Why buildingSMART?

The International Alliance for Interoperability (IAI) has developed an internationally adopted open standard for the sharing of building information, that supports the many participants in the process, over the complete life cycle.

The need for change is urgent.

The construction industry has a record of inadequate quality - in terms of product, processes or value for money. With the lowest rate of IT technology takeup and a large number of small businesses, the result is an industry without clear direction and a consequent lack of innovation that other comparable sectors such as manufacturing take for granted.

Society is witnessing new pressures on the built environment - planning and infrastructure, energy consumption, sustainability, capital - that is placing new challenges on a system that is already stressed using 2D drawings and dumb documents for its medium of exchange.

The solution is the open, global ISO standard IFC - Information for Construction protocol. The IAI  has developed a comprehensive Building Information Model (BIM) based on this standard, that also integrates geographic information system (GIS) data.

Using BIM facilitates vastly improved information flow on construction industry projects, that will enable better product quality and value for money investment.

Intelligent building models for example can test thermal performance, automatically determine authority code compliance or be used directly for automated assembly manufacturing.

The IAI is the custodian of the Model and offers support to all participants in the project life cycle.

It is no longer valid to claim a lack of data interoperability as an excuse for poor information flow in the AEC/FM industries.