnes of manufacturer specific information. Does that need, and it will probably come over in PDF which is electronic, but is that digital? So which of that information would need to be in, for instance, a database? In something that’s structured.

So, it might be things about the inspection regime of how often it gets inspected, because that’s something that in the asset management you are going to need to know. Stuff about the material of the seal on doors probably completely useless, or doesn’t need to be readily available, unless your’e going to be replacing that seal. And then in that case going back into a PDF and reading the PDF and finding…the information. So I think we should be looking at coming up with groupings of digital and do it for generalised, because I know, for instance, that George has done it with  a couple of products in the BIM4Housing workstream where they went into a huge level of detail for some products.

But I think trying to do that here, we’re only ever going to manage maybe 10 products, so I think it’s a much more worthwhile exercise instead of trying to just do 10 products, do a more generalised one which then people could go away and apply for all of their assets. So you might want to share some key fields in a dropdown and standardised things like warranty information, who is responsible for it, when is it going to be checked? Things like logs of who and what work has happened on those assets, things like that. So, maybe we try and do something like that, because that would be something that asset owners could take away, plus also software providers could take away and go, OK, this is how we should be managing this information.

And it would also give a clear strategy for people who are creating the O&Ms and even your Reg 38 files etc, to go OK, these bits should be definitely pure data and they should be to a particular standard. These bits might be data, but more free data, and then these bits can be more whatever, it might be a PDF, an image, a video etc.

ADINA PONCIS Thank you, Jonny, this is what we kind of have on our fourth slide, and this again came up on the business case quite a lot, using plain language, as you said, and making it hugely complicated. Another thing is not producing the data for the sake of data, capturing data for the sake of data, but trying to work out what is the data that we need? What is the asset types? And what is the most important information that we need to have for this type of asset? And so, yes, our next slide is around interrogating data requirements, activities, rules, to integrate an efficient management of the assets. So, questions like what is a digital record? Why do we need a digital record? Are there any records available for an existing building? For example, are these floor plans 2D or 3D, who defines the asset information requirements?

Are the operation teams involved at this stage? Data governance, who owns the data? Again, this is a conversation that we had on our previous sessions. We don’t know that loads of contractors or different stakeholders at some point in time they will own the data, is this data going to feedback to the client. So, data quality and format required for consistency and interoperability, standardised data format and product libraries for data transfer using standards like ISO 19650 Part 2 and Part 3 for operation phase of assets. The ISO 55013 which I think divides around the data, David was mentioning about the ISO 41016 which is around the technologies. Do we use Uniclass for naming to define data libraries of products? How is the client validating and verifying the information? What point are they doing that reuse of data? Trust on reusing the data, as we mentioned before.How often does that component get inspected, serviced or replaced? So again, if we could produce a little bit more information around these type of queries. What’s it connected to?

I was having a conversation with Adam today, if you have a lift it might be collected to your fire alarms, if you have a boiler what is it connected to your pipes and what are the M&E components? Who’s responsible for that asset? What’s the warranty? Where is it, model spatial location versus postal addresses? What is your thing managing products? How are the changes and changing products recorded managing system? So, these are the type of questions that was raised on previous meetings and these are the type of questions that would help us formulate a plan. So, we need to deconstruct the processes around these questions and interrogate them to see how can we help the operations team and how can we produce a plan for the entire lifecycle of the building and not only working in isolation for the design and build phase. What are your thoughts on this?

CHRIS JEFFERS I completely agree, I’m really onboard with that and I think in particular that last bit you just mentioned about the whole lifecycle, it’s got to be a systems-based thinking approach. It just strikes me though that a lot of this information is already there, so when we’re actually thinking about which system is connected to which there will be people who will know that there will be information that actually shows that. And when we think about how we want to relay that and have a common way of doing it in terms of what will be recognised by others, easily transferable.

And picking up on David’s point earlier which is just all of the time that when it comes to actually using the data over time people are not trained and don’t have the understanding etc, so making that whole process easier. There is quite a bit of good stuff out there and I think it’s not reinventing the wheel, but it’s putting all of that information in the right context as to what we would want it to be as a, I know we slightly disagree as a group on the word, but as a standard, as a recognised way of doing it.

GEORGE I was going to pull in Adam because I think Adam has also developed some things that very helpfully he shared with us into the meeting, I’ve only just read it, Adam.

