National BIM mandates face challenges in a fragmented country

Improving the sharing and transparency of all information related to a building’s design and operation lies at the heart of Building Information Modeling, or BIM.

BIM is defined as a process involving the generation and management of digital representations of the physical and functional characteristics of buildings and other physical assets, supported by various tools, technologies and contracts. BIM software is used by individuals, businesses and government agencies that plan, , , operate and maintain a huge assortment of physical assets. BIM can be extracted, exchanged or networked to support decision-making.

However, while shows 35 per cent of European countries have or plan to introduce BIM mandates, widespread adoption across all users is not as universal as it could be.

Standardizing definitions is a challenge, something Mark Anderson of the One Ontario initiative cited in a recent Inside Innovation column. One municipality might call a residence “a single-family dwelling unit” while for another it’s a “single-family home.” This creates obstacles to the streamlining of project approval processes.

Aarni Heiskanen, managing partner at based in Helsinki, Finland, observes the same definitional challenges for standard BIM mandates. He notes countries such as Singapore, the U.K., Japan, South Korea, Dubai and the Scandinavian countries are each developing BIM-based building permits, for example.

“The trend is to use the open for model submissions instead of native BIM models,” he. “However, the standard has not yet offered universal definitions for automating compliance checking. For example, IFC has had a class for walls (IfcWall) but no standard way to distinguish between specific types of interior walls, e.g., partition walls, fire-rated walls or sound-insulating walls. This has forced companies or authorities to define custom property sets or user-defined classifications.”

In Canada, the challenges to the creation of a nationally adopted BIM standard go beyond definitions.

Claudia Cozzitorto is the principal at , “a group of subject matter experts that focus on the business needs of AECO organizations to adapt to BIM innovation comprehensively.”

The BIM DnA Group assists architects and owners operating within the asset registry sectors with their digital transformation needs. Cozzitorto is also president of , this country’s arm of the larger international buildingSMART organization.

SUBMITTED PHOTO — Claudia Cozzitorto, principal at BIM DnA Group, believes provincial BIM mandates could work in Canada, accepting that the sharing of powers across jurisdictions is part of the country’s character.

Cozzitorto has recognized the fragmentation across the entire Canadian regulatory frame. While the division of federal and provincial responsibilities is part of Canada’s constitutional character, it puts the country at a disadvantage compared to those mentioned by Heiskanen when attempting national consensuses.

That’s where buildingSMART Canada hopes to help.

Cozzitorto told the Daily Commercial News buildingSMART Canada seeks, “to bring separate government entities and different levels of government together, along with industry and academia to solve the issue of digitalization, and has been building consensus.”

BIM mandates are not the only way to motivate the industry to update their processes, Cozzitorto said, and there are positives and negatives surrounding them.

“A positive outcome is that mandates are a way to motivate the industry to change, especially given the number of stakeholders,” Cozzitorto said. “They can help, given the historically-siloed industry, to all point in the same direction. The negative is that they may put smaller firms at a disadvantage or those that are further behind in digital advancement.

“Canada does not have a national level sector that oversees the built environment, making a National BIM Mandate, like we see in other countries, unrealistic,” she continued.

Provincial BIM mandates could work, provided there is an effort to maintain consistency. Cozzitorto notes “big strides” towards this have been made in some provinces, notably Quebec.

Yet, without any mandates, an industry consensus would need to be built, something Cozzitorto describes as “a much longer road.”

“There is interest to advance, but both private and public owners are stuck. Some are having trouble getting started.”

Funding, training, resources and guidance from buildingSMART Canada and buildingSMART chapters around the world are there to help.

John Bleasby is a freelance writer. Send comments and Inside Innovation column ideas to editor@dailycommercialnews.com.