Since 2019, I have served as the United Kingdom’s Technical Expert to the European Committee for Standardization Technical Committee 442 / Work Group 3 (CEN/TC 442 WG3). My group has been charged with completing Work Item (WI) 023 “Guideline on how to understand & utilize EN ISO 29481 Building information models – Information delivery manual – Part 1: Methodology & format and Part 2: Interaction framework”
Guidance for understanding and utilize EN/ISO 29481 1 Building information models – Information delivery manual – Part 1: Methodology and format
The ISO 29481 standard provides a standardized format for as well as the process to develop an information delivery manual (IDM). The standard also outlines the interaction framework that allows interactions between various parties in digital collaboration. This standard was published years before the ISO 19650 that outlines addresses the organization and digitization of the built environment (or indeed the mainstream adoption of BIM itself). The guidance document we created seeks to re-interpret the standard in light of contemporary practices and to help AECO practitioners understand why should care about IDM and how to incorporate them into the design process.
The guidance has been circulated and commented on by the various nations and the final draft has been developed in November 2021. This final version will be circulated for a final vote before adoption and includes two sections:
- The first section explains the IDM components and can be used to get a better understanding of the IDM structure
- The second section gives an overview of the IDM methodology and steps through how to create an IDM
The next steps:
- The final vote to adopt the guidance document in December 2021
- Proposed work item to update the base standard itself to better acknowledge and place into context with ISO19650 (that is itself being updated)
The heavy contributors during my tenure were Mark Baldwin, Sonia Lupica Spagnolo, Dimitri Daniaud, Steen Sunesen, Peter Kompolschek, Ruben Blair under the leadership of Tomi Henttinen. I benefited from the significant support of Stephanie Kosandiak the (now former) committee manager at BSI and by Nick Nisbet who helped introduce me to the ongoing standards work.
This work has taught me how challenging standards development work is and I have been astonished at the amount of time and careful consideration that an entire community of passionate experts puts into developing these standards; thank you to you all!