ADAM SANDERS I think this is all relatively well accepted, what we’re saying here. I think what we want the group to do is to say OK, who are the stakeholders in this process? So fine, we need to have some information on an asset which says how does it get inspected, serviced or replaced? It’s going to get serviced this often. What’s it connected to? How does it work in terms of a system? So, if you’ve got a fire alarm and the fire alarm is connected to an AOV and it’s also connected to something else which alerts something else or makes the lift return to the ground floor, that’s operating as a system. So, we need to know that when somebody services that fire alarm that they check that the lift is doing what it’s supposed to do and that the AOV is open and that the ARC is working. But all of that data needs to get to a stakeholder, so if you’ve got this single source of truth, your golden thread, whatever you want to call it these systems, that FM contractor or provider needs to get it out to their contractor.

How does the guy on the ground get to that information? And what does he need to see when he goes and does his service, what information needs to go back to this record? And it’s those processes, that workflow, that I think this group needs to talk about in terms of what’s the problem what doesn’t happen, then we can define what these digital records need to do. I keep hearing people going about transfer of information almost like you do a data dump, you give it to the FM contractor, they go and do their years-worth of servicing and it comes back into the central system. And I don’t think we can have that, it’s got to be relatively live and it’s got to address most of these points. That’s why we’ve said who have we got here who that’s an asset manager? Who have we got here that’s in facilities management? And what are the problems? Why isn’t this stuff already working as we’re describing this utopia at the moment? What’s stopping us implementing this stuff?

ADRIAN MOKUS I think it’s down to the client, really, because they’re not inviting those people to the meetings at the early stage, so as BIM should really be the end product in the mind. The whole lifecycle needs to begin at the end, if that makes sense. So unless it’s not defined clearly the purpose of the building, let’s say that we’re building a hospital, what data do we need in a hospital? There is certain data that is general for any building, every building has doors, walls, all of that. But then there is data that is required for assets for the purpose of that building, so if it’s a school there needs to be certain assets related just for the purpose of that building.

So it’s kind of like a product mind of view for each building or facility and that’s why there should be a standardised assets or data requirements for those assets for these specific purposes. And then that would help the client and the teams from the beginning. OK, this is the data that we are basically working with. It then can be tweaked towards the project information requirements, but on the organisational level, so when we’re talking about OIRs it should be in ISO 19650 Part 1, how does the strategic asset management plan align with that straight from the beginning, if it’s not clearly defined. Then regardless what comes at the end, it’s not going to align with that.

ADAM SANDERS I work for a software company and I would agree with you in that generally the problem is that the client doesn’t define what they want and they don’t tell the contractors, they don’t tell their suppliers what they need from them. If they did, most of the suppliers would be very happy to give that information back, but once the client realises what they need it’s generally too late. The goal of this group is to say and say to those clients, to those asset managers, look, here is your business case, this is why you need to do this stuff. We’re trying to say, look, this is what a digital record looks like and this is what it needs to do.

So, a digital record being some kind of a system, or several sets of systems, we’re not trying to define what those systems are, but they need to achieve these things for you. And then we’ve got this final working group which is doing the interoperability which says OK, you’ve got this great idea of what these records need to look like, this is how it needs to talk to other systems. So, asset manager, property owner, whoever it is, has got their systems, facilities manager, FM company, contractors, they’ve got their systems. How are they going to talk to each other? What we want to do in this workstream is define what we need those digital records to achieve, I think.

GEORGE Definitely, and if I could just pick on that a couple of people have put things in the chat about COBie and IFC and things like that which I’m very happy for us to have a conversation on, but not in this group. I think that needs to be done in the interoperability group. The reason I’m saying that is that what Adam has just said there is important, what we’re doing is defining what information is needed, not what technology format it needs to be described in. And I think that’s a big mistake that we all get into, including us, when we’re actually defining a lot of these things. We’re worrying about taxonomy and classification whereas actually you want to know what the fire rating is of a door. Or do you want to know what the fire rating is of a door? Or what other properties do we need to know and for what purpose? And I think that’s really important for asset managers to be able to be given the opportunity which I see that’s  a critical part of what we do is to take away, demystify a lot of the BIM terminology so that we can actually get to the heart of it. I don’t mean to criticise what you’re saying there, but that’s important to do.

