Oracle Joins as a Strategic Member of buildingSMART International
Working together to advance openBIM and enable digital transformation for the built asset industry
Herts, UNITED KINGDOM – 29 October, 2019 - Oracle Construction and Engineering has joined buildingSMART International as a Strategic Member and will become part of the Strategic Advisory Council (SAC) helping to move the industry towards a more neutral and open approach to building information modelling (BIM).
buildingSMART is focused on developing standards and solutions for the built asset industry. This includes standardising processes, workflows and procedures for openBIM enabling digital transformation. The organisation was founded in 1995 and is a global community of chapters, members, partners and sponsors from across the built asset industry committed to creating and developing open digital ways of working.
As the newest member of the community, Oracle is a world-renowned brand name with a Construction and Engineering team providing a portfolio of market-leading solutions driving the digital transformation of the industry for asset owners, project leaders and the entire supply chain across the asset lifecycle.
“We joined buildingSMART International as a strategic member because of our shared values concerning interoperability, something that I believe is at the heart of Oracle. Our focus is on establishing an open and collaborative approach to BIM working within a true common data environment (CDE) based on the key pillars of neutrality and security,” said Frank Weiss, senior director of product strategy, Oracle Construction and Engineering.
Neutrality is the key to establishing the trust foundation that fuels true collaboration. Oracle defines neutrality as universal fairness when applied to project collaboration platforms. All stakeholders have control over their data, and no stakeholder has an advantage over another.
“The successful evolution of the BIM methodology is based on standards. It is about encouraging wider adoption across the project supply chain. That will only happen when it is open to all on a project, not controlled by one entity; and is about data not design,” continued Weiss.
Who benefits from standardised BIM processes and data?
- Owners and public authorities can better control their own data and have flexibility in their preferred choice of tools. They can take advantage of more predictable costs, schedules and standards-based as-built deliverables. In addition, the sustainability of openBIM formats can be used in ongoing operations and maintenance for better and longer value outcomes.
- Architects, engineers and constructors manage data across their portfolio with easier access to multiple tools to save time and money. They can work with the software providing them the highest productivity and optimal creativity. Partnering opportunities abound when standard processes, workflows, and procedures make it easy and efficient to work together
- Facility managers, maintainers and operators can start faster in taking over a new asset. They can make better decisions with better access to information sources including accurate static and dynamic data.
- Product manufacturers and assemblers can improve market access and deliver efficiencies throughout the value chain
- Software vendors benefit from standardised processes because small and medium sized enterprises can focus on their strength in a specific product. Hence, the whole ecosystem becomes stronger, and they can significantly increase their market opportunities
- Educators and students take advantage of standards-based curricula that are in-demand in the infrastructure and building industries for more creativity
- Society benefits from the improved built environment for living, working and life, e.g. in smart cities, smart infrastructure and smart buildings
Oracle and innovation in construction
Oracle Construction and Engineering is actively promoting the concept of collaboration workflows, providing leadership in the development of an open CDE API project in buildingSMART having already established DIN SPEC 91391 in Germany. This drew on PAS 1192 and ISO 19650, focusing on helping the built asset industry to innovate and evolve by enabling an easy exchange of data between CDEs, authoring, collaboration and quality systems.
In addition, Oracle Construction and Engineering’s Innovation Lab in Deerfield, Ill., launched in 2018; provides worksite features including hands-on experiences that bring to life the power of the latest technologies. This includes the internet of things (IoT), drones, autonomous equipment, augmented reality, artificial intelligence, machine learning, and other developing technologies.
Richard Petrie, CEO, buildingSMART International said, “I am delighted that Oracle has joined buildingSMART International. As a leading provider of on-premise and cloud-based solutions across the built asset lifecycle, we see the importance of them joining the SAC as transformative for our community. Not only will they take an active role in our SAC, but they are also spearheading a new standard for open and neutral collaboration based on defining a true CDE and I’m hugely impressed with their focus on these core values”.
The SAC membership is buildingSMART’s most senior form of organisational membership providing an opportunity to play a strategic role in open BIM. It is designed to appeal to those leading multinational enterprises who believe that full implementation and adoption of open BIM is strategically important to the built asset industry as well as their enterprise. SAC members will have a direct role in shaping the buildingSMART strategy and helping to determine priorities and focus.
Standards for the industry
buildingSMART promotes international consensus among stakeholders on specific standards to accelerate implementation and uptake. These standards cover a wide range of process and information capabilities unique to the built environment industry, including:
- An industry-specific data model schema - Industry Foundation Classes [IFC]
- Data model exchange specifications - Model View Definitions [MVD]
- Model-based, software-independent communication protocols - BIM Collaboration Format [BCF]
- A standard library of general definitions of BIM objects and their attributes - buildingSMART Data Dictionary [bSDD]
Contact
buildingSMART International
aidan.mercer@buildingsmart.org
Aidan Mercer, +44 7181-304-3435
Oracle Construction and Engineering
Andy Sommer, +44 7724-441-9227
About buildingSMART International
buildingSMART International is a vendor-neutral and not for profit body that leads the development of open digital information flows across the built asset industry. Its mission is to proactively support industry participants who want to develop open standards for planning, design, procurement, assembly and operation of buildings and infrastructure worldwide. It provides the international network plus the necessary technical and process support. Its members, who range from across the built environment spectrum, collaborate under the buildingSMART organization. buildingSMART is engaged with other international standards bodies such as ISO, the European Committee for Standardisation (CEN) and the Open Geospatial Consortium (OGC). Its core Industry Foundation Class (IFC) standards achieved ISO approval in 2012.
About Oracle
The Oracle Cloud offers a complete suite of integrated applications for Sales, Service, Marketing, Human Resources, Finance, Supply Chain and Manufacturing, plus Highly-Automated and Secure Generation 2 Infrastructure featuring the Oracle Autonomous Database. For more information about Oracle (NYSE: ORCL), please visit us at oracle.com.
About Oracle Construction and Engineering
Asset owners and project leaders rely on Oracle Construction and Engineering solutions for the visibility and control, connected supply chain, and data security needed to drive performance and mitigate risk across their processes, projects, and organization. Our scalable cloud solutions enable digital transformation for teams that plan, build, and operate critical assets, improving efficiency, collaboration, and change control across the project lifecycle. www.oracle.com/construction-and-engineering.
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