The Building Information Management (BIM) Council (formerly known as the buildingSMART alliance®) is a unique organization helping the North American real property industry become more efficient. The BIM Council leads in the creation of tools and standards that allow projects to be built digitally before they are built physically through the use of building information modeling.

Ballot Comment Period Now Open for the NBIMS-US Project Committee

BIM Council (BIMC) Subcommittees

Subcommittees established by the BIMC BOD serve at the discretion of the BIMC BOD. BIMC subcommittees shall be utilized by the BIMC BOD to examine specific topics in need of attention. The BIMC BOD created the following Subcommittee:

DIGITAL TWIN INTEGRATION SUBCOMMITTEE (DTI-S)

Chair : Scott McClure, USAF, North Wind Group
Vice-Chair : Zahra Ghorbani, Penn State University
Vice-Chair : Marc Goldman, ESRI
Vice-Chair : Francesca Maier, Fair Cape Consulting
BIMC BOD Liaison : TBD

DESCRIPTION

To respond to industry needs and in support of continued innovation throughout the industry, the mission of the NIBS BIM Council Digital Twin Integration (DTI) Subcommittee (DTI-S) is to (a) define the role of and develop the relationship between Digital Twins and the NIBS National BIM Program and National BIM Standard – United States® (NBIMS-US™), and to (b) coordinate with authoritative organizations and consortia in BIM and Digital Twin integration efforts.

SCOPE

The Subcommittee shall:

• Develop a white paper and position statement describing/defining the relationship between BIM and Digital Twin technologies and standards.
• Form and maintain partnerships with authoritative organizations and consortia who are defining Digital Twin standards and resources for public and private industry to mutually inform development. Coordinate with government agencies and industry on requirements, best practices and potential use cases for the integration of BIM and Digital Twin.
• Propose projects and activities to develop resources (e.g., tools, processes, guidelines, standards) to support integration of BIM and Digital Twin in the built environment.

OVERALL SCHEDULE

The DTI-S will develop and maintain an annual operational plan which outlines activities and specific projects to be pursued to include periodic milestones with deliverables along with any resources required to achieve the goals. This shall be coordinated with and approved by the BIM Council BOD.

COLLABORATION

The DTI-S is dependent upon the voluntary efforts of its members to collaboratively engage with the drafting of documents and prototyping of tools, to review the products of other efforts within and around the DTI-S and participate as liaisons with groups deemed significant and relevant by the DTI-S. Industry participation is especially important because the alignment between them and a national standard will streamline development efforts between the BIM and Digital Twin communities. This further fosters improvements in the speed and efficiency with which individual, organizational, and industry efforts reach full maturity and ubiquity. Government agency participation is similarly critical to ensuring a more manageable communication effort between vendors and the Government alike. This improves contract oversight, ensures that right-sized solutions are available in the market, and that Government agency strategies can be aligned with a degree of certainty on the state and direction of the market. This participation may be supplemented by funded resources in alignment with the annual planning cycle.

The DTI-S will identify organizations, firms and government agencies which are likely to benefit from the clear and defined integration of BIM and Digital Twin disciplines. It will rely on the assistance of the BIM Council and NIBS in encouraging participation in and support of the workgroup as it works to facilitate, foster, and maintain industry engagement.

JOIN THE SUBCOMMITTEE

To inquire about joining the Subcommittee, please fill out the online form . Your completed form will be sent to the BIMC BOD. Be sure to tell us briefly about your professional background and why you’re interested in joining the Subcommittee. This information will allow us to get to know you better and effectively put your talents and interests to work!

National BIM Standard-United States® (NBIMS-US™) Committees & Workgroups

NBIMS Project Committee

The NBIMS-US Project Committee (National BIM Standard-United States Project Committee), is a project committee of the Building Information Management (BIM) Council which is a council of NIBS. The NBIMS-US Project Committee brings together the broadest and deepest constituency ever assembled for the purpose of establishing and managing through an Industry consensus process a series of open source National standards and guidance for all aspects of Building Information Modeling. The National BIM Standard-United States (NBIMS-US) provides consensus based standards through referencing existing standards, documenting information exchanges and delivering best business practices for the entire built environment.

NBIMS Planning Committee

The National BIM Standard-United States (NBIMS) Planning Committee (PLC) administers the affairs and consensus process of the NBIMS-US Project Committee (PC) and Workgroups (WG). The goal of the PLC is to create a collection of standards and guidelines that support the implementation of building information modeling and management in planning, design, construction and operations of buildings and infrastructure in the United States and beyond.