ADAM SANDERS I think the difficulty is what we’ve got to do is try and get this on to a decent output. I think we’ve all agreed that getting the data to the FM contractor and back is the problem, or a problem. That the client isn’t asking for what they want, I’m seeing a few comments from Sue saying I kind of know I want this stuff, but I don’t really know how to achieve it, I don’t know if that’s an unfair précis of what you’re saying, Sue. And I think what we’re trying to do is say to people like Sue these are the kind of things you need to be asking for and these are the kind of things that your data needs to do. How you achieve it, it doesn’t really matter, maybe here’s a few ideas or a few systems that you could use to achieve it.

But I think that’s what we’ve got to get to is trying and run through, the last meeting I suggested we try and do some scenarios in terms of what are the kind of things the FM contractors are doing that’s complicated? What information do we need to get to them? They’re just one set of stakeholders, but who are the others? If we’ve got an asset, what’s the other kind of data that we need to look at? And I guess that’s that middle group bullet points, so if we look at a location, how do we store a location? Is it a set of coordinates? Is it just a description in terms of this is within a space? Is it X, Y, Z coordinates? Is it a tag on a 3D photo? What are the kind of things that we’re trying to do. We’re not looking at the data fields, but what are the use cases for all of those things? And maybe for next time we just need to try and lay these out and try and get the group to chuck some ideas at us for that.

CHRIS JEFFERS I just want to add to that, just in terms of what we want the data to do, what we think it’s needed for, I think we can list that out pretty quickly. So I’m very happy to help with that, wherever we’re going to put that information.

ADAM SANDERS Chris, do you know what would be helpful is if we did a side meeting, just with you, Sue and anybody else that wants to be in there that thinks they can chuck some ideas at us in terms of those use cases. 20-30 minutes, and let’s just try and get that bullet pointed and then we’ll produce a document or a presentation, whatever, we can just circulate it to everybody on this group and we’ll use that as the starting point for the next meeting where hopefully everybody can come in and have a whole load of ideas. And then it’s just a matter of note taking and trying to distill it into an output.

CHRIS JEFFERS Absolutely, sure.

ADAM SANDERS Is there anybody else who would like to join that?

GEORGE I think that Sue has had to leave the meeting, but I’m sure that she would help. I’d certainly be very keen to be involved in that.

ADAM SANDERS If anybody changes their mind, I guess drop to the BIM In Asset Management email group or to jiss or to George an email. And at the next meeting we should be able to really crack on with some stuff.

ADINA PONCIS The next meeting, I think we’re going to have it around late September, so maybe some of you in the group have experience with some of the questions that are now on the slide and you want to take away some of them and come up with some ideas, or come up with use case scenarios that would be very helpful.

GEORGE I think as well we may be able to get a Miro board set up as well for that meeting. I’ll try and arrange that so that we can actually have something a bit graphic that people can work on. And importantly it means that other people can contribute to it if they can’t actually make the meeting. We’ll maybe set something up relatively quick over the next two or three weeks. OK, we can arrange that. The other thing I was going to raise was, can I just ask Andy, could you just mention what you and Martin are trying to initiate.

ANDY SIMPSON I think Martin mentioned it earlier. We’re trying to get our heads together in trying to get some of our colleagues or peers in organisations across the industry to just try and define a strategy for handover best practice, project information best practice. so, looking across the board at COBie and asset data and O&Ms and FM tools snd all of that sort of stuff and just trying to define what the best solution is. Because we’ve all got our different approaches, we’ve all got our different areas of expertise, so we thought by getting our heads together we might be able t come up with something, essentially like a response to the Building Safety Act. Because everyone is aware of it. But I think everybody has got a different approach and a different interpretation of what their response is going to be. So I think if we can get our heads together on that and just come up with a standard this is a best approach for it, then it gives us an advantage.

ADAM SANDERS When you talk about a project, and I think this is what’s quite interesting is we’re really looking at a building lifecycle, whereas FM contractors think about projects and contracts. So, what is a typical project for you? Give me one example of something that you would be delivering for a client and then we can talk around some of that data exchange.

