Facilitating the BIM coordinator and empowering the suppliers with automated data compliance checking

Abstract

In projects with Building Information Modelling (BIM), the collaboration among the various actors is a very intricate and intensive process. The various suppliers and engineers provide their input in Industry Foundation Classes (IFC), which in turn is used for design coordination. However, the IFCs have to undergo an intermediate checking process to ensure compliance with various client-set and technical requirements. The paper focuses on the potential of (semi-)automatic IFC compliance checks and discusses a relevant recent initiative in the Netherlands, according to which several IFC compliance criteria were agreed among 14 contractors. This study aims to unravel the changes induced by this development not only as to the IFC compliance checks, but also as to potentially balancing the roles between the BIM coordinator and the suppliers.