BSI, the business standards company has published PAS 1192-3 Specification for information management for the operational phase of assets using building information modelling (BIM). Developed with Construction Industry Council (CIC) and the Building Information Modelling (BIM) Task Group, PAS 1192-3 comes as a direct response to the government's 2011 Construction Strategy. The aim of which is to reduce the cost of constructing public sector assets by up to 20% by 2016.

To achieve this, the government mandated that all companies tendering for government construction work should be working at level 2 BIM by 2016, and the first PAS in this series, PAS 1192-2 was developed to support this in 2013.

PAS 1192-3, provides a framework upon which to build a digital asset information model and is the partner to PAS 1192-2. It recognizes that the cost of operating and maintaining buildings and facilities can represent up to 85% of the whole-life cost, and savings can pay back any upfront premium in construction expenses in a few years.

PAS 1192-3 will provide asset managers with guidance on how to integrate the management of information. It means that short term asset construction activity can be factored into longer term asset management activity for a portfolio of assets. The result should deliver savings such as:

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• Reduced costs as a result of the automated transfer of accurate, complete and unambiguous information at asset handover and during transfer of operation from one service provider to another

• Better awareness of the operational and maintenance needs of assets

• Better decisions regarding operation and maintenance expenditure based on actual asset performance and status

• Better organizational and strategic planning from more complete and accurate asset information, for example in the development of the health and safety file required by the Construction (Design and Management) Regulations

• Reduced management process costs arising from incomplete data.

Anthony Burd, Head of Market Development for Construction at BSI, said: "Using PAS 1192-3 alongside PAS 1192-2 will allow asset and facilities managers to keep track of information that is being used across a project's life cycle.

"Even before a project reaches the construction phase, all eventualities will have been considered pre-emptively resulting in clear coordinated thinking and potentially huge cost-savings."

Some of the organizations involved in its development include: Facilities Society, Institute of Asset Management, National Grid, Network Rail and University of Greenwich amongst others.

PAS 1192-3 will prove useful to asset owners, designers, contractors, operations and maintenance service providers and software suppliers. This includes those transferring data to and from client side systems.

Peter Hansford, Government Chief Construction Adviser said: "I believe that collaborative BIM working processes and the data rich technologies that support them are fundamental for economic growth in both our domestic and international construction markets.

"It is therefore essential that we are adequately equipped to ensure the UK is at the frontline of this global shift in how we create, operate, maintain and de-commission our built environment."

(MH/JP)