buildingSMART USA and BIMForum Join Forces to Accelerate the Adoption of Open Standards for the Construction Industry

Denver, North Carolina – buildingSMART USA and BIMForum are announcing that they have entered into a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) to jointly promote and advance the use of open standards for the building design and construction industry. BIMForum will operate the buildingSMART USA Chapter Building Industry Committee alongside existing Industry Committees for Roads and Bridges, and Airports.

The Building Industry Committee will focus on the use of relevant open standards for vertical construction projects that accelerate the digital transformation of design, construction, commissioning, and asset management by facilitating information sharing, data exchange, work process optimization, and knowledge capture across and between all phases of the project lifecycle. Activities will include publishing guidelines and white papers, hosting informational webinars, conducting seminars and events, facilitating networking with industry peers to share best practices and lessons learned as well as evaluating and testing relevant open standards.

“BIMForum was established to assist architects, engineers, contractors and facility managers to understand how to use technologies such as building information modelling (BIM) and innovative delivery models to improve their projects” explains Jan Reinhardt, BIMForum’s currently serving President. “Since those beginnings, BIMForum has continued to promote the advanced use of BIM and to publish guidelines to improve industry performance and effectiveness by applying BIM and related innovative technologies. Throughout its journey, BIMForum has promoted openBIM as a universal approach to the collaborative design, realization, and operation of buildings based on open standards and workflows.”

“As independent organizations with parallel agendas for many years, our respective organizations have been fully aligned in pursuing a common vision to advance the digital transformation of our industry through the adoption of open standards” says Ian Howell, US Representative for buildingSMART International. “We have both observed that proprietary file formats perpetuate the information silos and data fragmentation that plague our industry by causing inconsistencies, errors, inefficiency and waste. We share a mutual commitment to promoting the use of openBIM and open standards that can and do liberate information sharing, facilitate data exchange, optimize digital work processes, and support interoperability between technology applications.”

Given the overlapping synergies, the opportunity to have BIMForum lead the newly formed buildingSMART USA Building Industry Committee is a win/win collaboration for both our organizations to advance the use of openBIM and open standards by the US building industry.

We invite industry professionals to get involved in the buildingSMART USA Chapter to contribute to the important work of promoting the adoption of openBIM and open standards that will benefit owners by increasing productivity, reducing waste, optimizing workflows, and improving lifecycle management through open information sharing and data exchange.

buildingSMART USA and the BIMForum will each remain discrete and separately registered entities collaborating as described above under the terms of the jointly signed MOU.

About buildingSMART
buildingSMART USA Inc. is a member based 501(c)6 nonprofit entity operating as the US Chapter of buildingSMART International.

buildingSMART International is a vendor-neutral and not for profit body that leads the development of open digital information flows across the built asset industry. Its mission is to proactively support industry participants who want to develop open standards for planning, design, procurement, assembly and operation of buildings and infrastructure worldwide. It provides the international network plus the necessary technical and process support. Its members, who range from across the built environment spectrum, collaborate under the buildingSMART organization. buildingSMART is engaged with other international standards bodies such as ISO, the European Committee for Standardization (CEN) and the Open Geospatial Consortium (OGC). Its core Industry Foundation Class (IFC) standards achieved ISO approval in 2012.

About BIMForum:
BIMForum is a member based 501(c)6 nonprofit entity established by a team of experienced professionals focused on harnessing Building Information Modeling (BIM), innovative technology, and creative processes to address current and emerging issues in the industry. BIMForum offers networking, hands-on learning, and engagement opportunities between its members to help break down traditional barriers of technology adoption and to inspire collaboration and knowledge sharing in order to improve industry performance.
The mission of BIMForum is to advance technologies and processes that improve the future of the built environment. BIMForum activities are aimed at improving the design and construction industry through education, networking, and the development of best practices for these innovations, and to help its members implement these innovations on projects and into the broad AEC industry. BIMForum publishes Guides for industry professionals including the BIMForum Level of Development (LOD) Specification developed in collaboration with a broad range of industry organizations including the American Institute of Architects (AIA), the Associated General Contractors of America (AGC), the Design Build Institute of America (DBIA) and the National BIM Standard (NBIMS) committee of the National Institute of Building Sciences (NIBS).