How Building Information ModelingStandards Can Improve Building Performance

Joint APEC-ASEAN Workshop

June 24-25, 2013, Medan, Indonesia

Meeting Report

In support of the second focal element of the multi-year project, “The Role of Standards and Conformity Assessment Measures in Enhancing the Performance of the Commercial Building Sector” (M CTI 02 12A)the Asia Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) forum and the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) held a joint workshop, “How Building Information Modeling Standards Can Improve Building Performance,” on June 24-25, 2013. The multi-year project is being conducted by the APEC Subcommittee on Standards and Conformance (SCSC) in partnership with the APEC Energy Working Group (EWG)/ Expert Group on Energy Efficiency and Conservation (EGEE&C) and the ASEAN Consultative Committee on Standards and Quality (ACCSQ).

Key Themes of the Workshop Discussions

  • Building Information Modeling (BIM) is a technology that is transforming the design and construction industry, with a specific relevance to Green Building.BIM can be utilized to drive Green Building by delivering concrete benefits in the planning, design, construction and operation of buildings.
  • BIM provides a powerful tool to reach the higher performance outcomes economies seek for the built environment. The benefits of BIM also extend beyond the individual building, enabling better planning at the neighborhood and urban planning level.
  • Standards play a crucial role in maximizing the benefits that can be achieved through BIM. At its core, BIM is an approach that facilitates communication, collaboration, and improved decision-making. BIM allows stakeholders to share, model, test and refine ideas and options early in a building’s design life. BIM also enables decisions to be carried through efficiently and effectively into building operation. Standards provide a facilitating foundation for economies to pursue BIM in accordance with their specific objectives and the technologies in use.
  • Standards used in BIM should be developed using the World Trade Organization Technical Barriers to Trade (WTO TBT) principles for what constitutes an international standard. This includes transparency, openness, impartiality and consensus, relevance and effectiveness, coherence and developing country interests.
  • APEC and ASEAN economies have in common both the opportunities and challenges associated with BIM. Opportunities include the ability to achieve increased building performance, more efficient and environmentally supportive construction processes, decreased building operation costs, as well as operation and maintenance supporting green design goals, among other benefits. Challenges economies often encounter include a lack of demand for BIM, industry entrenchment in current 2D technologies and approaches, lack of skilled manpower, resources to build BIM expertise, and policy support.
  • The materials shared at this workshop create a foundational compendium of resources on BIM, available at . This includes information on best practices, the most essential aspects of successful BIM planning and implementationat an economy level and at the project level, and methods of educating stakeholders on the benefits of BIMand educating current and future BIM practitioners.

Introductory Remarks

APEC SCSC Chairman Teungku Hanafiah launched the event, noting the Asia-Pacific region is experiencing rapid growth and urbanization, bringing opportunities in the sustainable construction sector to create buildings that operate efficiently, safeguard scarce natural resources and utilize state of the art practices. The current SCSC Multi Year Project is a centerpiece of the strategy to reduce or prevent technical barriers to trade in green building products by encouraging the use of international standards, and open standards, where appropriate to ensure widespread use of the best available technology. This work has been recognized by APEC Leaders as making contributions to both APEC’s regional economic integration and GHG emissions reductions goals because greening the commercial building sector can yield significant energy savings, given that the building sector accounts for between 30 and 40 percent of energy usage in most industrialized economies.

Given that this is an extremely complex subject area that utilizes evolving standards and conformance tools, and addresses critical energy saving policy goals, the APEC economies will be able to make well informed planning decisions if they are able to understand the full scope of green building standardization activities.This is a new technology arena where there is an opportunity to influence the standards and conformity assessment requirements that underpin trade in these technologies. In doing so, APEC economies can minimize unnecessary obstacles to trade.

Strong regional interest in green buildings has led to the joint branding of this and previous workshops as APEC/ ASEAN events. That collaboration, which began in 2011, enables leading technical experts and policy makers from more than twenty four economies to build strong regional communication and collaboration networks.

Session One: Overview

Joanne Littlefair, U.S. Department of Commerce, International Trade Administration, provided details of the green building-related work conducted by the SCSC since 2011, together with details on the four main components of the ongoing multi-year project. In March 2013, SCSC conducted a workshop on building codes as a tool to enhance building performance, hosted by collaborating partner Peru in Lima. The current workshop on utilizing BIM to increase building performance is the second focal element of the multi-year project. SCSC also plans two green building events in 2014. The first workshop will focus primarily on testing and rating of materials in the building envelope, and will be held in China during the first half of 2014. The second workshop will focus on laboratory testing requirements for flooring and ceiling products, and will be held in Singapore later in 2014.

Ms. Littlefair noted the extensive materials available to all economies that were developed in conjunction with the SCSC 2011 green building work and the ongoing multi-year project. All workshop speaker presentations, case studies, surveys, and in-depth consultant reports on the wide range of policy tools and green building-related initiatives underway in APEC member economies are publicly available on the APEC web site in the Meetings Document Database.

