National Academies Press: OpenBook

BIM Beyond Design Guidebook (2020)

Chapter: Section 7 - BIM Implementation Technical Architecture

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Suggested Citation:"Section 7 - BIM Implementation Technical Architecture." National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine. 2020. BIM Beyond Design Guidebook. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. doi: 10.17226/25840.
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Page 76
Suggested Citation:"Section 7 - BIM Implementation Technical Architecture." National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine. 2020. BIM Beyond Design Guidebook. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. doi: 10.17226/25840.
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Page 77
Suggested Citation:"Section 7 - BIM Implementation Technical Architecture." National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine. 2020. BIM Beyond Design Guidebook. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. doi: 10.17226/25840.
×
Page 77
Page 78
Suggested Citation:"Section 7 - BIM Implementation Technical Architecture." National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine. 2020. BIM Beyond Design Guidebook. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. doi: 10.17226/25840.
×
Page 78
Page 79
Suggested Citation:"Section 7 - BIM Implementation Technical Architecture." National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine. 2020. BIM Beyond Design Guidebook. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. doi: 10.17226/25840.
×
Page 79
Page 80
Suggested Citation:"Section 7 - BIM Implementation Technical Architecture." National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine. 2020. BIM Beyond Design Guidebook. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. doi: 10.17226/25840.
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Page 80

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75 Prior sections have reviewed the basic framework of the BIM process and how airports can evaluate using BIM to improve their O&M. This section will address the underlying design requirements for a BIM system: the asset data schema and the interfaces necessary to fully support its collaborative benefits. The technical architecture underlying BIM is primarily focused on the concept of infor- mation exchanges. An information exchange comprises the standards and methods by which BIM data are shared between stakeholder groups and other facility management systems such as CMMS, EAM, IWMS, and property/lease management systems. The concept of standardized information exchanges is the primary enabler of the collaborative benefits of BIM. Data visualization is a form of information exchange, establishing graphical standards that all users can quickly view, analyze, and integrate into their decision making. Underlying the graphical information, however, is a data-rich environment of asset attribute information. The ability to easily exchange information among stakeholder groups throughout the facility or asset life cycle is critical to realizing BIM’s full benefits. A traditional facility life cycle proceeds in a compartmentalized fashion through planning, design, construction, operations, and maintenance. Each phase of the life cycle has its priorities and set of defined deliverables that are passed on to the next phase. Planning evaluates different options and requirements and produces a conceptual facility plan and scope. The design team converts this scope into a detailed facility design and bid package. Construction uses the design to construct the facility and produce shop drawings, product schedules, record drawings, O&M manuals, and other handover data. O&M uses the record drawings and O&M manuals to develop maintenance programs and manage the facility assets to the renewal and replacement phase. Figure 7-1 illustrates the flow of facility data across the facility life cycle. At each stage, there is a formalized exchange of facility data, but much of the knowledge acquired during one phase is not passed on to the next phase. The owner develops scope documents for the archi- tects, but there may be internal needs assessment information that the owner collected from staff and tenants that is lost when the scope is formalized. The architect and trades engineers create a formal set of building plans that communicate how the facility is built, but do not communicate the design intent needed to guide future decision making when conflicts arise. The contractor creates plans and shop drawings necessary to construct the facility, but only to the degree the contractor needs to coordinate and build that facility. As-built documents are often left incomplete. Figure 7-2 shows how BIM creates an information exchange that enables a collaborative life cycle approach, in order to eliminate the separate data silos and enhance the sharing of vital facility data. This data sharing not only reduces the data loss at handover but also improves S E C T I O N 7 BIM Implementation— Technical Architecture

76 BIM Beyond Design Guidebook the collection of required data within each life cycle phase. Designers can more fully integrate constructability and maintainability requirements early in the process, where such integration can have the largest effect on reducing the overall life cycle cost of the facility. Contractors have a greater understanding of the owner’s and designer’s intent, reducing downstream change orders and producing a facility that fully meets the owner’s needs. 7.1 System Architecture What are the required elements and interfaces to support this collaborative information process? System architecture describes the existing software systems, hardware, network infra- structure, and the required information exchanges to make these systems work together. Traditionally, paper facility record plans were stored in document rooms along with other handover documentation. Digital versions of these documents were stored on archive data servers that could be shared across an organization but did little to encourage collaboration. The BIM-enabled environment allows an organization not only to share facility information digitally but also to maintain and update these data in real time across the organization and with enterprise applications relying upon accurate facility data. Examples of current facility management applications are CMMS, EAM, CAFM (computer-aided facility management), BAS, and IWMS. Fa ci lit y D at a K no w le dg e Figure 7-1. Facility data loss during facility life cycle development. Figure 7-2. BIM information exchange.

