Appointing parties and OpenBIM in the context of ISO 19650

The architecture, engineering, construction, and operation (AECO) industry strives for a more integrated approach in the entire project life cycle. This new methodology of doing must include technology, process, and people. The urgency of change comes from the low productivity level in the AECO sector which impacts in different factors such as: time, cost, scope, and quality.

The appointing party is one of the actors or stakeholders within the supply chain of the AECO industry. Also, it is the originator of the goals, objectives, purposes, and requirements that the project must fulfill to be considered successful. Then, a conscious appointing party about the necessity of innovation and a digital transformation can take the lead by implementing BIM. Nevertheless, it is not an easy path not only for the different dimensions to consider as it was mentioned technology, process and people, but also for the enormous guides, templates, books, papers existing that can create confusion in an appointing party for starting its BIM journey.

This dissertation takes the perspective of an appointing party that intends to create a flow process aligned not only with ISO 19650 series but also with interoperability criteria coming from OpenBIM, and on top of that by adding some Lean Construction tools. Then, the first approach discussed in this document is the necessary steps that an appointing party needs to follow ISO 19650 series. The tangible result of this is the generation of thirteen different templates with alongside a technical guide that intends to pave the path of the appointing party in its BIM journey. The second step was the incorporation in the document of practical’s about interoperability through OpenBIM concepts such as IFC, MVD, BCF and IDS. As a third step it was included five tools from the Lean Construction community that pretend to boost the synergy between Lean and BIM.

The validation process consisted of a series of semi-structured interviews and surveys to a panel of experts from the industry. This process helped to refine the proposed templates and technical guide aligned to ISO 19650 series, OpenBIM and Lean Construction tools. Some changes were included according to the answers and comments of the experts.

The findings helped to improve and to consider the perspective of the industry that the expert panel brought to this research. It was found that necessity to improve the knowledge of practitioners about OpenBIM and Lean construction in the most practical aspects of the tools of each domain. Also, it was highlighted the convenience of having two complementary types of documents: templates and technical guide for helping appointing parties in its BIM implementation. Moreover, there was found doubts about the practicality and suitability of the level of information framework over other approach as LOD.