The purpose of the EU procurement rules, underpinned by the Treaty principles, is to open up the public procurement market and to ensure the free movement of supplies, services and works within the EU. In most cases they require competition. The EU rules reflect and reinforce the value for money (VFM), focus of many new procurement policies. This requires that all public procurement must be based on VFM, defined as “the best mix of quality and effectiveness for the least outlay over the period of use of the goods or services bought”, which should be achieved through competition, unless there are compelling reasons to the contrary. This Directive (Directive 2014/24/EU of the European Parliament and of the Council of 26 February 2014 on public procurement and repealing Directive 2004/18/EC – Text with EEA relevance) establishes rules on the procedures for procurement by contracting authorities with respect to public contracts as well as design contests, whose value is estimated to be not less than the thresholds specified.
The European Public Procurement Directive includes encouragement for BIM in the procurement of public works to support the modernisation of procurement processes, improvements to cost efficiency of public funding and to increase consideration for whole-life costing in public works. The Directive establishes the need to use software (media data and tools to model the building) in processes for contracting construction work, services and supplies. Among other effects, it is expected that there will be different levels of electronic information and that evaluation of offers in procurement should take the full asset’s lifecycles into consideration rather than focusing only on direct costs, in line with the BIM objectives.
The Directive is available in 23 languages.
The publication of ISO 19650, an international quality standard governing the organisation and digitisation of information about buildings and civil engineering works, helps the client, project manager and contractor to agree on things, develop a shared understanding and exchange data more easily. Besides making the construction sector more competitive, BIM is driving innovation and sustainable growth while delivering improved infrastructure quality.
The European Federation of Engineering Consultancy Associations (EFCA) provided guidance to its members for introducing the ISO 19650 standard and highlighting its far-reaching benefits. For engineers, BIM under the ISO 19650 concepts represents unprecedented opportunities for improving their added value during the construction process.
The BIM Booklet addresses the new ISO 19650 standards and their relevance to consulting engineers. It describes the beneficial outcomes of using them within the BIM approach, and from a project management perspective. It highlights the benefits of lowering risk and reducing financial losses, which are possible where reliable project information is available in a structured, re-usable form and where it is efficiently shared. It illustrates how, by managing the ownership and liability of project data, project managers can stay in control during the whole lifecycle of assets, including operations and maintenance, experiencing less contradiction or misinterpretation of data. It supports Part 1 and Part 2 of ISO 19650, which relate to concepts and principles. EFCA believes it is important to get a better grasp on the new ways of working together and adopt a more digital approach, thereby speaking the same language. The Booklet will help all stakeholders optimise their use of the ISO 19650 standard.
An archive version of this information article has been created if the original is no longer accessible (Archive information from January 2024)
The EU BIM Task Group completed the important work of looking at the cost benefit of BIM in public tenders. The document aims to build the case for the introduction of BIM in public procurement for individual public projects by demonstrating costs and benefits from the perspective of public clients. It reflects the analysis performed during the project and the results obtained. It is conceived as an informative, easy-to-read guide meant to prepare the public stakeholders to apply the model developed for evaluating the costs and benefits of using BIM in public tenders.
The Cost-benefit Analysis (CBA) user Handbook is structured in five main chapters:
- Introduction to the topic, presenting the purpose of the handbook to public entities.
- Insights on the present status of BIM adoption in the public sector, through literature research, interviews and an on-line survey.
- Development of the CBA tool, describing the approach and methodology used to create it, including a step-by-step guide for using the tool.
- Practical implementation of the CBA tool in six case studies, representing various types of projects (small-scale infrastructures and buildings with differing budgets and covering diverse phases of the lifecycle), to show validation of the model.
- Conclusions of all the work performed.
Developed by the Colombia’s BIM Technical committee, this guide to Standards, Methods and BIM Procedures helps to explain and outline all the elements needed for adopting BIM in a structured and consistent way. It helps to explain the technical framework for BIM in Colombia.
This document aims to guide the project’s parties in the definition of standards, norms, methods and procedures required for BIM implementation in a structured and consistent way. It supports the creation of a collaboration plan from the early stages of a project, including permits and the structure of collaboration. This will help team members to optimise communication during the development of the project, allowing the efficiency of a collaborative management system, in order to:
- Give a clear definition of the information that the project client or asset owner needs, as well as the methods, processes, deadlines and protocols for the development and verification of this information.
- Ensure that the quantity and quality of the information developed is sufficient to satisfy the defined needs.
- Allow efficient and effective transfers of information between the different participating agents in each part of the asset lifecycle, especially between the development phases.
Developed by the Colombia’s BIM Technical committee, this BIM Application Guide helps to explain and outline all BIM components that should be considered as part of a project. This helps to form an agenda of elements for BIM adoption at the project level as national guidance.
This protocol defines the products, processes and responsibilities with respect to the management of information and BIM models during the lifecycle of a project. All the activities of the BIM process associated with the project will be completed based on the application of NTC-ISO 19650-1.2; 2021 [Organization and digitization of information in buildings and civil engineering works, including BIM]. The objective of this document is to define the requirements, processes and tools necessary for BIM information management, according to ISO-19650.
