CHALLENGE STATEMENT 2: AUTOMATED MODEL DATA CHECKING

Please Note Corrigendum 1 published on 18 Aug 

Please Note Corrigendum 3  published on 31 Aug

Building Information Models (BIM) are digital descriptions of every aspect of buildings and projects. This include building elements such as properties, quantities, material, geometry, space, geo-reference as well as project data such as cost, logistics and schedule.

As the information are brought together, they enable collaborative work and help surface issues across the project team members to reduce abortive costs. Information can also be easily extracted for analysis leading to decision making.

With complete and accurate data, BIM models support the management of construction projects and operational assets throughout their lifecycles.

A quality BIM model should be a large repository of data.

Each object (e.g. doors, columns, chiller equipment) is a build-up of many aspects of information (e.g. properties, quantities, material, geometry, space and geo-reference) to allow them to be intuitive and useful. In a typical project, there can be hundreds of thousands of objects. This multiplies the volume of information in a BIM model. As a result, it is tedious to find and check the completeness and accuracy of the information for each and every object in the project.

In addition, the way models can be created are very flexible. For instance, a floor can be modelled simply as a concrete slab. A concrete slab may also represent a roof, a ramp or a ceiling. Information beyond just the physical aspects of the objects such as their purpose may not be interpreted consistently. To compound this further, even if the purpose are clear, the waythey are named may cause problems. For instance, a toilet may also be named as washroom, water closet, lavatory and toilette. This greatly hampers the ability to find and analyse the objects.

• Platform and/or rules shall fully support data requirements from JTC’s Employer’s Information Requirement (EIR) and fulfil model elements from JTC’s Model Content Plan (MCP) and Building Design Requirements (BDR), both of which references datasets in the Asset Information Model (AIR).
• The proposal shall contain details to illustrate and convince on how the problem statement is achieved. E.g. Details on methods and step-by-step workflow to perform checks to ensure accuracy for specific checks.
• Rules shall be easy to create, replicate, edit and rolled back to previous versions.
• Organisation of rules shall be intuitive in extensive categories, groupings and templates.
• Issues flagged out by the checks shall be actionable in the native software.
• The solution shall be scalable to cater for increasing needs by JTC and ecosystem stakeholders (e.g. Architecture, Engineering and Construction industry).
• Reporting function for rules creation as well as checks conducted.
• Dashboards that support time-series and cross project trending.
• Interconnectivity with other systems to exchange information through open, documented Application Programming Interfaces (APIs).
• Support Revit and IFC formats.
• Audit trail for all committed actions in the solution(s).
• Caters for JTC and Instruction Manual 8 (IM8) Security and Data Handling Requirements.

• A self-serviced, automated system for checking models based on JTC’s model data requirements.
• Self-serviced way for JTC to define our model data requirements and provide long term management of these data requirements so that they may be used to check models.
• Automated guidance to help BIM model authors enter data intuitively and in a standardized manner as they model.
• Ability to retrieve model information quickly and easily for verification and further analysis.
• Enable the BIM models as a data sources for other systems to make use of the BIM information submitted.

Applicants are encouraged to propose ways to address the problem statement.

One possible set of solutions is as follows:

• A server based interface for submission
• A back-end checking engine
• An interface for rules management and manipulation
• An interface for visualisation
• Semi-automated tools (plugins) for Revit software
• Modelling guides
• A reporting and dashboard module
• Set of APIs for data extraction and connectivity

Applicants are encouraged to propose phases of development and delivery.

The total project delivery period shall not exceed 12 months.

A proposed timeline is as follows:a) 3 months: Basic data standards management & rule checking capabilitiesb) 3 months: Advanced element based checks and issues tracking capabilitiesc) 3 months: Automated BIM authoring tools, interoperable API capabilitiesd) 3 months: Visualisation of model elements and data, reporting and dashboarding

The initial 12 months focuses on delivery of all rules in the “As-built” stage in the Model Content Plan.

As shared in the project agreement, we would like to continue to develop and scale up the solution with successful applicants to support JTC’s operational needs.

Some expected developments are as follows:

• Scale to deliver all rules in the Model Content Plan (e.g. “Concept Design”, “Preliminary Design”, “Detailed Design” and “Tender Documentation”).
• Cater for operational data analysis, interoperability use cases.
• Cater for JTC’s data handling and IM8 requirements

Please Note Corrigendum 1 published on 18 Aug 

Please Note Corrigendum 3  published on 31 Aug