A full update of the NBIMS-US will be published every 3 years following a review of the existing published version and annual interim modules. The key feature of this new 3-year cycle and annual module release process is that modules are developed continually as improvements or new content in the form of individual modules are developed. The PLC will accept proposals, identify priorities, stand up workgroups, ballot candidate modules, and publish approved modules as they become available. A public-facing website will display initiatives are under development and include workgroup work plans, candidate modules, as well as approved and final modules.

NBIMS PLC Structure

Under a newly-reorganized structure, the NBIMS PLC consists of a chair, vice chair, secretary, as well as 12 BIM Council members, representing core segments of the industry. Every PLC member must be a member-in-good-standing of the NIBS BIM Council and the NBIMS-US Project Committee.

Current officers and members of the PLC are as follows:

Name	Organization	Location	Role
John I. Messner, PhD.	Department of Architectural Engineering The Pennsylvania State University	University Park, PA	Chair
Carrie Sturts Dossick, P.E.	University of Washington	Seattle, WA	Vice Chair
Robert Glover	Barton Malow Builders	Richmond, VA	Secretary
Russell Manning, PhD, LEED AP, CEFP, CRL	ICC		NIBS BOD Liaison
Paul Audsley, Assoc. AIA	NBBJ	Columbus, OH	Member
Ivan Jaramillo	Autodesk, Inc		Member
Frank Moore	Autodesk, Inc.	Waltham, MA	Member
Edmund Newman	GSA	Washington, DC	Member
Rachel Riopel	HDR	Minneapolis, MN	Member
Andy Smith		Mooresville, NC	Member
Van Woods	U.S. Army Corps of Engineers	Seattle, WA	Member

The PLC created the following Workgroups to lead the development of the new NBIMS modules. A description of the focus of each workgroup is available on the following pages:

Chair : Ralph Kreider
Planning Committee Liaison : Johnny Fortune

Description

The primary focus of this Workgroup (WG) is to identify appropriate BIM Use Definitions and Development Methodology for inclusion in the NBIMS. This includes gathering BIM Uses from existing versions of NBIMS as well as potentially other sources. Each BIM Use should be discussed by the WG and evaluated for any necessary revisions to align with current industry practices. The WG should also engage in sound scholarly research and user interviews or surveys to identify additional BIM Uses that are candidates for inclusion. Additionally, the WG should include a standardized Development Methodology to BIM Uses (such as the approach included NBIMS v3) to provide flexibility of creating custom project-specific BIM Uses that still align with a National Standard. The end state should be one where project stakeholders can pick from a well-developed list of BIM Uses to require them on a project or require a defined process for developing a custom BIM Use. While the BIM Use Definitions are not intended to describe means and methods, all necessary components of the BIM Use should be identified (i.e., prerequisites, input, output, etc.).

Collaboration

This WG is one of several WGs that are focused on topical areas within the NBIMS. All WGs should coordinate any overlapping topics with the leadership of the related WG and the Planning Committee (PLC). Topics outside of the WGs focus area that are discovered during WG activities should be brought to the attention of the PLC for consideration. Additionally, all BIM Uses suggested by other WG must be considered to properly align the various portions of NBIMS. The information contained herein is not intended to be an exhaustive list of responsibilities but rather a starting point.

Scope

Coming soon.

Overall Schedule

Coming soon.

Deliverable

Coming soon.

Proposed Required Resources

The WG will meet on a monthly basis at a minimum to make progress toward developing the BIM Use Definitions for NBIMS. These meetings will be virtual meetings unless there are events with multiple WG members attending to allow for face-to-face meetings, e.g., NIBS conference. The content development will require time from a graphic designer and resources to host content online.

Chair : Dianne Davis
Planning Committee Liaison : John Messner

Description

The BIM Project Execution Planning Guide (BEP Guide) and corresponding templates included in NBIMS were initially developed in October 2009. The BEP Guide outlines a structured approach for a project team to develop a BEP through a collaborative process leveraging a consistent template for BEP content. In 2012, Version 2.1 of the BEP Guide and Templates were released, and they are incorporated into the NBIMS-US.

While the BEP Guide and Template have been instrumental in driving consistency in the planning process, many large owners and project teams have been improving upon the initial versions of the BEP Guide and Template. There is a need to collect, evaluate, and compile core revisions to the documents that leverage the best content revisions through a structured evaluation.

