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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
 

Organisations responsible for infrastructure assets must understand the importance that asset information has to achieve their organisational objectives. Asset-related information must align with organisational requirements to support the efficient management of assets throughout their whole life – and to optimise digital opportunity.

Industry standards have been developed to inform the approach of organisations to define Asset Information Requirements (AIR) and Asset Information Models (AIM). However, there is not yet a method by which the AIR are informed by the Organisational Information Requirements (OIR) that arise out of organisational objectives. Knowing precisely what data to collect and curate is fundamental to meeting the increasing need to achieve greater value for money and limit impact on the natural environment while increasing operational performance within an ageing asset portfolio.

This project builds on a body of research to develop a top-down methodology that supports the development of AIR in relation to OIR. It addresses the disconnect between the PAS/ISO BIM-related standards and asset management standard ISO 55000 by introducing Functional Information Requirements (FIR). The resulting methodology will enable clients and major projects to establish their through-life information requirements clearly, linking information capture to business objectives, and reducing the risk to business caused by inadequate or missing information. As such, it will establish a ‘golden thread’ for data and information enabling better decision-making to optimise performance and manage risk throughout the whole life of the asset, providing an important underpinning for the realisation of Digital Twins.

Next Steps

An industry paper to be published in 2021 will present the urgent need for this methodology and illustrate how, through industry application and engagement, it can redefine asset management and realign it with organisational imperatives.

An open-source industry-ready digital tool that captures the methodology and an accompanying step-by-step technical guide is also being developed. The project team will work with the Department for Transport Infrastructure Efficiency Strategy (TIES) programme, using TIES projects as case studies to test the methodology planned to ensure the tool is user-friendly and industry appropriate. In early 2022 an integrated online web application will be built providing a digital approach to applying the framework for the benefit of industry organisations.

People

Jennifer Schooling

James Heaton

Henrietta Baker

Charlie Davies

Project Status

This is a current project

Publications

publications will be added here when available