BIM and the magic of metadata standards.
In a first for NZDF building projects, the project team for the new RNZAF Whenuapai base gymnasium applied BIM processes to building design and construction. BIM was used as a project management tool to track documentation and establish a common data environment for the new asset, with metadata standards informing the BIM data capture on the project. Data standards ensured the quick and easy extraction of common data from BIM models to agnostic platforms like Excel.
Defining metadata standards proved challenging work, necessitating a search of international precedents and the development of a metadata survey tool to determine information requirements. A significant amount of effort went into the process for narrowing the information required for certain objects.
The process highlighted the importance of defining project nomenclature for files and documents to give certainty to the origin of information in the model.
Possibly the most critical takeaway however, was the importance of defining how much data is too much data. It is essential to take a pragmatic approach to understanding what the organisation is hoping to achieve and what that means for the kind of information that needs to be captured and maintained. Without this level of clarity the tendency is to say yes to everything, creating countless rows detailing hundreds of attributes, many of which have no relevance to your asset.
Getting the level of information in the model wrong makes for an unwieldy model and onerous data handling requirements. On the other hand, a BIM model done correctly makes for effortless information sharing.
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Project duration:
2016 - 2019.
BIM Uses:
Design review
Design authoring
3D coordination
Asset management