The goal of this WG is to develop a comprehensive BEP Guide and Templates that can be used as a standard deliverable, with structured extensions or customizations by owners and other project team members if needed.

Collaboration

This WG is one of several WGs that are focused on topical areas within the NBIMS. All WGs should coordinate any overlapping topics with the leadership of the related WG and the Planning Committee (PLC). Topics outside of the WGs focus area that are discovered during WG activities should be brought to the attention of the PLC for consideration. Additionally, the BEP procedure managed within this WG will need to be aligned with other WG content related to BEP within various portions of NBIMS. The information contained herein is not intended to be an exhaustive list of responsibilities but rather a starting point.

Scope

To meet the goal, the WG will focus on:

1. Collecting and developing a content analysis of BEP template examples from a variety of owners and other project team members;
2. Developing a revised BEP Guide and Template that incorporates core improvements; and
3. Developing a BEP information exchange that captures the content for a standard BEP within a digital exchange to enable team members to build and easily transfer information regarding BEPs.

Overall Schedule

Coming Soon.

Deliverables

• BIM Project Execution Planning Guide online document
• BIM Project Execution Planning Template in digital format
• BIM Project Execution Planning Information Exchange Definition

Proposed Required Resources

The WG will meet on a monthly basis at a minimum to make progress toward developing the BEP resources for NBIMS 2020/2021. These meetings will be virtual meetings unless there are events with multiple WG members attending to allow for face-to-face meetings, e.g., NIBS conference. The development of an updated BEP Guide and templates will require time from a subject matter expert and research into the current BEP best practices, BEP template content analysis, and BEP information exchange definition. The content development will require time from a graphic designer and resources to host content online.

Chair : Connor Christian
Planning Committee Liaison : Carrie Sturts Dossick

Description

The primary focus of this Workgroup (WG) is to define the scope and content for minimum core BIM implementation on a project. This candidate module is intended as a standard to define the minimum requirements for a BIM-enabled project that refers to other comprehensive modules such as Industry Foundation Classes, COBie, BIM Use Definitions, BIM Execution Planning and Modeling Requirements.

Motivation

This module will support industry implementation of BIM through the definition of minimum requirements. The NBIMS content, such as IFC, often focuses on comprehensive definitions without guidelines or requirements as to how to implement these definitions and standards. The Minimum core BIM requirements module would reference these other standards and provide a guide for minimum viable application of these for a BIM-enabled project.

Collaboration

This WG is one of several WGs that are focused on topical areas within the NBIMS. All WGs should coordinate any overlapping topics with the leadership of the related WG and the Planning Committee (PLC). Topics outside of the WGs focus area that are discovered during WG activities should be brought to the attention of the PLC for consideration. As other modules of the standard are revised, this minimum core BIM module must be reviewed for agreement and compliance with referenced modules. The information contained herein is not intended to be an exhaustive list of responsibilities but rather a starting point.

Scope

This candidate module focuses on the project requirements for minimum BIM scope that defines the basic BIM requirements. To this end, the Workgroup with the support of subject matter experts will review existing standards (national, international, state, local) that define BIM project requirements and develop an interim report to support the development of this minimum BIM requirements language. Where possible, this candidate module will refer to other NBIMS modules (e.g. BIM Uses, Modeling Requirements such as LOD and M3, BIM Execution Planning, COBie, and IFC). This Workgroup will then develop the candidate module language for ballot.

Overall Schedule with Milestones

Milestone	Schedule
Form Workgroup	3 months
Develop WG Work Plan	3 months
Hire subject matter expert	2 months
Conduct Best Practice review with Interim Report 1	6 months
Develop candidate module draft language	3 months
Refine and revise candidate module for ballot	3 months
Ballot candidate module PLC	2 months
Ballot candidate module PC	2 months

Deliverable

The end state will be a well-developed minimum core BIM candidate module that define the requirements for a minimal viable BIM-enabled project. The candidate module will be balloted for review, comment and approval of the NBIMS-US Project Committee.

Proposed Required Resources

This module is new content for the standard and arguably the heart of the NBIMS. We recommend a kick-off face-to-face meeting for the Workgroup to launch the effort, with monthly virtual meetings subsequently. We also recommend NIBS enlist subject matter experts to conduct research on the best practices already developed in the market place (interim report 1] and draft NBIMS standard language for this candidate module for review and revision by the WG volunteer members. We understand that generally NIBS staff cannot support all the online meetings.

