We are now conditioned to expect a simple answer e.g. how often do we go beyond page 1 of a Google Search?
Google does the complex work in the background, so it can deliver the simple answer. Google, and the rest of the information ecosystem, deals with the detail, using standardisation and protocols to allow machines to engage with humans, respond to variables and deliver a simple answer – on Page 1.
To achieve, this Google replaced 20th Century information management processes. They started by cataloguing existing documents and data sets to make them easier to find and then helped create an ecosystem in which any newly created information would be machine-readable.
As consumers, we didn’t need to know any of that. Just rely on the fact it was done.
Other search providers, even Microsoft, tried to do the same, but they don’t seem to have been able to deal with the complexity. So, we found that the simple answers delivered by Bing were often wrong.
In Property and Construction, we are still using 20th Century information management processes, that are heavily dependent on people doing the right thing at the right time.
Very complex – and impossible to automate - unless we introduce a data-driven ecosystem.
Anyone who has been asked to compare the carbon footprint of a building will confirm that it is very complex. The embodied carbon of every product that it includes – manufacture, shipping, installation, operations – and how to support those making decisions at key stages, to choose lower emission solutions.
There are so many variables, it is impossible for people to consider them all – plus ESG reporting will increasingly require a digital record of those selections.
Fire safety is equally complex, with many different products, from different suppliers, being assembled to mitigate risks.
Many variables that require different decisions based on different circumstances. Complex inter-relationships of data, driven by context and dynamic connections.
20th Century software solutions
Although there are some great software solutions for design, construction planning/management, procurement, inspection and asset management, they all share a common weakness. The data they use is created uniquely by each customer.
There is a lot of guidance and standards that customers are expected to follow, but our practical experience is that many don’t – and the problem is that you only need one person to add the wrong character to a field for the information thread to break and require manual intervention.
Amazon’s amazing delivery model would fail without standardised data.
21st Century software solutions
The same software can be used, with one change.
All of the non-geometric data about “things” - assets, products, spaces, buildings – come from a common master database library via dynamic connectors (API).
The master database environment includes a data dictionary so alternative terms, that make more sense to individual stakeholders, can be presented.
The “things” still exists in the individual applications, and where they need the data to be held in the “object” that is simply synced with the master data model.
This removes the need to translate the non-geometric data using schemas like IFC and thereby removes the risk of data being changed.
The market
There is enormous, and growing, demand for this asset information.
Currently, there seems no way of satisfying that demand.
Why Building Information Warehouse?
It does what is says on the tin.
Warehouses categorise products, enabling them to be easily retrieved and integrate with distribution and provide traceability.
Building Information Warehouse brings together knowledge capture, structure, technology that helps well-curated and packaged information to get to the people who need it – and automatically create a Digital Record.