Interoperability of building information — Myth of reality?

The U.S. National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) estimated the cost of inadequate interoperability within Property, Construction and Facility Management Industry at $15.8 billion per year. These costs were incurred by the capital facilities industry and represented between 1–2% of its cross-market revenue. Based on project lifecycle phases, the breakdown of these numbers revealed that the highest costs were incurred at the operations and maintenance phase directly followed by construction ( NIST, 2004 ). According to the Institute, interoperability is “the ability to manage and communicate electronic product and project data between collaborating firms’ and within individual companies’design, construction, maintenance, and business process systems.” Interoperability and Building Information Modelling (BIM) are intrinsically linked. Building Information Modeling (BIM) is a model-centric management system that “can capture, manage and present data in ways that are appropriate and customary for a particular designer, contractor, vendor or client” ( Ibrahim et al., 2003 ). BIM is steadily gaining industrial acceptance as a replacement of documentation-centric Computer Aided Design (CAD). BIM has multiple representation protocols that are all facing similar barriers to adoption including: commercial, organisational and regulatory barriers ( Drogemuller and Hampson, 2004 ). With the advent of the semantic web this paper questions the future and current shortcomings for Industry Foundation Classes. It also identifies (1) the value of interoperability to the industry and, (2) the key economic incentives for the adoption of Building information modeling. The model is then discussed with industry and business experts. Identification of relevant drivers and barriers for BIM adoption are discussed in relation with (Roger’s 1995) Diffusion Model. Results are expected to assist the effective uptake of BIM.