buildingSMART International Summit 2022 Montreal

Arisca Droog from the Airport Room shared some progress on the “Entities Project,” which started with a redefinition of the project scope. They delivered a project proposal and a 1-pager. In 2021 the team took the list of entities at an airport and populated them in the bSDD. This included mapping these objects to IFC, and it was a successful pilot. Arisca also talked about the surveys they are undertaking, such as “Baggage Handling” and “Airport Specific Security Systems and Passenger Control” which provided very valuable input to the Room. They also want to add some of these results to the bSDD. It was reported there were over 50 responses globally for the baggage handling survey. Arisca also confirmed that the overlap with other rooms is very crucial, and collaboration is a huge takeaway from the Summit. Finally, it was acknowledged that they need to continue to explain the relevance of IFC to the aviation industry.

David Ivey from the Building Room provided a conclusion by updating on the Room activities and all current projects. He also talked about how the bSI Process works and how ideas filter into the Room. David discussed how “openBIM factory-based planning” was an important presentation as it showed some real examples using openBIM models/digital twins applied to factories. There was also an asset management and handover workshop that featured both in person and virtual speakers. This included the repackaging of COBie into a new standard. There was a joint session “Building Energy Modelling” which aims to develop a roadmap. One of the big takeaways is the need for people to start talking to one another and to utilize all expertise across the community.  

Ken Endo from the Construction Room talked about the four presentations from the Summit, which drove the topic of conversations in the room, including an update from Veljko Janjic of Bexel Consulting. Ken reflected on the different types of discussions within the room, spanning technical and domain experts. He talked about the Construction Room being use case focused, and the benefits of cross-collaboration with other Rooms. There was also a description and outline of the differing levels of BIM, from 3D right the way to 6D (and beyond). There was also an acknowledgment of the benefits of the Use Case Management Service (UCM) from bSI as a way of storing best practice. Ken highlighted the benefit of exchanging news and updates from bSI as a way of staying connected as a Chapter and a Room. There is currently space on the Steering Committee for any new applicants wishing to join.

Jim Plume provided a summary from the Infrastructure Room, which included an update to the roadmap comprised of five workshops, some virtual and some in person, and they extended the ideas and feedback from these which was collated at the event. The Infra team has been successful in continuing a lot of meetings outside of the Summit timeframe. There was also a panel session in which client commitments were reinforced, a joint workshop with the Building Room, German Chapter updates for Infra projects, and an IFC Tunnel project update, which Jim stated had been going very well. The project itself has created its schema, documentation, and planned extensions to IFC 4.4. There was also a comment at the end that the Infra team is looking forward to being in Rome in six months’ time.

Michel Bohren represented the Product Room and reflected on a good week in Montreal, saying that it was hard to maintain progress during COVID. There is a plan to get a mandate from the community in their repositioning of the Product Room. They had previously asked for industry input about what they hoped the Product Room should be. Some of the findings include the need for a systems approach, APIs, and access to built assets. Michel stated that the main outcome from this week was a series of workshops, and these produced 5 activity “clusters,” including definitions and explanations, referencing (product) data, governance, data exchange / open APIs, and process maps and use cases. As a result, the Room developed a draft Roadmap with these clusters as inputs with various goals outlined. This is very exciting news, and everyone looks forward to seeing the progress made when next convening in Rome.

Winfried Stix was next from the Railway Room, with the main message being that IFC 4.3 needs implementation. They were very focused on this during the event, making it clear by looking through the project phases. Phase 1 was the requirements analysis, which was cited as the hardest part. This phase was all about asking people what they wanted as their specific requirements, with the goal to support rail infrastructure managers around the world. Phase 2 was to develop the IFC 4.3 standard. This is where they are at today and it has been a huge achievement to date. However, they designed phase 3 – applying this standard to software vendors – as an additional step. This will help to support end users when the standard is published (the wave of adoption), and has been the focus of the Room at the Summit. There were also more requests for cross-collaboration with other Rooms.

Nick Nisbet from the Steering Committee of the Regulatory Room was next, providing the update on the very good progress of the Room. Nick expressed that the Room needs to be the voice of the customers regarding what the requirements are. They have had success with their open houses, surveys, and momentum from the Summits. Two projects are now underway, one being “A guidance on openBIM for Regulators”, which is an important project for the community as it allows materials to guide those who set and manage regulations. There is also good news that approvals are again being issued against IFC models, which is very significant. Another big announcement was that IFC is now mandatory in Finland, paving the way for how regulations related to IFC might be made mandatory for other governments and countries alike. The promise of significant progress on the roadmap is a testament to their ambition.

Trinidad Chardin-Segui from the Sustainable Energy Management Room, the newest Room and still in its early stages of development, gave her feedback from the week. The Room benefitted from multiple joint sessions, as well as other open discussions. The plan for the Room is now to finish the activity proposal, which they hope to present in Rome and find more alignment with the Building Energy Modelling initiative.

Greg Schleusner, leader of the Technical Room, provided the final review from the Summit, reflecting on some of the technical topics covered. These included ‘IFC Today’, walking through the historical evolution of IFC right up to what it looks like today. Then, by thinking forward to IFC 5, the team looked ahead and had different possibilities and variations of what this version might be able to solve. The Room invited some of the major authoring vendors to talk about some of the implementation and data exchanges for the ECS model in their solutions. There was also a validation workshop which was hands-on, as was a similar workshop for the bSDD. Another session that complimented this was for maintaining and managing data in the bSDD with other vendors (such as ACCA and Cobuilder). For Rome, the Room has outlined the goals for IFC 5 and what this will solve for other rooms and to start prototyping ECS concepts.

All Room summaries and conclusions had common themes: the need for more cross-collaboration amongst Rooms and the desire to be in Rome in 2023.

The event was concluded with a sign-off from Richard Kelly, Dan Little, and Erik Poirier. The audience also heard from Anna Moreno and Lorenzo Nissim, President and Vice President of IBIMI (buildingSMART Italy), who will be the Chapter hosting the next Summit, 26-30 March 2023, in Rome.