Summary

Effective management of structured information is essential for successfully delivering and managing built assets, including buildings, infrastructure, and industrial facilities. Building Information Management (BIM) is focused on the ‘functions of controlling the acquisition, analysis, retention, retrieval, and distribution of built environment asset information all within an information processing system.’ This information process is critical to the successful delivery and operations of built assets.

The National BIM Standard-United States® (NBIMS-US™) is a consensus-based national-level standard focused on defining standard approaches and guidelines to defining requirements, planning BIM adoption, and exchanging information between project team members. These approaches are aligned with many other international and national standards.

Why is this standard important?

NBIMS-US outlines standard processes and practices to support the adoption of BIM on projects, from identifying the BIM requirements, to developing detailed BIM execution plans through defining information exchanges. The modules within NBIMS-US™ will guide the owner and project team through the process of defining high-value use cases for adopting BIM, putting in place requirements to ensure quality BIM adoption, and defining a structured approach to planning for BIM execution on a project. While NBIMS-US™ will continue to grow, the core modules defined within NBIMS-US™ Version 4 provide a solid foundation to support owners and project team members in their BIM planning and implementation process. This will support positive outcomes both in project delivery and asset management across industry sectors.

What is contained within NBIMS-US™ Version 4?

NBIMS-US™ Version 4 is composed of a series of modules. Each module contains various types of content which may include standards, guidelines, templates, and other resources (see additional details below). The five modules released with Version 4 are described below. Additional modules will be developed for future releases of NBIMS-US™. See Figure 1 for a map of the NBIMS-US™ Version 4 Modules.

1. Introduction Module: The introduction describes the overview of NBIMS-US™ and its relationship to other international standards. It also includes a common set of definitions used across all modules.
2. Project BIM Requirements Module: This module provides a topical list of items that should be addressed within a comprehensive set of BIM requirements from a project owner.
3. BIM Execution Planning Module: This module defines a process and the information that shall or could be included in a BIM Execution Plan (BEP) at three stages in a project: the owner’s request for proposals, the proposal BEP, and a comprehensive project BEP.
4. BIM Use Definition Module: The BUD standard defines a standard approach to naming and defining BIM Uses and BIM Use Cases. The module also contains the definitions for commonly used BIM Uses, which are leveraged within the BEP process.
5. Information Exchange Guidelines: This module will contain guidance to support owners and project team members in their definition of information exchanges, either by identifying existing standard definitions or defining new definitions. This guideline document is not being released within the initial release of Version 4, but is intended to be added upon future review.
6. COBie Version 3 Module: This module defines the Construction to Building Operations information exchange, which is a common schema for documenting information regarding a built asset to support the operations and maintenance of the asset.

Within each module, there are different types of content, including standards (which you can verify compliance), guidelines to support adoption, templates to facilitate adoption, and information exchange definitions within a standard structure, such as IFC or JSON (see Figure 2).

Who is the audience?

NBIMS-US™ includes modules focused on different topical areas related to the BIM process on projects and within organizations, as well as information exchange definitions to standardize the data structure for sharing information. The primary and secondary audiences for these modules vary depending on the module content. Overall, NBIMS-US™ is valuable to many different stakeholders who develop, share, receive, or maintain structured information about their buildings or infrastructure projects. These include facility owners, architects, engineers, constructors, specialty trades, software vendors, information management specialists, along with others. The introduction within each module highlights the primary audience, but there are many additional potential audiences for each module.

How should NBIMS-US™ be used?

There are a number of uses for NBIMS-US™. To implement BIM at a project-level, it is critical for an owner and the project team to have clearly defined requirements for BIM adoption. The Project BIM Requirements module outlines the critical elements in these requirements. A portion of these requirements should clearly define the need for the team to develop a BIM Execution Plan (BEP). The owner and project team members can develop a BIM Execution Plan by leveraging the BEP module. COBie may also be used to define information deliverables from the delivery process to the operations process. The BIM Use Definition module is leveraged throughout the Project BIM Requirements and BEP modules as a common language for defining BIM uses.

