Preface

When developing the Building Information Modeling (BIM) Project Execution Planning Guide[1], the research team documented approximately twenty-five (24 to 26 depending on the version) BIM Uses, primarily identified through industry interviews.  These BIM Uses were, in general, organized by project phase (plan, design, construct, and operate).  Many implementers commented on the value of having defined BIM Uses, but the organization of these uses within the Guide, while simple to understand, had several drawbacks.  First, each Use of BIM does not reside within one single project phase. In fact, most can occur in multiple project phases.  It can be debated that every use of BIM could be applied during any phase of the lifecycle of a facility.  Secondly, the current structure has few levels, categories, or classes of BIM Uses. Furthermore, this structure is not very adaptable to change, such as adding new Uses as they are developed. While the BIM Project Execution Planning Guide made progress towards standardizing a list of terms and definitions, the names have not been accepted uniformly and as teams adapt the materials of the Guide for their own purposes, they frequently customize the BIM Uses to suit their individual needs.

In addition to the BIM Project Execution Planning Guide, there are other guides and documents that provide listings of BIM Uses.  Of those publications that list the Uses of BIM, the lists vary greatly from one publication to the next and few publications categorize the Uses into classes and class hierarchies.  Therefore, the structure presented in this document aims to provide a standard list and definition of the Uses of BIM and organizes the Uses in classes and a class hierarchy.

The purpose of this document is to define a common language for the Uses of BIM.  By developing this common language, teams can more clearly communicate the purposes for implementing BIM on a project or within their organization.  This document provides the fundamental terminology and organizational structure for the purposes for which BIM is implemented throughout the lifecycle of a facility.  The Uses can be utilized during the development of the BIM Plan or to better allow for the establishment of requirements.  They can also be used to standardize process and information exchanges terminology.  This standardization is critical to future developments within the National BIM Standard – US.  Overall, the BIM Uses allow for better communication of the purposes for implementing BIM throughout the life of a facility.

This BIM Use classification was established through a comprehensive ontology development methodology.  The methods used to classify the BIM Uses included: 1) defining domain and scope, 2) acquiring domain knowledge, 3) identifying domain terms, 4) integrating the terms, 5) evaluating (refinement and validation) the classification system, and 6) documenting classification system.  To develop the classification system, over 550 Terms were documented using content analysis, software analysis, brainstorming, and industry practice analysis.  These 550 Use terms were then grouped by common attributes into approximately 30 groups. During this process, only the purpose of the BIM Use term was considered.  Therefore items such a project phase, facility element, discipline, and level of development were not considered when developing the classes. These groups were then organized into larger categories of BIM Uses and organized into a hierarchical structure. This structure was then internally evaluated through competency questions, mapping the original terms to the structure, and comparing it to other structure such as the BIM tetralogy[2].  Based on the internal evaluation, the ontology was updated and validated externally. The external validation included one-on-one interviews with over 30 industry experts and 4 separate industry focus group meetings.  Based on the external feedback, the structure was updated and documented.

This document is designed to communicate the BIM Uses classification system and BIM Use Purposes. The first portion of the document introduces the BIM Use classification systems.  This is followed by a detailed discussion of the components of the classification system including the BIM Use Purposes and BIM Use Characteristics. The BIM Use Purpose Section includes a description of the objective of each of the BIM Uses. The BIM Use Characteristics section includes a description of the facility element, facility phase, discipline, and level of development.  These sections are followed by a method for implementing the BIM Use Classification System. This method can be used as an alternative method for defining the Uses of BIM currently defined in Chapter 2 of the BIM Project Execution Planning Guide (BIM PxP Guide).[3]