Facilities Management Handover - COBie 2.5

Months after completion of a building construction or renovation project, it is common for contractors to deliver an expensive set of boxes, binders, and bins meant to help the facility manager operate, maintain, and manage their building’s equipment. Unfortunately, all those who need this information after construction cannot wade through the boxes (or equivalent electronic files) and transcribe what they need. The result is that owners pay those who come later to rediscover, recapture, and load space and equipment maintenance data into multiple unsynchronized information systems.

Although COBie has been internationally used and even mandated in some countries, most have not understood how COBie-based processes can deliver real-time as-built equipment information, instead repeating the traditionally expensive and low-quality end-of-project paper data re-collection processes. It should come as no surprise, therefore, that COBie’s linked data set is often required for building construction projects in addition to duplicative electronic and paper operations and maintenance manuals.

During facility operations one study found the lack of real-time, as-built equipment information increases the time required to perform maintenance tasks by 20%. Beyond maintenance, the lack of a central point of real-time as-built space and equipment data requires organizations to fund, manage, and operate multiple, partially duplicative information technology whose content degrades after a building’s first renovation.

This project will enable owners to eliminate expensive and wasteful paper and electronic documentation delivered at the end of every job and by so reengineering design, construction, facility startup, and facility management processes to capture real-time building equipment information. The long-term result will be improved budget flexibility, decreased backlogs, and increased resilience. This project is organized in two phases.

Phase 1 - Harmonized Candidate Standard

To date, COBie’s development has been influenced by a seemingly divergent set of requirements. The first step in this bSI process is to refocus the COBie project to deliver life-cycle non-geometric building equipment information. The second step is to ensure that COBie 2.5 reflects international requirements for traditional building equipment handover deliverables. With these updated requirements, the project will update COBie 2.26 (Basic FM Handover MVD) and COBie 2.4 MVD to produce a harmonized IFC 4.3 MVD using BSI’s new Information Delivery Specification. An updated mapping will continue to support the 90% of commercial software that import/export non-geometric COBie data through the COBie Spreadsheet Physical File Format. Examples of the resulting updated files, requirement for automating design and construction quality control, and an implementation and local customization guide will also be produced.

At the end of this process, software companies and users will have one international COBie standard with unambiguous guidelines for regional, local, and client customization.

Expected Duration: 12 Months.

Phase 2 - Implementation Support

During this stage, bSI will support the implementation of the candidate standard by commercial software that produces, merges, tests, or imports non-geometric building equipment data. This procedure will include the publication of implementer agreements necessary for both STEP and Spreadsheet Physical File Format deliverables. Implementation support will include the creation of an outreach team to directly work with bSI members and Chapters to translate the harmonized COBie standard into local languages and software via the BuildingSMART Data Dictionary. The outreach team will also work to smooth the transition to the new standard.

Call for Participation

bSI invites owners, designers, builders, facility managers, and software developers to join the Phase 1 Project Steering Committee.

COBie Certified Professionals™ and implementing software companies are invited to join the Phase 1 Technical Committee.

Please use the form below to indicate your market segment and interest.

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