The International Alliance for Interoperability (IAI) will be holding the 3rd International BuildingSmart Conference in Washington on the 30th of October 2006. BuildingSMART is simply a smarter process for managing the project lifecycle.The event will illustrate the essence of BuildingSMART and show how it is being used by government, industry, and practice.
Asite will announce the forthcoming release of Asite Collaborative BIM at the BuildingSMART Week Conference.
Asite Collaborative Building Information Model (BIM) is the first and only collaboration tool allowing the whole supply chain to interact around a centralised BIM. A BIM is the representation of a building as an integrated database in a digital design. More than just a 3D model which only stores graphical information, a BIM carries all information related to the building including its physical and functional characteristics and project life cycle information, held in a series of "Smart Objects". For example an air conditioning unit within a BIM would also contain data about its supplier, lead in times, operation and maintenance procedures, flow rates and clearance requirements.
Asite Collaborative BIM is built on the Industry Foundation Classes (IFC) schema developed by the International Alliance for Interoperability (IAI). The IFC schema sets the international standard for data exchange and sharing of building and construction life cycle information. The independence of the IFC format means that it is not limited to CAD software or any particular software vendor. Asite Collaborative BIM Models can interoperate between software for CAD, cost estimations, simulations, scheduling, analysis and much more.
Today, some engineers, architects and contractors are already using BIM technology. However, at present each member of the supply chain tends to have their own copy of the BIM, each of which is not integrated with the others, resulting in duplicate information and poor communication.
Asite Collaborative BIM recognises that different organisations within a project team will be responsible for different elements of a building, which all need to be coordinated together to ensure the overall design is correct. Rather than replacing existing products and technologies, Asite Collaborative BIM will integrate the existing BIM into one central repository allowing the whole supply chain to collaborate. Within Asite's Collaboration platform, users can then interact with the overall BIM containing the models uploaded by each party, for the purposes of walk-through or design co-ordination.
By holding "Smart Objects" that link to catalogues within Asite's procurement system, users of Asite Collaborative BIM can see real-time pricing and availability of components and even purchase them. For example, during facilities management, maintenance staff can walk up to components such as boilers within the BIM and access all the operation and maintenance information. Should they be required, replacement parts can be ordered with just a click!
Asite Collaborative BIM is unique and ground breaking. Moving beyond the electronic transfer of paper documents, it provides business decision maker with key information about the building that can be used to evaluate the building performance. Asite Collaborative BIM is the first product of a new generation of collaboration tools which will enable the construction industry to improve working practices and allow the supply chain to build smarter. Sir John Egan commented in the "Rethinking Construction Update" Conference held in London on the 4th of October 2006: "Asite has delivered on my vision with the forthcoming release of Asite Collaborative BIM". Asite is delivering Data Logistics to the Nth dimension.
For more information please call on
+44 (0)207 749 7880.
Asite Insights in your inbox.
Sign up for product news and our latest insights published monthly. It's a newsletter so hot, even global warming can't keep up.
