CEN/TC 442/WG 2 - Exchange information

This document specifies concepts and principles to establish a methodology for specifying level of information need and information deliveries in a consistent way when using building information modelling (BIM).
This document specifies the characteristics of different levels used for defining the detail and extent of information required to be exchanged and delivered throughout the life cycle of built assets. It gives guidelines for principles required to specify information needs.
The concepts and principles in this document can be applied for a general information exchange and while in progress, for a generally agreed way of information exchange between parties in a collaborative work process, as well as for an appointment with specified information delivery.
This document is applicable to the whole life cycle of any built asset, including strategic planning, initial design, engineering, development, documentation and construction, day-to-day operation, maintenance, refurbishment, repair and end-of-life.

The digital transformation of the construction industry includes also the digital transformation of the supply chaine of construction products. With EN ISO 16739-1 exists an open language to design, transfer and maintain construction models. The construction models (e.g. of a building) contain a digital twin of real-life products. The data of these products should be transported in a digital format on the way from the factory to the building owner.
This product data should be expressed also in an easy and open way. The creators of product data files should be able to do this manually or automatically, as they like it. The users of product data should be able to use it to:
•   Express their requirements related to products
•   Describe configurable products
•   Import product data easily in the BIM models at any stage of the project (design, construction, operation)
•   Export product data easily from the BIM models at any stage of the project (design, construction, operation)
These scenarios fit in the business models of manufacturers, planners, construction companies and facility managers.
The working group 4 of CEN-TC442 has published proposals for creating new work items in the sector of CEN regarding the storage and the transport of product data in the sector of building information modelling (BIM):
EN ISO 16739-1:2018: Industry Foundation Classes (IFC) for data sharing in the construction and facility management industries- Part 1: Data schema
EN ISO 12006-3: Building construction – Organization of information about construction works – Part 3: Framework for object-oriented information
prEN ISO 23386: Building information modelling and other digital processes used in Construction – Methodology to describe, author and maintain properties in interconnected dictionaries
prEN ISO 23387: Data templates for construction works entities, Part 1:  Objects, collections, and relationships defining the general structure of data templates
This standard defines a format to negotiate product data templates, express requirements and describe configurable products and therefore fills the missing link between the product data sources (e.g. catalogs) from the manufacturers and the BIM models of the designers, builders, and owners.

The focus of ISO 16757 is the support of manufacturers to provide their product data in electronic product catalogues.
This part of the standard – ISO 16757 Part 5: Product catalogue exchange format - describes how product catalogue data is exchanged as IFC format according to ISO 16739-1 from manufacturers to designers of building services systems.
With ISO 16739-1 (IFC), an open language exists for the creation, transfer and maintenance of design models.
prEN 17549-1 and prEN 17549-2 define the data exchange of scalable product properties within IFC. These standards provide a Model View Definition (MVD), a subset of ISO 16739-1 from an information technology perspective. It focuses on core classes and relies on external data dictionaries to describe business semantics.
This document completes the description of the IFC-based data exchange format for manufacturer catalogues by describing how to model:
•   Catalogue metadata
•   Product classes
•   Constraints for parametric data
•   Product accessory structures
•   Constraints for assembling composable products and accessories
•   Reusable and multiply used data blocks
•   Product properties as defined in the related library  
•   Static product properties
•   Dynamic computable properties
•   Geometric data of product spaces
•   Geometric data of product symbols
•   Geometric data of product shape
•   Geometric data of product ports
•   Article numbers
•   Etc.
This document focuses only on the format of the data exchanged and not on how to process it.
This document is aimed at both software manufacturers for the construction sector and professionals in the sector who use their software.

The digital transformation of the construction industry includes also the digital transformation of the supply change of construction products. With ISO 16739-1 exists an open language to design, transfer and maintain construction models. The construction models (eg. of a building) contain a digital twin of real-life products. The data of these products should be transported in a digital format on the way from the manufacturer to the building owner.
This product data should be expressed also in an easy and open way. The creators of product data files should be able to do this manually or automatically, as they like it. The users of product data should be able to use it to:
• Import products easily in the as-planned-bim-models to plan with the products in an early stage of development
• Import delivered real life products easily in their as-built-bim-models to document them for a later stage of development
These scenarios fit in the business models of manufacturers, planners, construction companies and facility managers.
The working group 4 of CEN-TC442 has published proposals for creating new work items in the sector of CEN regarding the storage and the transport of product data in the sector of building information modelling (BIM):
prEN ISO 23386: Building information modelling and other digital processes used in Construction – Methodology to describe, author and maintain properties in interconnected dictionaries
prEN ISO 23387: Data templates for construction works entities, Part 1:  Objects, collections, and relationships defining the general structure of data templates
This standard defines a format for exchanging empty product data templates and filled product data templates (product data) and therefore fills the missing link between the product data sources (e.g. catalogues) from the manufacturers to the construction models of the designers and owners.
The part 1 of the standard describes a way to represent information templates and configured products in a library based on a structure based on ISO 16739-1 (prEN ISO 16739-1) and how this relates to the upcoming standards prEN ISO 23386 and prEN ISO 23387.
The part 2 will define the way, how a (requirements) request can be formulated with EN ISO 16739 and how this can be used to represent variants of configurable products. The requests by part 2 will be applicable to product libraries based on part 1.
The part 2 will furthermore define a way, to create a constraint based product library for highly configurable products to
support an interactive selection process. The application of an request to a "Part1-Library" and to a "Part2-
Library" shall response same products as the result. It is up to the manufacturers to choose the way, they want to represent their products ("Part1-Library" and/or
"Part2-Library"), they just have to be sure, that all requests can be applied to both types of libraries.

This document specifies concepts and principles to establish a methodology for specifying level of information need and information deliveries in a consistent way when using building information modelling (BIM).
This document specifies the characteristics of different levels used for defining the detail and extent of information required to be exchanged and delivered throughout the life cycle of built assets. It gives guidelines for principles required to specify information needs.
The concepts and principles in this document can be applied for a general information exchange and whilst in progress, for a generally agreed way of information exchange between parties in a collaborative work process, as well as for an appointment with specified information delivery.
The level of information need provides methods for describing information to be exchanged according to exchange information requirements. The exchange information requirements specify the wanted information exchange. The result of this process is an information delivery.
This document is applicable to the whole life cycle of any built asset, including strategic planning, initial design, engineering, development, documentation and construction, day-to-day operation, maintenance, refurbishment, repair and end-of-life.