BIM Implementation—Technical Architecture 77 While these applications are designed to manage large amounts of facility data, the complexity of facility management will only increase over time. The information revolution has produced an exponential growth in the facility data collected. As next-generation technologies such as IoT sensors and real-time data collection emerge, data collection is likely to grow by several orders of magnitude. BIM will enable this growth by putting the data that are collected into a spatial context to understand how the data are related and distributing the data in a format that can be consumed by the wide range of applications performing the analysis. Big data solutions and artificial-intelligence-supported decision-making tools that will be available over the next decade will require a robust information infrastructure. Figure 7-3 illustrates a typical network architecture designed to be scalable to meet the rigorous data-processing and storage demands of BIM. A brief description of each component follows. 7.2 Existing Conditions Data-Processing Server While capital construction projects may deliver a complete facility BIM, in most cases there will be a significant portion of airport facilities that have incomplete or dated as-built data from which to create the BIM. Laser data scanning (also called “high definition survey”) can expedite the capture of existing conditions as input into the BIM-authoring process. A laser scanner is positioned on a tripod and collects distance data by scanning all the surfaces within the line of sight of the scanner. Accurately mapping a facility with enough detail may require hundreds or even thousands of separate scans that are registered together as a “point cloud.” It is called a “point cloud” because it represents the facility as a highly dense collection of points; Figure 7-3. Sample BIM network architecture.

78 BIM Beyond Design Guidebook in most cases, this can include billions of separate points, each with unique coordinates. Although laser scanning sounds time consuming, it is a relatively rapid process (it is possible to scan a 2,000 sf room within 5 to10 minutes, depending on the complexity of the room layout). BIM-authoring software can use point clouds to build the 3D solid models utilized by most user applications. Separate server(s) need to be designated for processing these data, as even small facilities can be highly computationally intensive, and file sizes can easily exceed 1 terabyte or more before processing begins. Lidar data and sUAS photogrammetry can also benefit from having a designated data- processing server to register their data and create site-civil surface contours and facility 3D models. Photogrammetry can also be used to generate internal 3D geometry as the input for BIM, although not with the precision of laser scanning. However, the level of precision achievable with photogrammetry may be enough for many BIM applications, and photogram- metry can be accomplished more quickly and at a lower cost than laser scanning with current technology. 7.3 BIM-Authoring Servers The BIM-authoring environment has become increasingly collaborative. Those designing and updating BIM may be working from workstations, updating or annotating BIM from tablets, or even updating BIM asset data from their mobile phones. The native file format of the central BIM is typically on a shared server or, increasingly, on a cloud-based server that maximizes its accessibility both across local area networks and wide area networks. The authoring platform gives users the most robust set of tools for managing BIM, but comes with per-user license fees that do not make this financially attractive as the primary stakeholder interface for BIM for most airports. The BIM-authoring server will provide an application programming interface (API) that is defined by a vendor-provided software development kit that provides application devel- opment for individual users to develop custom applications tailored to their requirements. Identifying off-the-shelf software solutions will always be more economical, but the API may provide a specialized solution where no commercial solution currently exists. In most cases, data will be converted for use by external applications using exporting data as IFC, extensible markup language (XML), or COBie (see Section 8). 7.4 Open BIM Server An open BIM server enables sharing of BIM data using IFC-based standards. ISO 16379: Industry Foundation Class (IFC) defines the data standard that provides the greatest inter- operability between all data systems and BIM applications. It is a structured plain text data definition that translates the asset data, known as attributes, and asset geometry into a standardized format. IFC, although text-based, is difficult to read and maintain. Model view definitions (MVDs) have been created to map the IFC data into formats that are more readable by humans and focused on specific BIM applications. The most popular of these is COBie, which has been designed to standardize the handover of critical facility data to facility owners after construction. While COBie is not the “BIM data standard,” it does provide a simple and standard approach to collecting, sharing, and maintaining facility data. As such, many facility management software vendors provide COBie-compliant data interfaces. Facility management software applications include CMMS, EAM, CAFM, and BAS software providers.