ANDY SIMPSON I’m in charge of O&M manuals, health & safety files. Health & safety files is another one really, we all know roughly what we should be doing, but has anybody got a standard approach to a health & safety file? All of the different principal designers seem to want to see different things. For example, some of them want to see as-built drawings in it, some won’t, is there a standard way of doing it? Hanover checklists as well…

ADAM SANDERS So, we’re talking about construction here, not ongoing maintenance.

ANDY SIMPSON Yes. So, handover checklists, obviously we’ve got a list of deliverables that we have to provide to our clients. How do we manage that? And what’s the best way of doing that? It's all really about the Building Safety Act, we’re collecting all of this data, some of it is in the health & safety file, some of it is in the handover checklist, some of it is commissioning, some of it is O&M. What are our processes for presenting that in a Regulation 38 fire & emergency file? Have we got a defined solution for how we’re going to do that?

ADINA PONCIS Andy, I’d be very happy to join that meeting as well, as a contractor.

CHRIS JEFFERS Just to add to what Andy was saying there about the information that’s produced through the construction, the D&B, whatever that project is. That information is then of course used through the operational phase, so whilst it is viewed and perceived as construction based and PM based information and data, it’s used for the life of the building. And of course that is the context of what we’re talking about here. So, I think the handover piece is fantastic, a really good idea.

GEORGE Obviously, Adam, your principle focus has been on residential, but this is much wider than that, asset management, which you appreciate. And the fact is that on most FM contracts there is constant projects going on and therefore the handover bit that Andy has just been talking about there is constantly happening. So therefore it’s very relevant and it’s live right the way through. I’d also say that we as Active Plan have been working with a range of different health & safety file people, including the HSE, to try and come up with some standardised ways of not just using folders, but using databases as folders. So, that’s something that we want to share much more widely with people, so maybe we pick up on that and do a session on it, maybe in September.

DAVID CAREY I'll put my hand up and volunteer to go on the group if you want an FM consultant's perspective from British origins, but with an international perspective because many of the things that are impacting on the rest of the English speaking world comes out of the UK. And so it's not putting too much pressure on individuals at this level by participating, but to try and review other organisations that are working for the same focus in parallel. I’ll give you one example, has anybody come across ORAY (Operational Readiness Airport Transfer)? I’ve seen three Turkish organisations do some exemplary preparation for digital handover and commissioning, only to be confounded by the sheer incompetence of the FM teams. Some people are expecting CD-ROMs and the rest of it are saying we store this on the cloud, how would you like to receive it.

It is the format, it is the very compatibility, but it’s also the preparation and I do think that there’s lacing together from the very beginning of the pre-consultancy, pre-design stages, for FM to help steer and guide those focuses, those policies, those protocols, the ontology, the terminology, all of the ologies can all help. And so what we end up with is a steer, what I’m suggesting is something in order of a checklist. It doesn’t mean you have to follow it, what it is is a guideline to say here is a roadway and if this is a suggestion that you can look into in more detail, here is where you can source the information from. So as you said right now, quite rightly and I do agree, between IFC and COBie. They both have their merits, but we’re not trying to establish a standard, what we’re producing it would seem is a digital guideline for the transition of information.

ADINA PONCIS David, I appreciate that. We’ve also discussed, we have quite a lot of examples of large projects or infrastructure. I think what we need to focus more on is like smaller scales like commercial residence, education, smaller scales, And maybe some case scenarios, successful or less successful case scenarios where we could use the information from these use cases and transfer them into our goals and what we’re trying to achieve with this group. So, we’re at the end of our session, I think we’ve had very insightful conversations and debate. George, I think the 11th of September is your main monthly asset management group session.

GEORGE Yeah, I think let’s run the one that Adam is talking about maybe over the next two or three weeks and then we can come out and do something. I don’t think it’s a good idea to do something in August.

RICHARD Everybody will be informed, but be aware that people don’t see emails, sometime they don’t go through, it’s all on the BIM In Asset Management site. It will be there as soon as the date is set.

ADINA PONCIS Thank you everyone for your contributions. As I said if some of you could take some of the questions from the last slide take them away and maybe on our next meeting formulate them in a better shape where we could focus on the solutions and the how to achieve what we’re trying to achieve.

