BIM and Interoperability

The BIM Handbook chapter on Interoperability very clearly states the importance of data interchange between applications to eliminate the need to replicate data that has been already generated. According to the BIM Handbook, there are two main building product data models; the Industrial Foundation Classes (IFC) for building planning, design and construction, and CIMsteel Integration Standard Version 2 (CIS/2), for structural steel and fabrication. These are public level exchange formats which carry object and material properties and relations between different applications. XML, an extension of HTML, is another method to exchange data between applications and is very popular for data interchange between web applications. I came across to the figure below which graphically represents what was stated in chapter 3 in the BIM Handbook.

Figure 1. Interoperability between analysis and design applications [2]

It is clear that interoperability is very important to BIM applications among the different teams that are involved in the design and construction stages. The methods of data exchange are successful up to a certain point; there are still issues that have not been resolved and errors or mistranslations still occur when data is interchanged. In the article Crossing Platform, experts discuss problems and goals of BIM and Interoperability. According to Daniel Monaghan, Scia engineer manager with Nemetschek North America in Columbia, MD, “Interoperability is all about efficiency - faster creation, error reduction, cost control, predictability and better coordinations - all on account of the ability to reuse data from one stakeholder to the other.” I found Mitchell Butler's comment about how the different teams involved in the design and construction of the stair tower had different drawings from different programs very interesting. There must be a lot of communication between the teams in order to produce the results that everyone will be happy with.

One very important problem is version compatibility issues; when exchanging information between different application it is pretty difficult to keep up with all the updates. Everyone should use the same versions otherwise there might be miscommunications and faulty mechanisms will result. Continuous education is very important as well; updated versions may include new capabilities that designers need to learn in order to avoid any miscommunications. David Morrison mentions in his blog post that there are $10.6 billions lost in delays and expenses when drawings are turned from one program to another.

The use of BIM applications is constantly increasing in the professional world, and interoperability between all the different applications improve the building planning, design and construction, even though there are some limitations.  

Sources:
[1] http://www.newmill.com/pdfs/BIM-crossing-platforms.pdf
[2] http://www.structuremag.org/article.aspx?articleID=995