Co-Chairs : Brian Haines & TJ Meehan
Planning Committee Liaison : John Messner

Description

The mission of the NIBS Building Information Management (BIM) Council Construction-to-Operations Building Information Exchange (COBie) Workgroup (CWG) is to exercise stewardship of the Construction‐to‐Operations Information Exchange Model View Definition (MVD) and data schema. The Workgroup fulfills this mission in three ways:

• Ongoing technical development of COBie to meet AECOO industry needs;
• Supporting the process of incorporating successive versions of COBie in the National BIM Standard – United States® (NBIMS-US™);
• Promoting the adoption and implementation of COBie by the building industry

The CWG will develop and maintain an annual operational plan which outlines the activities and specific projects to be pursued within the next year to include quarterly milestones with deliverables along with any resources required to achieve the CWG goals.

Members

Name	Organization	Role
Brodt, William	National Aeronautics and Space Administration	Member
Carrasquillo, Mariangelica	U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, Engineering and Construction	Member
Chobot, Marty	Invicara Pte Ltd	Member
Dalbert, Thomas	Onuma, Inc.	Alternate
Gran, Danielle	Kristine Fallon Associates, Inc.	Member
Gude, Ortez	Corvado	Member
Jaramillo, Ivan	Autodesk, Inc.	Alternate
Joels, Kerry		Member
Kim , Yong Ku	Onuma, Inc.	Alternate
Mencarini, Robert	Building Informatics	Alternate
Mies, Chuck	Autodesk, Inc.	Alternate
Moore, Frank	Autodesk, Inc.	Alternate
Nisbet, Nicholas	buildingSMART UK	Member
Onuma, Kimon	Onuma, Inc.	Member
Peterson, Brad	ARCHIBUS, Inc.	Member
Powell, Ross	TMA Systems	Member
Shirey, Don	Bentley Systems, Inc.	Alternate
Smith, Andy		Member
Starkov, Igor	EcoDomus	Member
Stefanidakis Sr., Nick	ARCHIBUS, Inc.	Alternate
Sullivan, John	Autodesk, Inc.	Member
Tardif, Michael	Building Informatics	Member
Taylor, Reginald	NIH	Member
Tobias, Brandon	NAVFAC	Alternate
Wang, Grace	Google	Member
Watson, James		Member
Whittaker, Jim	Facility Engineering Associated, PC	Member
Willette, Michael	ARCHIBUS, Inc.	Alternate
Wood, Doug	IBM	Member

Standard Resources

• COBie 2.4 MVD (Technical Specifications)
• COBieLite (Technical Specifications)
• Change Logs

Additional Resources

• Introduction to Cobie
• Information Exchanges Means and Methods

Chair : Aaron Costin
Planning Committee Liaison : Andy Smith

Description

The focus of this Workgroup (WG) is to:

1. Define an information exchange framework to standardize the capture of business requirements, data structure and software implementation for BIM use cases
2. Participate with the other NBIMS-US workgroups to provide guidance for the development of information exchanges
3. Research other industry initiatives for information exchanges to leverage existing capabilities in an effort not to create competing exchanges

Definitions

Information Exchange (IE) – is the act of transferring structured data from one machine, the sender, to another machine, the receiver.

Structured data – are facts organized and recorded in a scheme that is interpretable and consumable by a machine.

Motivation

The business need for an information exchange standard is critical to the success of the US-NBIMS. Without information exchanges the rhetoric of the possibilities of building information modeling (BIM) is only academic. For the value of BIM to be recognized information exchanges must be executable within the project delivery contractual process. Information exchanges must be implementable by machines, well documented, trust-worthy, and add business value.

Collaboration

This Workgroup is a consultant to all other US-NBIMS Workgroups in that this Group will not initiate the need for an information exchange but will assist with executing the idea. This Workgroup should be an advisor as to the technical possibility and practicality of a successful information exchange.

Audience

The work product of this Workgroup will provide guidance and instruction for software developer to implement the information exchange.

Scope

Coming soon.

Overall Schedule with Milestones

Milestone	Schedule
Form Workgroup Recruit member Outline responsibilities Seek commitment from members	3 months
Develop Work Plan Deliverables Resources Schedule Budget	3 months
Socialize and Seek Agreement Information exchange minimal viable definitions Procedures for submittal, review and approval Publication of work efforts	6 months
Collaboration Structured plan for working with other Workgroups Status report of work and outcomes to the Planning Committee	On-going

Deliverable

The deliverable from this Workgroup will be:

1. A method for defining an "information exchanges" (IE) that is based on "structured data" that will enable the US-NBIMS.
2. Procedures and policies for submitting for comment, the inclusion of edits and amendments, and consensus agreement for an information exchange definition.
3. A Work Group of diverse industry knowledgeable professionals to motivate and create activity to create information standards to enable the US-NBIMS.