BIM Implementation—Technical Architecture 79 Regardless of the types of data formats an organization settles on as its standard, a stand-alone open BIM server will provide the organization with the greatest flexibility in supporting existing and future data requirements. 7.5 CMMS/EAM Previous sections have explained the wide variety of BIM uses or applications available during the facility asset life cycle. It is these applications that provide the direct benefit to the stakeholder groups. Many stakeholder groups will continue to interface with facility data through the existing CMMS and the supported functions utilized by the airport. Supported functions could include work order management, asset inventory, maintenance planning, capital planning, and other management systems. However, while the interface would be largely unchanged, the facility information, accuracy, and completeness would be greatly enhanced. A CMMS integrated with BIM can provide coordinate-based location, visual mapping, and system data for managed assets. This allows the CMMS to provide users with the complete spatial and system context of assets for purposes of inventory, maintenance plan- ning, space management, and other CMMS applications. Most large CMMS platforms now support COBie to simplify integration. Some platforms may support real-time, bi-directional synchronizations that allow changes to the BIM to propagate to all CMMS applications automatically. Likewise, changes to the CMMS asset data are automatically propagated to the BIM, where they are available to field staff. In other cases, “middleware,” a separate software that manages the synchronization and translation of BIM data, may be necessary. Alternatively, the exchange may be performed manually with exports and imports of data from each system. 7.6 Application Servers While a CMMS provides a convenient, central clearinghouse for managing and analyzing facility data collected by BIM, many airports will have separate systems maintained for distinct management functions and maintained by different departments. The open BIM server will provide the robust interface for translating and delivering the BIM-generated facility with these data systems. Potential data systems could include IWMS, CAFM, property management systems, asset inventory systems, and others. There will also be a class of facility management applications that the CMMS does not support or where a non-CMMS integrated solution may have additional desired features or be available at a better price point. Integrated solutions might include energy analysis and usage applications, LEED compliance analysis, and BAS. Having one or more application servers provides the most flexibility in deploying, maintaining, and upgrading these appli- cations with the least disruption to the other applications. It is possible to bundle multiple applications on a single server if care is taken to understand the data-processing, storage, and networking requirements of each application. 7.7 Cloud Server and Firewall While BIM provides a powerful tool for collecting and sharing facility data, this benefit can also introduce increased risk and exposure to the airport. The sharing of these data across Wi-Fi or cloud-based networks opens the risk of network intrusion. A strong local firewall, or GSA-approved, cloud-based service provider, can minimize these risks.

80 BIM Beyond Design Guidebook 7.8 BIM Application Map An application architecture map is shown in Figure 7-4 that illustrates how data flow from the BIM to the various application types that may exist within the airport. As noted previously, the BIM interfaces with external applications through the following mechanisms: • Export of IFC Extensible Markup Language (IFCXML) asset attributes and graphical data • Export of COBie asset and facility data (does not include graphical data) • Use of middleware to provide this translation and support bi-directional synchronization • Direct interface between native BIM-authoring tools and an application with native APIs specific to vendor software packages 7.9 Summary While BIM-supported user applications can provide significant benefits to productivity across an airport organization, the infrastruc- ture required to support BIM can be extensive. Technology to capture existing conditions can require very high-end processing power and data storage requirements. The translation of native BIM spatial and asset data requires careful planning and a robust data network to support the information exchange requirements between BIM and CMMS/EAM/CAFM and other BIM applications. While one of BIM’s most significant benefits is enhancing organizational collaboration across the facility life cycle, this requires a network architecture that meets the facility data access needs of all airport stakeholders, regard- less of their physical location. Note: SDK – software development kit Figure 7-4. BIM architecture. Section 7 Checklist 1. Determine the system architecture required to facilitate data exchange among the airport’s various facility data management software applications. 2. Document the required facility data exchange in a BIM application architecture map.

Next: Section 8 - BIM Implementation Integration of BIM with Existing Systems »
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The complexity of airport management has grown dramatically in recent years, with increased security requirements, a focus on sustainability, increased competition, new technologies, and traffic growth.

The TRB Airport Cooperative Research Program's ACRP Research Report 214: BIM Beyond Design Guidebook gives airport owners the basic knowledge required to manage this complexity through building information modeling (BIM), a practice that has transformed the design and construction industry over the last decade and is now emerging as a key component to enhancing an asset life cycle management approach for many organizations.

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