IAI Workshop

Paper given by Ian Godfrey in Melbourne - Tuesday 25 November 1997

1. The Challenge

The Building and Construction Industry in Australia is distinctively different from other industry sectors involved in business information interchange, in that:

  • it has many, diverse players (148,000 businesses in Australia, each with an average of only 3 employees) with many more client organisations and building proprietors - together representing a diffuse network of information requirements and flows.

  • many enterprises have direct owner involvement and have a conservative view of the cost/benefit of new initiatives.

  • building and construction facilities have long life cycles (typically 70 or more years) with most life cycle costs incurred in use rather than in production.

  • building and construction is a major component of the national economy but largely composed of small to medium businesses ? with all of the problems facing this sector of the business community.

  • the industry operates on very low margins, with much lower working capital than industry generally ? severely restricting the educational and R & D initiatives required for the major cultural and technological changes involved in the implementation of Industry Foundation Classes (IFC).

The Facility/Asset Management Industry is a rapidly evolving sector having significant overlap with Building and Construction but ultimately being driven by a different paradigm which arises from the two threads of accrual accounting and sustainability.

 

2. The current status of Building / Construction / Facility Management data exchange in Australia

  • Information is generally seen as static units, packaged according to the project phase throughout the building life cycle. Characteristically, there is currently a lack of building and construction data communication - albeit with unrepresentative exceptions. Typically, building data has, of necessity, to be re-established at each phase in the building life cycle - from facility briefing to design and documentation, from tender to construction, from handover to facility management, from proprietor to proprietor on asset transfer and from building evaluation to needs analysis and the closing of the loop.

  • The industry is focussed on the construction documentation related to individual projects. It sees the end state as the construction itself, rather than the building life cycle and the overall service potential or economic utility of building assets.

  • Currently, most data transfer is via paper, with electronic means being used mainly in the construction documentation phase. The situation can be summarised as:

    Accommodation Briefing --- Design overwhelmingly verbal, or on paper
    Design Construction --- Documentation generally verbal, or on paper
    Within Construction / Tender Documentation No defined protocols -
    -CAD via DXF
    -Text via Word Perfect 5.1 DOS and Word for Windows 6 & 7
    Tender Documentation --- Construction on paper
    Handover Documents --- Facility Management (normally as-built information) generally hard copy, but a varied and volatile situation
    Proprietor --- Proprietor (Change of ownership through sale or transfer of facilities) generally no transfer (data is lost)
    Evaluation and Needs Analysis --- Accommodation Briefing by research and investigation (no data transfer)

  • o Aside from the production and functional aspects of facility use and life cycles, business and public sector proprietors are required to establish and maintain asset valuation and life cycle financial data, under changes to Australian accounting standards in recent years. These practices are currently largely unconnected with general building data but have established a rapidly developing parallel IT infrastructure which is being utilised in facility management.

  • o Where electronic systems are used they tend to be electronic versions of traditional paper-based processes. Taking full advantage of the potential of the new communication and computer technologies will require these processes to be re-engineered and industry to undergo fundamental cultural change.

 

3. The current international status of data exchange in the industry

  • Both the industry context and the status of product data exchange are currently substantially the same as in Australia, however a number of countries within our region, in Europe and North America, have more developed policy frameworks and government / industry commitment in this area and are therefore better positioned to develop and compete within growing East Asian markets.

 

4. Impediments to the adoption of IFC

  • The diffuse profile of the industry.

  • The related lack of internal industry organisation and of sufficient capital to independently envision and guide the cultural and technological changes required.

  • There are no drivers for IFC adoption within the industry in respect of:
    business,
    -the industry culture,
    -regulatory frameworks,
    -investment in IT, and
    -the lack of customer discrimination and demand for innovation.

 

5. Initiatives required to support the implementation of IFC

  • Both bottom-up and top-down implementation processes are required within the Building / Construction / Facility Management Industry due to its diffuse nature and the lack of controlling players amongst its producers and its consumers.

  • In support of these processes, IFC?s commercial advantages must be clearly demonstrated to the industry's businesses, in addition to the practitioners within the industry understanding, advocating and adopting the technology.

  • The development of industry standards for product and knowledge databases is required for user access within the context of an industry information framework, as key underpinnings of practitioner adoption.

  • A high level of generic IT infrastructure is a pre-requisite to the adoption of IFC in this industry in Australia, due to the extremely dispersed nature of the industry - eg. e-mail services to a majority of industry players, across all sectors of production and management.
    Organisations must be encouraged, persuaded and supported in adopting generic IT tools so as to facilitate the necessary cultural change and establish the minimum necessary infrastructure for the adoption of IFC.

  • Education and awareness are each critical to effecting the necessary cultural changes, against a background of improved regulatory and standards systems.
    Establishment of a Building / Construction / Facility Management Industry-related World Wide Web site as an information and discussion centre is under way. This should incorporate, under a general briefing of IFC technologies, developments and current status, links to all Australian and international demonstration projects and other IFC-related Web sites. The site might also include a List Server and/or a News Group.

  • The implementation of IFC within the industry must be advocated and facilitated as a world best practice technology, leading to improved domestic industry productivity and quality standards and a more competitive export position.

  • Early adopters within the industry, in both business and government sectors, should be supported at both small business and large enterprise levels, through a program to develop and promote demonstration projects, so as to underpin education and awareness of the benefits and implications of IFC.

  • As proprietors of some 50% of national building and construction assets, all levels of government (Commonwealth, state/territory and local) must to be encouraged or required to develop more informed, coordinated and accountable positions with regard to building information systems - possibly through revised regulatory and/or audit frameworks.

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