Proposed Required Resources

The WG will meet on a monthly basis at a minimum to make progress toward developing the BIM Use Definitions for NBIMS. These meetings will be virtual meetings unless there are events with multiple WG members attending to allow for face-to-face meetings, e.g., NIBS conference. The content development will require time from a graphic designer and resources to host content online.

Chair : Yuqing Hu
Planning Committee Liaison : John Messner

Description

The mission of the NIBS Building Information Management (BIM) Council Product Data Requirements Workgroup (WG) is to define the desired product performance and sustainability data elements, the schema for product-specific attributes extending the Construction‐to‐Operations Information Exchange Model View Definition (MVD), and data schema into performance and sustainability data required for product selection, commissioning, maintenance, and operations.

Collaboration

This WG is one of several WGs that are focused on topical areas within the NBIMS. All WGs should coordinate any overlapping topics with the leadership of the related WG and the Planning Committee (PLC). Topics outside of the WGs focus area that is discovered during WG activities should be brought to the attention of the PLC for consideration. Additionally, the BIM product data schema, template, and MVD generated by this WG must be considered to properly align the various portions of NBIMS.

Scope

The Workgroup fulfills this mission in multiple ways:

• Development of product-specific data tables to meet owner needs for product selection, commissioning, maintenance, and operations.
• Promote the adoption and implementation of standard data tables by product manufacturers, product vendors, designers, constructors, owners, and software firms supporting the building industry.
• Support the process of incorporating product data tables into the National BIM Standard – United States® (NBIMS-US™) and coordinating with the standards of buildingSMART International.
• Supporting research validating the benefits of using the standard data and schema.

Overall Schedule

TBD

deliverables

The WG will develop and maintain an annual operational plan which outlines the activities and specific projects to be pursued within the next year including periodic milestones with deliverables along with any resources required to achieve the WG goals. Some specific deliverables will include:

• BIM product data schema
• Product MVD for product selection, commissioning, maintenance, and operations.
• An integrated product dataset (TBD)

Proposed Required Resources

The WG is dependent upon the voluntary efforts of its members to develop product-specific data tables, especially for products that do not have a well-established history of requirements. Industry participation is especially important because of the increasing data requirements to support sustainable product selection and total cost of ownership requirements. The WG will meet on a monthly basis at a minimum to make progress toward developing the BPD resources for NBIMS 2022/2023. These meetings will be virtual meetings unless there are events with multiple WG members attending to allow for face-to-face meetings, e.g., the NIBS conference. The development of a BPD will require time from a subject matter expert and research into the current BPD database, existing BPD template, and MVD. The content development will require time from a graphic designer and resources to host content online.

National BIM Standard-United States®

The National BIM Standard-United States® (NBIMS-US™) provides consensus-based standards through referencing existing standards, documenting information exchanges and delivering best business practices for the entire built environment. With open BIM standards, we can build detailed models and deliver accurate products that can be used during commissioning and operation to ensure facility functionality throughout the life of the facility and to deliver high performance, carbon neutral, and net zero energy based facilities.

VISIT NBIMS-US™ NBIMS-US™ PROJECT PROFILE

United States National CAD Standard® (NCS) V6

The NCS is a consensus standard incorporating industry publications. It is comprised of interrelated standards, guidelines and tools for uniformly organizing and presenting facility drawing information. It is the only comprehensive standard for facility planning, design, construction and operation drawings. The NCS consists of The American Institute of Architect's CAD Layer Guidelines, Construction Specifications Institute's Uniform Drawing System (Modules 1-8), and National Institute of Building Sciences' BIM Implementation & Plotting Guidelines.

VISIT NCS NCS PROJECT PROFILE

National BIM Guide for Owners

The purpose of the National Building Information Modeling Guide for Owners (NBGO) is to outline for the building Owner how to develop and implement requirements for the application of Building Information Modeling (BIM) for internal policies and procedures, and explain how to include these requirements in contracts to plan, design, construct and operate buildings. This Guide uses the term “building” generically, in keeping with the terminology of “Building Information Modeling.” It is intended to apply to information modeling for the built environment: site elements and facilities as well as buildings.. [January 2017 / 36 pages]

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