Build progress toward a sustainable world with BIM

The built environment, also known as architecture, engineering, construction, and operations (AECO) impacts every aspect of our daily lives, including our living spaces, infrastructure, and transportation systems. It’s comprised of man-made structures allowing us to live, work, play, and travel. Building information modeling (BIM) is a collaborative process tool that is used within the built environment sector.  

The international BIM standard is Organization and Digitization of Information about Buildings and Civil Engineering Works (ISO 19650-1:2018). BIM provides enhanced digital visualization of the project and improved information sharing, leading to better decision-making. With a common approach to information management, organizations can reduce errors as well as see improvements in cost, value, and carbon performance. BIM stands out as one of the leading digital tools for sustainability initiatives, with a usage rate of 36 percent.

What is BIM?

BIM is the management of information through the whole life cycle of a built asset, from initial design to construction, facilities management and maintenance, and de-commissioning, through digital modeling. BIM is all about collaboration between engineers, owners, architects, and contractors in a three-dimensional virtual construction environment and it shares information across these categories. Information is shared between all parties using a common data environment (CDE) and this benefits everyone involved.

• Approximately 85% of Americans reside in urban areas, with this figure expected to increase in the next century.

• 81% of organizations in the sector have already invested or plan to invest in BIM within the next 12 months.

These structures and systems exist in nearly all places where people live and work but tend to be most concentrated in metropolitan areas. This is also important in that ISO 19650 will help organizations globally adopt a simplified and common approach to BIM.

BIM allows design and construction teams to communicate about design and coordinate information across different levels that have been unseen before. This information remains with the project, from before beginning construction, right throughout its lifetime. It also helps to analyze any potential impacts.

 Benefits of ISO 19650:

• Reduce errors and improve predictability and repeatability by applying globally agreed best practices.

• Increase productivity and quality consistently through streamlined workflows and processes across projects.  

• Staff retention with BIM upskilling.

• Gain access to new domestic and international markets, where conformance to ISO 19650 is required.

• Improve collaboration with project stakeholders via a shared approach to information management.

• ISO 19650 enables initiatives such as sustainability, digital twins, sensors, artificial intelligence, enhanced search capabilities, and data availability.

• ISO 19650 works with all CAD and 3D modeling software globally.

The suite of international standards:

• ISO 19650-1: Concepts and principles.

• ISO 19650-2: Asset delivery phase.

• ISO 19650-3: Asset operational phase.

• ISO 19650-4: Information exchange.

• ISO 19650-5: Security.

The standard and benefits work to mitigate risks linked to sensitive information in the structure’s design, construction, operation, and decommissioning phases, impacting safety, security, and resilience.

With ISO 19650 for BIM, it allows you to be an agent for positive change. This is vital in improving built environment sustainability, social value, and outcomes. Following ISO 19650 empowers global collaboration among AECO stakeholders throughout the project lifecycle, allowing consistent information management from pre-design to facilities management. It outlines principles and necessities for a security-focused information management approach, covering data handling in various endeavors, projects, assets, products, or services.

Whether you’re new to information management or looking to better conform to ISO 19650, BSI can help you through your journey. We can support you in understanding, preparing for, and successfully conforming to ISO 19650. We continue to assist the AECO sector as it looks to undergo a digital transformation to realize data-driven decision-making, systems thinking and future-readiness for new technologies such as AI, IoT, sensors, machine learning, etc. 

Staying ahead of industry disruptions and grasping their mechanics can hold immense value, especially in changing sectors like the built environment. By uniting a previously fragmented landscape, BIM connects building owners, designers, construction teams, facilities managers, and occupants through shared asset data. This connection holds the potential to result in safer, more efficient, and more profitable projects.