Steve Jones, McGraw Hill Construction, delivered a comprehensive presentation on BIM to Facilitate Green Building Practices, inclusive of global, regional, and economy-specific trends in green building, BIM and green BIM, a summary of the benefits BIM can generate for stakeholders, and requirements for continued BIM growth. BIM has the potential to deliver transformational efficiencies to the construction sector across the planning, design, construction, and operation phases of the building lifecycle. Mr. Jones’ presentation reflected, in part, responses to in-depth surveys by diverse construction industry stakeholders in sixty two international markets.

Globally, the strong growth trend in green building continues, with an intensification of existingrationales for building green. That said, the issue of perceived affordability of building green has increased as a barrier. This makes it all the more important to view the benefits of green building on a lifecycle basis. When concepts of sustainability are tied to concrete business benefits, green building presents a more compelling case: lower operating costs, higher building value at time of sale, quality assurance via documentation and certification, higher rental rate achievability, higher occupancy rates, increased tenant productivity, and ability to educate occupants about sustainability, among other benefits. One of the more powerful statements that emerged in the survey responses was the perceived operating cost decreases associated with green retrofits.

Mr. Jones detailed how BIM can advance green building by driving improved sustainable outcomes. Via design, BIM can deliver higher performing buildings. It allows a fully coordinated model to be developed and refined before starting construction, reducing material waste and reducing cost and schedule overruns. In the construction phase, BIM facilitates more efficient and environmentally responsible construction processes. In a building’s commissioning and operational life, BIM enables practices that allow owner/operators to attain green design goals. Examples of specific ways in which BIM applications can advance green building include: create energy performance snapshots to assess the impact of design decisions; evaluate building loads and the impact of conservation strategies; develop carbon foot print reduction strategies; assess passive/hybrid/renewable strategies; assess the impact of daylight and solar gain; incorporate bulk airflow, ventilation, and IAQ into the equation; and assess compliance with regulations and codes.

McGraw-Hill Construction’s SmartMarket Report, Green BIM, provides extensive trend data on green building BIM uptake. This and other McGraw-Hill Construction SmartMarket reports are available, free of charge, at construction.com/market-research.

Looking forward, Mr. Jones identified seven keys to BIM growth: standards and software integration, standard agreements for green BIM services, greater use of integrated design/construction, modeling standards to create reliable deliverables for exchange, increasing use of BIM for smaller green retrofit projects, integrated output from different building systems, and using BIM for building performance monitoring and verification.

Session Two: Introduction to Building Information Modeling and its Applicability to Green Building

John Mitchell, buildingSMART Australasia, presented on BIM Sustainability and Precincts. His discussion centered on an influential trend: movement from a single building focus, where BIM has demonstrated results, to a larger focus on neighborhoods, or precincts. This is the scale at which urban design needs to make its contribution to city performance. Precinct assessment involves the performance dimensions of low carbon, resilience, and sustainability, requiring an integration of BIM, GIS and infrastructure.

Relying on project case studies, Mr. Mitchell demonstrated how BIM enabled a new way to focus on the whole life cycle, allowing a holistic view of programs. Benefits include the ability to create life cycle and alternative comparisons, as well as reliable budgets and cost controls before work is even begun on the construction side. BIM modeling can maximize sustainable opportunities from financial feasibility, concept, design, construction, operation, churn, and even demolition of a building.

The buildingSMART philosophy is based on open, neutral, international shared access to data. Its view is that open, share-able information will help the supply chain unlock more efficient and collaborative ways of working throughout the entire project and lifecycle end-to-end. The organization has regional chapters in Asia, Australia, Europe, North America and the Middle East. buildingSMART has originated ISO standards for BIM data, BIM terminology, and BIM processes.

Looking forward, Mr. Mitchell identified the following requirements for precinct level sustainable modeling: an integrated built environment object framework, supported by government and industry; the availability of rich product data, which must include LCI – embodied and operational carbon; access to national digital data sources; and improved metrics for performance measurements and benchmarks. Mr. Mitchell emphasized the view that government can drive positive outcomes by promoting open standards to achieve a large exchange of data. With this, a substantial body of users will be in a position to demand of vendors what they truly need.

buildingSMART goals include developing and maintaining open international standards for BIM, while providing networking opportunities, specifications, and written guidance. The organization seeks to accelerate market assimilation of interoperability through successful sustainable projects, and to resolve high cost problems that hinder data sharing. It also hopes to extend buildingSMART processes and technology to the whole built environment over its lifecycle.

Session Three: Current State of National BIM Standards

Li Zheng, Standardization Administration of China, provided an Introduction of BIM and its Application in China, including an introduction of the China Academy of Building Research (CABR) and its work to develop BIM standards, technologies, tools, and training resources. The strategy for advancing BIM in China involves research on individual BIM applications, followed by standardization for single BIM applications, in turn leading to integrated BIM applications and standardization of such integrated applications.