How was this version of NBIMS-US™ developed?

NBIMS-US™ is managed as a project within the National Institute of Building Sciences (NIBS). Version 4 of NBIMS-US was developed through a consensus process primarily through volunteer efforts with the valuable support of staff from NIBS. The overall planning of NBIMS-US™ is managed by the NBIMS Planning Committee. Each module is authored and managed by a workgroup composed of industry experts in the area. The Project Committee is the voting committee that ultimately approved the NBIMS-US content ballots. Each standard ballot has undergone multiple reviews from the workgroups and Planning Committee, along with an open comment period from all Project Committee members and the public.

How does NBIMS-US™ relate to other BIM standards?

There are many valuable standards and requirements examples at an international, national, and program level to support BIM adoption. Figures 3 and 4 show many important standards, or in some cases, standardization efforts, that are occurring internationally, nationally, and for programs at an organizational or project level. These figures are not comprehensive but aim to illustrate the breadth of standards efforts. NBIMS-US™ is focused on leveraging existing standards whenever practical to minimize the number of standards and to leverage high-value efforts throughout the world.

At a high-level, there are many standards focused on Information Management in the built environment. These include ISO 19650, which is focused on the standardization of generic information processes that can be applied by facility owners and project team members. It also includes valuable standards related to information security and exchanges. NBIMS-US™ aligns with the ISO 19650 standard, and expands the level of detail for core content areas within the standard for their application in the U.S. market. These include the definition of Project BIM Requirements that support the activities defined within ISO 19650 and the development of detailed content within a project-level BIM Execution Plan (BEP) that encompasses many core planning areas within NBIMS-US™. A mapping of three of the NBIMS-US™ standards (PBR, BEP and COBie modules) to the ISO 19650 Part 2 information management processes is shown in Figures 5, 6, and 7, respectively.

There are also many standards at an international and national level that aim to provide an approach to identifying information exchanges and deliverables. NBIMS-US leverages ISO 16739 related to Industry Foundation Classes (IFC) as a common data schema used to define the COBie exchange. The BEP module also supports using the buildingSMART International Information Delivery Specifications as IFC information exchanges when available for BIM Uses. The BEP module also references the BIM Forum Level of Development (LoD) specification as a common method for defining information exchanges using a model element table.

Another information management standard with a strong connection to NBIMS™ is the new ANSI/ASHRAE/NIBS Standard 224-2023 Standard Application of Building Information Modeling. Both the NBMS Project BIM Requirements module and the Standard 224-2023 originate from the National BIM Guide for Owners. Standard 224-2023 was developed by a joint ASHRAE NIBS Committee that took the National BIM Guide for Owners and converted it into an ANSI level standard. Standard 224-2023 is specifically for owners to identify requirements for implementing BIM on projects for the owner and the project team. Standard 224-2023 is targeted at providing the minimum requirements for the application of building information modeling /management (BIM) to the planning, design, construction, and operation of facilities, including both buildings and infrastructure. In so doing, it references NBIMS for further direction on implementation. Standard 224-2023 defines how to incorporate BIM requirements as identified in the NBIMS Project BIM Requirements in owners’ design, construction, and operations services contracts.

These standards were developed in parallel. As a result, some coordination in their alignment may still be required and will be addressed in subsequent versions of the standards and supporting guidelines as both become available and are used in practice.

Where is the content from previous NBIMS-US versions?

The content for NBIMS-US™ Versions 1, 2 and 3 remain available and can be accessed at nationalbimstandard.org. Some sections of NBIMS Version 2 and 3 have been revised and updated within NBIMS-US™ Version 4. These include the BEP Guide and Content, which the BEP Module supersedes, and COBie Version 2.4, which is superseded by COBie Version 3. The BIM Uses within the BEP Guide in Version 2 and within The Uses of BIM in Version 3 have also been superseded by the BIM Use Definitions Module in Version 4. All content from the older versions will remain freely accessible. As NBIMS-US™ continues to build in the future, archival copies of each version will be maintained so that organizations can rely upon the version in agreements and standard practices.