BIMStorm BIG BIM BANGHealthcare + Education

Two significant building owners, Kaiser Permanente and California Community Colleges, are supporting the BIMStorm BIG BIM BANG “sandbox” with projects that encourage those in the building industry to explore use of web-based Building Information Models.

BIMStorms are a series of “online brainstorms” and in-person sessions using web-based Building Information Models to explore dramatic productivity improvements using open standards to share information among many software programs for planning, design, construction, operations and maintenance. Organized by ONUMA, Inc., and supported by sponsors, BIMStorms are free for those interested in learning owner business process requirements.

The following is an exploration of the California Community Colleges portion of the BIMStorm, which will be held over a period of three months, with an in-person focus at Ecobuild 2011, Washington, D.C. December 6.

For more information visit: http://www.BIMStorm.com/WAS

An Educational Facilities Owner's Perspective

California Community Colleges is making data available on multiple projects for two campuses. MiraCosta College will be the site for a project in early planning, three projects as part of an overall east-side campus plan. The three design projects are 1) a new athletics center, 2) a new operations and maintenance facility and, 3) a new parking area with solar photovoltaics.

For Mission College, an exploration of data sharing from the Construction-Operations Building Information Exchange format (COBIE) to facility management software will be addressed.

“The BIMStorm gives our districts new and fresh ideas and to see how this collaborative approach and data sharing can help them save money and get more done with the limited budget we have to maintain our facilities,” says John Roach, Executive Director, Technology Services, Foundation for California Community Colleges. It is great opportunity for contractors working with the colleges or potential new contractors to get a sense of what the California Community College work scope is.”

Roach supports the institution's 72 districts and 112 campus throughout the state. “All of those districts and campuses are using our facility maintenance program Fusion to collaborate with the Chancellors office on annual reporting,” Roach says.

Fusion is an internally created, online database that assists with space utilization and facility management for 71 million square feet of facilities. The need for integrating information and to streamline and standardize the exchange of information dealing with the facilities was the reason for establishing the Fusion, according to Roach. Because the college system has already had organized the data, it was well prepared to benefit from web-based BIM processes.

For this BIMStorm the California Community College will, for the first time, generate project program requirements in BIM from FUSION which will then be made accessible to the design teams to work with and submit the completed BIM back to FUSION for compliance checking and updating of the FUSION data.

“The districts have obligations to annually submit space inventory information explaining what space has been added, what space has been removed and how those spaces are being used down to the room level,” Roach says. “We have a team of assessors that travel the state full time and visit each campus, walking each building approximately once every three years.”

Information about the condition of building systems combined with the chancellor's office annual updates for enrollment forecasts allow districts to allocate spaces at individual campuses and add additional forecasts.

“With those three basic building blocks: 1) space inventory telling us what spaces we have and how they are being used, 2) the condition of the space and 3) the enrollment forecasts the districts then develop their capital construction plans,” Roach says.

As capital plans are approved by the chancellor's office and then funded, active projects move into the project module of Fusion. “As projects are built out and the last of the financial reimbursement claims are processed, the project moves back into the space inventory and the cycle continues,” Roach says.

He added, “Each district maintains its own sets of data and then collaborate by sharing it through web services. Ideally we do it as we are doing it in the ONUMA System. We found that because of the standards approach of the ONUMA Systems and it's light weight web-based approach, that it is the ideal tool for being able to link into these tools.”

The Foundation for California Community Colleges is working with individual districts on larger focused projects dealing on a range of projects from master planning through to maintenance, ticketing, sensor and energy reading, according to Roach.

For this BIMStorm the California Community College will for the first time, generate project program requirements in BIM from FUSION which will then be made accessible to the design teams to work with and submit the completed BIM back to FUSION for compliance checking and updatiing of the FUSION data.

Onuma says, “We are actively looking for other tools that can connect to the Fusion system and add more value to the colleges.” For example, at Glendale Community College IRIS Greenbuild is using the ONUMA System and Energle software to link BIM with building automation systems and sensors to FUSION data.

Sensors provide real-time data through Energle's dashboards. Also, web-based BIM lighting controls that provides the ability to turn lights on and off remotely are being tested.

“BIMStorm BIG BIM BANG is allowing access to several energy studies, audits for demand response and how to reduce energy use for an entire campus,” Onuma says.

Onuma adds, “We are going to have a connection between the ONUMA System and GTX Sync, a master model management web server. In the ONUMA System we keep models light weight, but if we have a full blown Revit model that we want to see in 3D in a web browser - for example a mashup of the mechanical model with the architectural model - GTX Sync is going to have the ability to import that Revit or IFC model and visualize it in 3D on the web.”

Construction-Operations Building information exchange

Another focus of BIMStorm BIG BIM BANG will be data transfer using the Construction Operation Building Information Exchange (COBie) format, according to Tina Macica, MPM Consultancy, supporting the Build LACCD program. “We are developing a COBie specification to figure out how to take the information that we receive during construction – the operations manuals, the maintenance manuals, the warranty information and put it into a data format that you can you can transfer it automatically into SAP,” Macica says. “The goal is to take information that is already required to be delivered in the written format and move it into an electronic format.”

The test project is a lab building, so there is a significant amount of equipment in it and it is a great example of the different types of items will need to be maintained. “We will need to know how do we take some of that information and hook it back into FUSION so the client can manage the assets down the line in a logical manner,” Macica says. “We will be uploading the maintenance information into their maintenance management system which is SAP.”

“We are going to release some of this information during the BIMStorm so the different project teams can utilize what we have done and see if it works,” Macica says.

While FUSION does not maintain equipment data, it does maintain room data, according to Onuma. “The opportunity is to have multiple systems talk about the same room. For example, LACCD uses their own FM CMMS Systems and also uses FUSION so that all the data from different systems can be related to the same room with accuracy,” he says. “We don't need every single element in this model that you see on the screen during facility management. What we worked on with the LACCD and Tina was to identify specifically what is needed from the model. Some of it could be very simple data about a piece of equipment. We might not need all the ducts, but we need all the air handling units, for example.”

Many models being delivered to owners are great for construction but they don't support facility management, according to Onuma. “So how do you break this data back down into a different format. It is not necessarily that the more data you have the better. It is really the appropriate level of detail for what you are trying to do throughout the whole project life-cycle?” he asks.

Onuma says, “One very important theme for all of the BIMStorms and a lot of the owners – is how to consistently get data from all of our facilities that can be rolled up to a portfolio level. This is not possible unless you have consistent naming and numbering. It is as simple as that actually. We have to have consistent naming and numbering at a very basic level. If we can't name buildings and number buildings and name spaces and number spaces in a consistent way, it is impossible to say what's inside. That is the lowest level of BIM detail in this BIMStorm. Let's keep data consistent. This seems simplistic, but this is absolutely the biggest challenge most owners have is naming and numbering of spaces.”

These challenges and many other related to improved productivity with web-based Building Information Models are being addressed in BIMStorm 2011 BIG BIM BANG – www.BIMStorm.com/WAS

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• November 14, 2011 - 8 am Pacific | 11 am Eastern - Live Planning Session II • November 22, 2011 - 8 am Pacific | 11 am Eastern - Live Planning Session III • December 7 and 8, 2011 - BIMStorm Live at ecobuild, Washington, DC• December 8, 2011 S603 Big BIM Bang