COBIE Challenge Puts Facility Maintenance Software to the Test

Bill East explains how COBIE can take a process that used to take several weeks and reduce it down to 35 seconds.

Most building project contracts require project designers and contractors to hand over all of the paperwork owners and property managers will need to operate, manage and maintain the facility when a new building is constructed. Today, it is standard practice for the construction team to gather these equipment lists, product data sheets, warranties, spare parts lists, preventive maintenance schedules and other documents at the end of the job. This current procedure can be expensive because most information has to be retrieved from documents that the team filed earlier or recreated to replace paperwork that was misplaced along the way. It is also inefficient because facility owners and managers have to sort through boxes of data when they need to reference specific information.

The Construction Operations Building Information Exchange (COBIE) simplifies this paperwork process.

“You can take a process that used to take several weeks and it can be reduced to 35 seconds," said Bill East of the Army Corps of Engineers Research Laboratory. “Not a bad savings.”

East, is a member of the Facility Maintenance and Operations Committee (FMOC). He recently served as moderator at the second COBIE Challenge. The first COBIE Challenge, held July 2008 at the National Academy of Sciences, was led by the Corps of Engineers to demonstrate and test the capabilities of software firms to implement and support COBIE requirements. The second COBIE Challenge, hosted by the FMOC and buildingSMART alliance^TM, March 11, during the National Facilities Management and Technology Conference in Baltimore, Md., expanded to include new software firms and gave returning firms an opportunity to fine-tune their efforts.

COBIE is a computerized, open-standard format for collecting information. Instead of providing paperwork at the end of the job, the designers and contractors enter the data as it is created, over the course of the design, construction and commissioning process.  For example, designers will submit floor, space and equipment layout information. Contractors provide make, model and serial numbers of installed equipment, as well as manufacturers’ product specification sheets and recommended maintenance instructions. In real life, software firms address different parts of the design/build/maintenance process. COBIE puts all of the components they need to track in one place. Part of the COBIE Challenge is getting the different software to create tools that capture the necessary information during each phase to eliminate wasted time and rekeying information at the end of the process.

Five firms took the COBIE Challenge in March. The software firms included Onuma Planning System for the architectural programming phase; ArchiCAD and Onuma for the design phase; TOKMO and Onuma for the construction phase; and MicroMain and TMASystems for the facility management phase.

Each firm participated in weekly phone calls beginning in January to prepare for the event. On the day of the Challenge, they all received live data which they plugged in to their software. They then gave 20-minute presentations, displaying the results live, on-screen in front of an audience of facility management professionals.

The first model, used by ArchiCAD, was a portion of an actual office building. The second model, used by TOKMO, was an Industry Foundation Class (IFC) file. The third model, used by Onuma Planning System, MicroMain, and TMA Systems, demonstrated the life-cycle capture of building information data from architectural programming, through design, into construction.

For a detailed technical overview of the results, including access to the different models, click here. 

COBIE is designed to work with basic spreadsheets as well as Building Information Model (BIM) software. The COBIE team designed the process for either option so that large and small projects within the facility acquisition industry can benefit from this new data collection process. By exchanging COBIE data via spreadsheets, even small homebuilders can provide a simplified as-built BIM to their customers. 

NASA and the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers began developing COBIE in 2007 with the support of the FMOC. Though still in the final test stages, COBIE is frequently cited as the leading practical example of how efforts to adopt open standards for building industry information exchange based on the National Building Information Model Standard^TM can transform building industry processes.  Several related projects are under development and an increasing number of organizations and firms are asking for construction submittals to be provided according to the COBIE model.  Once completed, COBIE will go through the Institute’s National Building Information Model Standard^TM consensus process.

The next COBIE presentation is scheduled for December 2009 during the National Institute of Building Sciences Annual Meeting. Stay tuned for more information. To register, click here.