CHAT

[02:28 pm] Sirwin Baldar (External)

Need a Single source of Truth database 

[02:30 pm] Adam Sanders (External)

Worth clarifying that the single source of truth for a building(s) can sit in multiple databases and can be made up of multiple systems. It’s just that for each bit of information there is only one authoritative source. 

[02:34 pm] Chris Jeffers (External)

Hi, I have answered Q2 from perspective of systems we interact with - we do not have these per se, but we use them when working with clients

Also - re Q1, not considered the QUALITY or ACCURACY of information when I have answered the poll...(!)

[02:35 pm] Rachel Heaton (External)

George - I have completed as in a previous role. 

[02:37 pm] Sirwin Baldar (External)

Achieving a true single source of truth can be complex. Prioritise critical data, implement data governance, and consider data integration strategies.

[02:43 pm] Sue Newton (External)

Example 2 for me 

[02:46 pm] Rachel Heaton (External)

A lot of the key issue I see is no standard being used for asset tagging - consistency across the sector. 

[02:47 pm] Daryn Fitz (External)

Rachel sort of related but have you looked at GS1

 [02:47 pm] Rachel Heaton (External)

I am GS1  

 [02:48 pm] Daryn Fitz (External)

Of course 

[02:48 pm] Daryn Fitz (External)

its been a long week

[02:52 pm] Martin McDonald (External)

Data verification before data validation

[02:55 pm] George Stevenson (External)

Agreed

[02:55 pm] Daryn Fitz (External)

Sorry need to jump in a minute, have a good weekend especially if your watching any sports events this weekend., I hear there are a few events on this weekend. 

[02:57 pm] Daryn Fitz (External)

quick question - what is the output process from these meetings - bit confused on the actual steps beyond good conversation.

[02:57 pm] MARIE, Laetitia (Unverified)

Create a checklist or toolkit for "the soft-landing process"  to ensure all asset information requirements are clearly defined and met early in the project

[02:57 pm] Chris Jeffers (External)

Yes, and CIBSE Guide M has a good starter for 10 re handover list

 [02:58 pm] Rachel Heaton (External)

Absolutely - The framework agreements which are being issued out are only asking for "a label of the asset". They are not explaining what is required and then FM companies are just creating their definition.

 [02:59 pm] Chris Jeffers (External)

Have we considered the asset standards noted in FMS002 and other Govt Property Agency FM standards..? 

[03:00 pm] Adam Sanders (External)

I think it's generally wrong for the FM company to do the asset tagging? As long as assets have a UID, surely they can link back to information in multiple organisations' systems. What's frustrating is when you see a barcode or QR code which is a sequential serial number

 [03:04 pm] Andy Simpson (External)

You're correct in that if data isn't maintained then it immediately becomes redundant.  We had a project recently where we handed over our full O&M's and asset data, the client employed a separate fitout contractor who stripped out alot of our install and replaced with alternative plant but didn't update the records so now there is no thread of the actual kit that is now on site

 [03:04 pm] Abrams, Christopher (External)

At the MoJ, we are currently working on our asset tagging strategy. We would expect the contractor to tag the maintainable assets, pre handover. Integrity and accuracy is critical here, so that the FM supplier can run with the data immediately, not carry out their own surveys.

[03:06 pm] Sirwin Baldar (External)

General Information

1. Building Purpose: Primary use
   (commercial, residential, industrial).
2. Location: Geographic context and local regulations.

Structural Information

3. Architectural Plans: Detailed blueprints and drawings.
4. Engineering Specs: Structural details, materials, load-bearing elements.

Systems Information

5. Mechanical Systems: HVAC, plumbing, and other mechanical components.
6. Electrical Systems: Schematics, power distribution, lighting, emergency systems.
7. Plumbing Systems: Water supply and waste management layout.

Technological Systems

8. Network Infrastructure: Wired and wireless network configurations.
9. Building Automation Systems (BAS): HVAC, lighting, security controls.
10. Security Systems: Surveillance, access control, alarms.

Environmental Information

11. Energy Efficiency: Data on energy use and sustainability features.
12. Environmental Controls: Climate and air quality management systems.

Regulatory and Compliance

13. Building Codes: Relevant local, state, federal codes.
14. Compliance Documents: Safety, accessibility, environmental certificates.

Operational Information

15. Maintenance Schedules: Regular maintenance plans.
16. Emergency Plans: Evacuation routes, fire safety, disaster response.

