CC4201

INDUSTRY focus
Whatever happened to BIM Level 2?
From the mid 1990's onwards, many research projects have concluded that the major problem
impacting the delivery of construction projects is the failure in production of quality information. The
lack of quality information and spatial coordination created an added cost to construction projects,
estimated between 10-20%, and extended the time to delivery. Mervyn Richards and Paul Oakley,
CEO of Oakley CAD Services Ltd, explore the issues
The use of 3D modelling in the early
2000's was seen as a possible
method of elminating waste and
helping to deliver projects on time by
reducing rework. Supplemented with
standards, methods, and procedures, a
possible method of working was published
by the Construction Project Information
Committee (CPIC), as Production
Information: A code of procedure for the
construction industry. First edition 2003.
Prior to this publication, the procedures
had been developed and tested within
industry, initially on the BAA Heathrow
Express, and subsequently the BAA
Terminal 5 (T5) project. The standards
were also implemented on a variety of
projects, ranging from shopping centre
development to standard office buildings.
In all cases, the standards were shown to
have a beneficial effect on the delivery of
those projects.
The benefits were accepted and further
government funding, through AVANTI,
demonstrated that if implemented properly,
everybody in the supply chain - from client
to designer, constructor, and operator -
could reduce costs and improve profits.
With final testing on the Crossrail project,
the methods were developed and
published as best practice by the British
Standards Institute as BS1192-2007 and
guidance was provided by BSI/CPI
BIP2207. The major developments from
these projects are known as the Common
Data Environment and the File Naming
Convention. A process for sharing
information in a collaborative environment
to eliminate the problems of spatial
coordination and coordination of the data
developed throughout the design and
delivery process.
The secondary requirement of the CDE
was to enable the collection, management,
and dissemination of shared information,
or common data, and to provide an audit
trail of the development activity. The latter
was a requirement of the Health and Safety
Executive (HSE) resulting from the
Heathrow Express collapse. It is a
requirement that has never been fully
implemented but is currently being
reinforced following the Grenfell Tower
disaster, and the Dame Judith Hackitt fire
safety report into legislation to provide a
'golden thread' of audited data.
In 2008, with the financial crash and the
change in UK Government from Labour to
Conservative, it was recognised that, to
continue government delivery of centrally
funded projects, new ways of delivery were
needed, to allow for greater value and
reduced cost.
The concept of BIM Level 2 was
conceived by Dr Mark Bew MBE and Prof.
Mervyn Richards OBE. It was accepted by
UKHMG as a game-changer. BS 1192
became the foundation for a set of
standards under the 1192 series. These
were based on the roadmap developed as
part of the BIM Level 2 Maturity Diagram.
The roadmap was agreed and published
by the BSI B555 Committee to be
delivered, prior to the UK BIM Mandate to
be published in 2016.
The strategy was published as part of the
BIS BIM Strategy and the HMG
Construction Strategy 2011, giving the
industry 5 years to prepare. Guidance,
education, training, and certification were
made available to the industry through the
BSI, the Building Research Establishment
(BRE), and Lloyds Register (supported by
Excitech Ltd). In addition, several
Information Management courses and
MSc degrees were also made available at
UK universities, including Reading and
London Middlesex.
To ascertain the effects of the BIM Level 2
strategy, several government projects were
used to measure the results. The results
proved that the strategy and the guidance
was successful, to such a degree that the
international community wanted the
standards to be converted to a series of
ISO standards on information
management.
This requirement was granted and
promoted by UKHMG and the BSI. This
proved to be a major problem. The
international members of the ISO
committee did not want a UK standard,
particularly when it came to conventions
and codification and, during the
development of ISO 19650-2, all 'UK-isms',
such as the UK Government's strategy,
BIM Level 2 and UK-specific references,
etc., had to be removed with UK-specific
definitions, instead, held in a National
Annex. Source:
www.thenbs.com/knowledge/from-bs-
1192-to-iso-19650-and-everything-inbetween
However, requirements not relevant to
information management were lost. This
was somewhat ironic, as many of these
requirements were fundamental in
improving the quality of information - which
was why the international community
wanted to adopt the UK standards.
In the original PAS1192-2 document,
guidance and descriptions were given as
notes, allowable under the British Standard
PAS form of standards development. The
ISO standard format does not allow for this,
and so explanatory information is missing
from the ISO 19650 documentation.
BSI could have just included the updated
and unpublished 2018 PAS1192-2 as the
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January/February 2024