This week, coBuilder signed an agreement with The Federation of Norwegian Construction Industry (BNL) to deliver standard-based product data structures also known as Product Data Templates to the entire sector.
coBuilder – the biggest provider of digital data services for the Norwegian construction industry, will deliver the data templates into a common digital platform, enabling all construction users to take advantage of the most advanced solutions for digitalisation of product data.
Oslo, June 30, 2017: The agreement marks the beginning of a new era for the Norwegian and European construction industry – an era of cooperation between the experts in standardising and digitising construction data – coBuilder – and the leading Norwegian industry association – BNL. ‘Bringing technology, industry insight and best practice together to establish a common approach to managing and utilizing product data in the sector is a first and a very significant step towards digitizing the Norwegian construction industry’ says Jon Sandnes, CEO of BNL.
At a press conference on Monday (June 26), the involved parties announced that a web-based SAAS tool developed by coBuilder will be used for the creation of the Norwegian context based on the French standard PPBIM XP P07-150. The standard is currently proposed at the European level as the source of the main methodology to define and manage construction product properties within CEN/TC 442 WG 4. An important factor for choosing coBuilder’s services is also the fact that coBuilder are involved with the LEXiCON work led by the Construction Product Association (CPA) in the UK and several other European initiatives within the same scope.
Over the last few months, coBuilder has been cooperating with BNL in order to establishment a comprehensive roadmap for defining and developing and utilising the standard-based data structures (Product Data Templates) based on the CEN standards under the Construction Product Regulation (CPR).
‘In order to achieve the level of digitalisation that Norway is aiming at, the industry needs a common context and a common terminology, standardised and used by every single actor, at any stage of the construction process. coBuilder has been specializing in this area for over 20 years. I am glad that we have found partners to help us support manufacturers, contractors and clients to make this this necessary step towards achieving higher efficiencies and more sustainable construction in the next 10 years’, says Lars Fredenlund, CEO of coBuilder.
When it comes to technology, the buildingSMART Data Dictionary (bSDD) is an essential part of the project. The bSDD provides the technology, which ensures that unique relationships between concepts (‘window’, ‘u-value’) are maintained so that no matter what language or code you use to denote a ‘window’ or ‘u-value’ you would know that they are related to one another (‘u-value’ is an attribute of a ‘window’). This methodology allows everyone to understand each other and exchange information across different software tools, proprietary formats and languages. Thus, as the implementation of one of the openBIM standards – IFD, bSDD was chosen to be the common data dictionary and the basis for linking to other dictionaries in the future.
A transfer agreement was also signed between BNL and buildingSMART Norway for the organisation of the future work. The important task of buildingSMART Norway is to start the development of the approved Norwegian context by working with experts – together with coBuilder’s content creation expertise; this work will form the backbone of the Norwegian Construction Industry’s digital future.