Asset Management

17. Asset Inventory: List of all physical and digital assets.
18. Lifecycle Information: Expected lifespan, replacement schedules.

Financial Information

19. Budget and Costs: Construction costs, maintenance budgets, operational expenses.
20. Investment Analysis: ROI, cost-benefit analyses, funding sources.

Collaboration and Documentation

21. Stakeholder Contacts: Key stakeholders
    (architects, engineers, contractors, managers).
22. Documentation Management: Systems for storing and managing all documents.

Technology Integration

23. Software Platforms: BIM, CAD tools.
24. Data Integration: Methods to unify data from various systems.

Asset Tagging Strategy

Purpose: Ensure comprehensive coverage, aiding in efficient building management, maintenance, and regulatory compliance.

Steps:

1. Identify Assets: Catalogue all physical and digital assets in the building.
2. Assign Tags: Use a consistent tagging system to label each asset, including ID numbers, descriptions, and relevant details.
3. Implement Tracking: Use software platforms (BIM, CAD) to integrate and track tagged assets.
4. Update Regularly: Maintain and update the asset registry to reflect any changes, replacements, or maintenance activities.
5. Leverage Data: Utilise collected data for informed decision-making, operational efficiency, and compliance reporting.

By implementing this streamlined asset tagging strategy, we ensure robust management and maintenance of building assets, supporting long-term operational success.

[03:17 pm] Sirwin Baldar (External)

Best Practices for Creating a SSOT Digital Register of Critical Building Assets

• Define Objectives
  • Set clear, measurable goals.

• Engage Stakeholders
  • Involve key stakeholders early.
  • Secure commitment.
• Standardise Data Formats
  • Use consistent naming and data types.
  • Create standard templates.
• Centralise Data Collection:
  • Use a unified platform (e.g., BIM, CMMS).
  • Ensure seamless integration.
• Ensure Data Accuracy
  • Regularly audit data.
  • Capture all relevant information.
• Implement Data Governance
  • Assign data stewards.
  • Develop clear policies.
• Enable Easy Access
  • Choose user-friendly software.
  • Set secure access levels.
• Train and Support Users
  • Conduct regular training.
  • Provide ongoing support.
• Regularly Update SSOT
  • Keep data current with reviews.
  • Encourage user feedback.
• Leverage Analytics
  • Use tools for insights and predictions.
  • Generate regular reports.
• Document Processes
  • Create comprehensive manuals.
  • Develop a best practices guide.

Follow these steps for a robust SSOT digital register and efficient asset management.

[03:18 pm] Adrian Mokus (External)

ChatGPT?

[03:23 pm] Sirwin Baldar (External)

Yes, indeed! ChatGPT helped whip up those best practices. It’s like having a virtual assistant with a penchant for organising and streamlining everything. Hope you found the suggestions helpful!

[03:24 pm] Martin McDonald (External)

Most of this should be in a COBie so the data is there. We need a more user friendly and maintainable COBie?

[03:26 pm] David Carey (External)

COBie has some advantages and certain limitations. What are the teams thoughts on IFC?

[03:26 pm] Sue Newton (External)

Yes for people like me who are at the end use - it is fairly difficult to get my head around. George is kindly helping me out here but not everyone has access to a George.

I have started to look at BMS we already have and they are all different - maybe we as clients need to specify a particularly type of BMS for use in all our new builds and then at least we will have consistent software / data?

I have had to come away and do something else but for operational people like me we need more education

[03:30 pm] Martin McDonald (External)

We have DfE projects where they want a mix of COBie and IFC verification and validation - but its all still in a complex excel sheet at the end of the day

[03:30 pm] Chris Jeffers (External)

One of the main reasons we have the issue of FMs not working at a systems level - or being able to "see" his buildings as a system, is because we are still working on / with paper. Service delivery is not digital based. So - what are the barriers to digital adoption - money, training, reticence of working with something new, not being driven as a contract deliverable. This is getting better, and more digital ways of working are coming in, but fundamentally the systems do not "inter-operate" at this time.

[03:31 pm] Chris Jeffers (External)

Noted re purpose of this working group(!)

[03:38 pm] Chris Jeffers (External)

Handover best practice - great idea!

[03:47 pm] David Carey (External)

Can we post the docs via Files pls?