Specifiers Property Information Exchange

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• On: 02/03/2010 13:04:18
• In: BIM Practice Group
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During the January meeting of CSI’s BIM Practice Group, Mark Kalin, FCSI, FAIA, SCIP, LEED AP, discussed SPie, a project of the buildingSMART Alliance/National Institute of Building Sciences, CSI and SCIP with support from the USA Corps of Engineers. Hear a recording of this session.

Specifiers like Kalin are becoming “knowledge managers” in today’s increasingly BIM-driven world, Kalin said. What was once contained in telephone-book size manuals is now moving to databases and models.

“In a BIM model developed by a knowledgeable person, you can dim the lights in your living room and order your studs custom cut,” Kalin said. “All these products have manufacturers and they need to be represented.”

However, not all the data a model needs to accomplish these tasks is model-ready, yet. Manufacturers are still struggling with what information to include as they put their products’ profiles into e-formats. Specifiers are sifting through reams of data to try to collect the information they need for a spec.

“Until the architect or specifier can shape the model and get out the schedules he needs, until the contractor sees value in it, the information will not be there,” Kalin said.
 
CSI’s MasterFormat 2004 and UniFormat layout a way to organize information, but they’re only part of the bridge construction professionals are looking for.

"The sooner we get this information into the model, the better it will be for looking at the model for energy use, LEED compliance, etc.,” Kalin said.

Part of the struggle is determining what data gets included in a model, Kalin said. For example, the army wants to know what the part numbers are, what is the replacement schedule, what a product costs to ship, can another product be substituted for it in the field, where did it come from… in other words, a lot of  specific details.

SPie’s 9,000-line database is an attempt to organize information into a useable, manageable resource, and to define what data needs to be produced. Kalin described it as “intelligent access.”

“There's a mountain of data and you need to get to just the one thing you need,” he said. “We just need to know what we need to know. We need better, faster ways to find information without loosing accuracy.”

David Stutzman, CSI, CCS, has discussed SPie on his blog:

“The goal of the Specifiers Property Information Exchange (SPie) project was to define the minimum property sets for building model objects with consistent defined materials, products, equipment, and assemblies,” he wrote. “The project resulted in an extensive list of properties for over 400 specification sections. The properties represent the common applications, sustainability requirements, basic materials, and options that are required to specify products for construction projects. The hope is that manufacturers will use the property sets to organize their product data so the data can be transformed into an IFC (industry foundation class) file capable of being used by modeling software to describe the product as a BIM object.”

SPie will join MasterFormat, SectionFormat, UniFormat, OmniClass and the IFD in creating a means for software developers to attach well-structured information to models.

"A lot of what's being done here with SPie and the table 49 properties is the idea of a usable format that people can use regardless of whether its an in-house database, or Revit, or Bentley -- whatever platform is being used," Robert Weygant, CSI, CDT, SCIP, chair of the BIM Practice Group, said. “You may find people who are developing a third-party application that may make that happen."
 
SPie datasets actually come from shortform specs, Kalin said. You can see them at www.wbdg.org. 

"It's a pretty robust set of data,” he said. “Depending on your thresholds for anxiety, you can break this up endlessly."

Manufacturers are showing interest in being early adopters because they want to be in on the ground floor of SPie’s development, Kalin said. Trade associations are also involved and helping define the terminology.

GSA, COE and owners like them are driving the adoption of this approach because they want to see data in the models, Weygant said. They need it for forecasting.

To learn more and get involved with the project, visit the link provided above or contact Roger Grant at rgrant@csinet.org.

When asked, 97% of those at the meeting voted in favor of learning more about SPie with a software demonstration by one of the companies that participated in the December Demonstration Workshop, e-Specs. Look for that topic at a future meeting of the group.

SPie will also be discussed at CONSTRUCT2010 & The CSI Annual Convention.

CSI’s BIM Practice Group will meet Friday, Feb. 19 at 1pm ET where the focus will continue to be on the SPie project and how it was implemented in software.

Join the group! It’s free!