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Centre for Digital Built Britain completed its five-year mission and closed its doors at the end of September 2022

This website remains as a legacy of the achievements of our five-year foundational journey towards a digital built Britain
 

Why interoperability is so important when delivering BIM.

Interoperability is vital to ensure that BIM continues to thrive and deliver key benefits and to support UK BIM adoption.

As UK construction has incrementally adopted BIM, there has been a growing understanding of how BIM, when implemented correctly, is a process that can provide a ‘golden thread’ of trusted data to all parties involved in an asset’s lifecycle, from inception, to capital phase procurement, post-occupancy asset management, maintenance and refurbishment, through to the asset’s eventual disposal or demolition.

As the ‘information age’ gathers pace, it has become increasingly clear to our industry that the ability to author, exchange, assure and subsequently use and re-use data, brings very significant benefits to all; benefits that are being shared by both the supply chain and asset owners, including responsible asset ‘dutyholders’.

However, standards compliant and engaged client lead BIM implementation aside, one of the biggest challenges we still face when trying to achieve these benefits, is that of BIM interoperability; with BIM interoperability providing the ability to exchange data across the contract line from projects into asset management, and between various technologies, so that it can subsequently be made use of, and without which current complex organisational IT systems, made up of a large number of different digital technologies, have a limited ability to maintain and manage currently procured data.