Rebecca De Cicco of Aurecon looks at the journey toward information management across the entire asset lifecycle
We all know how challenging it has been in the construction industry to initiate change. The type of change I refer to relates to not only how technology can ultimately help us be more productive, but also to how we manage lifecycle information across all stages of our projects and having the capability to do so.
Far too often, we are seeing analogue processes and deliverables that relate to age-old projects. This might include hardcopy drawings or documents stored in antiquated systems. This is true for our asset owners who have hundreds and sometimes thousands of documents, historical data, all of which need to be stored somewhere, or effectively translated in a way that allows it to be more accessible and useable.
The ISO 19650 series of standards
Information management processes are fundamentally underpinned by the publication and subsequent policing of the ISO 19650 series of standards. Those who know me, know how passionate I am about standards and initiating a consistent approach from the outset, which will fundamentally support better work practices and greater efficiencies.
The challenge is that ISO 19650 is generally unknown throughout the supply chain, and many asset owners or clients still either refer to retired terminology (the BIM L2’ers) or do not know how to transfer from one process to the next.
The primary objective of asset owners, government clients and industry alike should be around the growth in capability, initiating change through upskilling and having the people and organisations able to deliver on our clients’ needs.
Far too many strategic initiatives across governments all over the world are focusing on alignment to ISO 19650 but also developing their own unique digital transformation strategies, which are generally different across jurisdictions. Across the UK, we are seeing greater maturity around the adoption of industry standards across government and private developers, yet there are still some challenges with capability uplift and delivery mechanisms.
Lifecycle information management delivery through innovation
What I find is missing across many of these conversations is the ability to grow capability and implementation through innovation; through the use of new skills and diverse roles, as well as the ability to be able to harness this capability across the delivery of larger assets.
The United Nations Sustainable Development Goals were developed to support governments in global unity in putting in place solutions to align with these ambitions. In this context, practical solutions that can accelerate progress on these goals will be urgently needed, which is where standardisation can support.
Each industry standard published ultimately links to the relevant Sustainable Development Goal and therefore having a detailed understanding of these goals is what is sometimes missing. To allow and support decision-makers to accelerate action and overcome impediments that stand in the way of progress on sustainable development, we need to have clearly defined ambitions.
Ambitions that do not relate to project delivery, but rather focus on the overall lifecycle of the built assets in our cities and countries. The focus must be on accelerating transformation through defined goals and enabling our industry in terms of skills to support this acceleration.
Project delivery must be underpinned by clearly understood and defined requirements at the onset, and this is why our clients must have a good understanding of the Sustainable Development Goals to support the implementation of BIM, digital engineering or the pathway toward smart cities and digital twins.
Enabling lifecycle information management early on
We know that there are varying approaches toward the implementation of digital twin outcomes, many of which are developed by asset owners to support asset delivery and management, rather than focused on enabling the data to come together earlier during project delivery. As much of our research suggests, enabling information management principles and processes as early as possible will ultimately support the client in making these decisions.
Use cases defined by asset owners are also an important consideration at the earliest stages, mapping out the requirements for the utilisation of data across the operational phase will help to support this so-called mapping to a digital twin.
As we look further and further into the future, technology adoption will become increasingly more difficult as we navigate the landscapes of our CDE environments, delivery requirements and asset management. There is no one technology solution to fit them all – the way in which we can achieve the greatest good in terms of asset utilisation is to understand that the technology will ultimately take a side-step from many of these conversations.
The way in which the technology evolves will help us and will enable greater efficiencies, yet as an industry, we need to make sure that the overarching frameworks for the adoption of technology are underpinned via information management procedures, developed, executed and then delivered to our clients.
The built environment affects everything we do, from the homes we live in to the places we travel to for work, to our various daily activities and ensuring we have greater insight into these assets that occupy the built environment is not only critical for those who have a financial link to them (eg owners) but to any person in the world who will need to work better, manage information more efficiently and finally to save on operational costs, which we all so desperately need.
Rebecca De Cicco
Principal, digital enablement