Planbim Chile has created a BIM Execution Plan (BEP) template as a free resource for construction professionals to use on projects.
This template can be used directly on a project. The BIM Execution Plan has two versions: ‘Offer’ and ‘Definitive’.
When you have to work to specifications for a government contract in the context of road construction or road redevelopment, you can call on Standard Specification 250 by the Roads and Traffic Agency (Agentschap Wegen en Verkeer, AWV). This standard contains all information about road construction, sewers, signalling and landscaping. Standard Specification 250 includes the requirements for BIM for these aspects of highways.
Specification 250 talks through the Information exchange through BIM on projects as part of a contractual requirement. BIM-oriented working includes:
- preparing and finalizing the BIM design model before the start of the works
- updating and completing the BIM model during implementation
- delivery of the as-built BIM model upon provisional delivery
- updating the BIM model during the warranty period.
The specification also mentions the requirements for data exchange using the Object Type Library (OTL).
The BIM Team of the Roads and Traffic Agency (Agentschap Wegen en Verkeer, AWV) is responsible for the elaboration of the necessary BIM engagement documents, such as the BIM protocol and the BIM execution plan. The BIM execution plan for infrastructure projects has been prepared thanks to the insights and information from the AWV’s BIM pilot projects. The Belgian BIM protocol, drawn up by the BIM & ICT Technical Committee of the Belgian Building Research Institute (BBRI), was also a source of inspiration in realising the BIM execution plan.
The BIM execution plan, focused on infrastructure projects, aims to provide practical guidelines for BIM adoption in projects. The general guidelines for a BIM-oriented collaboration are included in the AWV BIM-protocol; the project-specific BIM execution plan takes a closer look at the practicalities of BIM collaboration. The requirements, specifications and practical agreements in the BIM execution plan only apply on the specific project or contract. Typical of a BIM execution plan is also that the practical agreements can be further updated during the project, should this be necessary.
This BIM protocol for infrastructure projects has been drawn up using the Belgian BIM protocol, prepared by the BIM & ICT Technical Committee of the Belgian Building Research Institute (BBRI) as a starting point. This version of the BIM protocol is a publication of the Roads and Traffic Agency (Agentschap Wegen en Verkeer, AWV) and aims to provide general guidelines for a BIM-orientated cooperation for all parties. In addition to the expectations regarding BIM in infrastructure projects, this BIM protocol also explores the responsibilities of each party and the course of the information exchange throughout the BIM process. The requirements and specifications in this protocol apply to any BIM collaboration with AWV as contracting authority, for both the study phase and the implementation phase of infrastructure projects.
With this BIM protocol, all parties commit to using BIM for project collaboration and organisation. This means that the exchange of models under the collaboration will take place according to the agreements from the BIM protocol and the BIM execution plan. This implies a willingness to use the methods and agreements that comply with the BIM protocol and BIM execution plan, according to the listed tasks and responsibilities. The BIM protocol is a generic document that records the general BIM operation during study and implementation. It is valid for projects in which BIM-oriented work is carried out. Because the BIM protocol follows the BIM principles for both study and performance, not all chapters may be applicable to every project.
The ADEB-VBA’s (Association of major Belgian contractors) BIM working group, in collaboration with G30 (Association of Architects), ORI (professional organisation for engineering offices and consultancy), SECO as representative for Third Party Control Offices, and the Belgian chapter of IFMA (the international facility management association), is working on the improvement of collaboration and digital document exchanges between stakeholders of the Belgian construction industry.
To do so, the work group decided to focus on the classical contract (Design-Tender-Build) and define practical guidelines related to digital exchanges within this context. The classical contract supports a segmented industry, while other types of contracts involving all the stakeholders earlier in the process allow an easier BIM implementation. However, today, the classical contract remains the most common contract in Belgium. Therefore, the BIM work group, instead of separating the classical contract and a digital-collaborative process, decided to define rules and guidelines allowing the use of BIM on a classical Design-Tender-Build process. As the classical process is the most segmented one and thus, the one with more stakeholders working with different tools at different times, specific attention must be made during the transitional phases (e.g. new stakeholders, new tools) and how the transposition of these rules could be easily developed to other contracts by shifting agreements between the different stakeholders.
This document and its annexes present a “generic protocol” as well as general rules and fact sheets allowing the stakeholders to define the collaboration rules and thus, optimise the working process. This document is intended to evolve through feedback received from its use in practice. It is focused on three main areas:
- Information about BIM, its use and the specific roles/actors that must be taken into account and incorporated.
- General requirements related to BIM collaboration, document sharing and data management will be discussed.
- A generic BIM protocol by phase, supported by a process map representing the traditional contract. This will help stakeholders to determine their project-specific BIM protocol.
An archive version of this information article has been created if the original is no longer accessible (Archive information from January 2024)