Dr. Li noted the official work start of developing Chinese BIM standards in 2012, following the 2010 publication of the Industry Foundation Class Platform. The work in China focuses on a Uniform Standard for BIM Application, a Storage Standard for BIM Application, as well as a delivery standard, classification and coding standard and application standard for BIM Design Information Models. The standard development strategy takes lessons from the mobile communications industry and focuses on applications: how to apply BIM technology to improve the quality and efficiency of the construction industry. In its 12th Five Year Plan, China’s Ministry of Housing and Urban-Rural Development recognized BIM as one of the most important new technologies for the construction field. China seeks to develop BIM recognizing the context of globalization as applies to standards, software, hardware, networks, and processes.

Steve Jones, McGraw-Hill Construction, presented on the National BIM Standard – United States (NBIM-US), highlighting an approach that sees best results in consensus and industry-wide collaboration. Mr. Jones built on prior speaker comments about the buildingSMART alliance, noting its inclusive membership and its belief in an open BIM standard.

The core principles underlying NBIMS-US are that standards are critical for accomplishing share-ability of data and interoperability; foundational principles need to be established as quickly as possible, while allowing flexibility for change and growth moving forward; and the work should reflect a global perspective where there are core commonalities between markets and regions amid differences. Reliability of shared data is a key concept, in the context of traditional approaches in which 2D drawings were not trusted by building professionals.

Mr. Jones underscored that while NBIMS-US remains a work in progress, there is enough in place now to be valuable and useful. It started with a focus on buildings, and now includes infrastructure. The standards extend beyond the Industry Foundation Class (IFC). The presentation then detailed BIM Use Cases, which are the basic organizing elements for the standard. Detailed information was then provided about the development of NBIMS-US’ most recent version, and then vision for the road to international BIM standards. The ultimate goal is to increase efficiency in the global construction industry.

Kenji Suzuki, Toshiba Corporation, provided a detailed review of the work being done within ISO Technical Committee (TC) 268/SC1 Smart Community Infrastructures. Mr. Suzuki established the context for the TC work, noting rapid population increases and urbanization trends in emerging economies has and will continue to cause serious problems with energy consumption, traffic congestion, and medical costs in urban areas. There are numerous evaluation indicators for “smart” communities, and an international standard of measurement is needed to facilitate planning, purchase decisions, procurement, and provider management, as well as achieve more effective and efficient R&D, global sales, and a better understanding of buyer needs.

The TC work is guided by the principle that the focus should be community infrastructure that can be improved by technologies, can be evaluated by defined metrics, and defined as a measurement standard. Relevant existing standards (energy, water, transportation, waste management, ICT) should be taken into consideration. Trade-offs and synergies must be considered. With respect to deliverables, the Technical Report, Smart Infrastructures for Communities – Review of Existing Metrics (ISO TR37150) is expected to be published in August 2013. The Technical Specification, Smart Community Infrastructure Metrics – General Principles and Requirements (ISO TS37151) is expected to be published in 2014.

Mohd Harris Ismail, Construction Industry Development Board, Malaysia, presented on Malaysia’s Current Initiatives and Activities on Building Information Modeling. Setting the context, Mr. Harris explained how BIM supports important national priorities in Malaysia, including increasing sustainability and green materials, advancement of information technology, achieving project management standards and best practices, and government transformation programs. While BIM uptake in Malaysia is still in its early stages, BIM has garnered serious attention from both the public and private sector based on the benefits it offers.

Mr. Harris detailed the BIM initiatives currently underway by public and private sector entities, noting these efforts are, at present, uncoordinated. Within the Malaysian government, extensive activity is underway to begin developing pathways forward in key aspects of BIM development. In the private sector, select larger developers have embraced BIM. Challenges to expanding BIM uptake include stakeholder commitment and support, hardware and software costs, changes required in processes and the construction industry culture, and BIM competency development.

Session Four: How Standards Support BIM Projects

Calvin Kam, Center for Integrated Facility Engineering, Stanford University, presented on How Standards Support BIM Projects. Dr. Kam noted the fundamental purpose of BIM is to enable communication, information sharing, collaboration, and improved decision-making for the built environment. BIM allows rehearsal – i.e., idea advancement, modeling, and testing – in a virtual digital environment, based on reliable data, at the earliest stages of a building’s design life. Errors can be detected and eliminated virtually, before they have cost impacts in implementation, and specific pathways to desired cost and performance outcomes can be achieved.

Dr. Kam referenced a scientific way of looking at BIM, developed by bimSCORE, which identifies five key characteristics of a BIM pathway: (i) Status Quo, (ii) Piloting, (iii) Policy, (iv) Industry, and (v) Innovation. The pathway begins with the fundamental question about the current state/status quo: can we afford not to use BIM? This requires examination of what it costs to fail to proceed without achieving more productivity growth in the construction sector, among other questions about opportunity costs associated with making no change. There is an early opportunity to ask tough questions about the status quo, determine targets for “success,” and align performance targets with pilots in the next stage of the pathway.