Building Lifecycle Intelligence’s data-driven approach can increase efficiency and support cross-discipline coordination
The Glasblokkene Project in Bergen, Norway, is an amazing venture with a groundbreaking approach: the completely digitalised hospital construction project demonstrates a totally new way of working.
The project teams use a true innovation to maximise collaboration and efficiency: a “single source of truth” database for the entire project, from early planning through to the construction and handover, and into operation.
As the Master Asset Database for all disciplines, it synchronises with the models – always up to date and always available to all stakeholders. The results are significant savings, better control and substantially better outcomes.
Using a central database
A shared and continually updated data source across all disciplines enables true collaboration between all stakeholders. The system, provided by Nemetschek Group brand dRofus, is based on open standards and therefore open for any other software solutions to connect to and interact with the database.
In Bergen, product documentation was collected, controlled and stored in dRofus before the construction started. None of the stakeholders had to go looking for information in different places throughout the project, reducing the production of PDFs by enabling contractors to update the BIM model and the dRofus database directly on site, a substantial time saver. As the complexity of building projects increases, project teams will need to rely on such a central database to deliver on time and budget.
The Nemetschek Group is further broadening that picture, with dRofus playing a vital role, aiming to significantly increase efficiency through data-driven processes across the entire building lifecycle and based on open standards.
“This is what we call Building Lifecycle Intelligence™,” said Viktor Várkonyi, board member and chief division officer at the Nemetschek Group.
“Our solutions – such as Archicad, Allplan/Bimplus, Solibri and Spacewell – paired with dRofus can deliver considerable benefits for the users. dRofus is the link and secures the golden thread for the Common Data Environment and the standardisation of project-unique IDs and classifications.”
This approach enables efficient cross-discipline coordination down to the smallest details through connections between all systems from all models within the database. The facility management system can then take over the role as the master asset database during operation without any data loss and with the link to all historical asset data from project(s) still available.
Building owners, architects, engineers, contractors and facility managers basically all face similar challenges with the current model-driven BIM processes: when handing over models from one project stage to the next, data loss occurs. In addition, stakeholders struggle to aggregate and collaborate using data across all phases.
A data-driven approach
With a model-driven approach, creating and managing information inside the models is time-consuming and unintuitive. Projects have a high risk of failure due to the manual processes and time constraints.
In contrast, a data-driven approach enables all stakeholders to efficiently create and manage data, which enriches the model and additionally maintains the data during the project and operational stages.
The benefits: seamless cross-discipline data aggregation and collaboration for the full building lifecycle. In detail, this means that the metadata attached to objects is maintained and updated throughout the planning, design, construction and operational phases.
This grants all building stakeholders live access to reliable and accurate data, allowing knowledge-based decisions to be made for building projects and their operation. With Building Lifecycle Intelligence™, the Nemetschek Group enables the industry to manage building data as an unbroken chain of connected information throughout the entire building lifecycle.
Coming back to the hospital construction in Bergen: those people involved in the project were extremely pleased by the impressive results – like tremendous savings, better control, and substantially better outcomes. Some even called Building Lifecycle Intelligence™ a “game-changer”. Safe to assume that this approach can become a role model for many construction projects.
Alexander Siegmund
Manager Corporate Communication & PR
Tel: +49 89 540 459 255
Please note: this is a commercial profile.
