A building information modeling (BIM) guide for building owners has been developed under the auspices of the National Institute of Building Sciences. The National BIM Guide for Owners is a new guide that building owners can adopt to provide a documented process and procedure for their design team to follow in order to produce a standard set of BIM documents during the design and construction of the facility, and for maintenance and operations of the facility upon handoff. The National BIM Guide for Owners is based on the foreign, federal, state and local BIM guides that currently exist, but geared to a generic facility with uniform requirements for use by a variety of government, institutional and commercial building owners. It references a range of documents and practices, including those contained within the National BIM Standard-United States® developed by one of the National Institute of Building Sciences' own councils, the buildingSMART alliance®.

The Committee membership represents major sectors of the building industry, including owners, architecture, engineering, construction, facility management and academia. Among the members are representatives from the organizations supporting the development of the guide, including the National Institute of Building Sciences, Building Owners and Managers Association, American Institute of Architects, ASHRAE and International Facility Management Association.

Committee Members

Purpose and Goals

The primary purpose of the National BIM Guide for Owners is to provide building and facility owners with a consistent reference for including BIM in contractual documents with their building project team.

• A primary goal is for federal, state and local governments and other institutional and commercial building owners to adopt the National BIM Guide for Owners as the standard procedure for their design/BIM teams to follow, helping building owners unlock the value and opportunity to utilize BIM across the life cycle of a building. Establishing criteria, specifications and expectations in the design and construction process will help owners capture the full value of investing in BIM, while providing a uniform approach for institutional and commercial building owners to achieve consistent BIM requirements for their facilities.
• Another goal of the project is to transfer the final Guide to a standards development organization (SDO) for an industry consensus review and ultimate adoption as an American National Standards Institute (ANSI) approved industry standard.
• The final goal of the project is to generate an industry standard that can be published.

Scope

• The Guide is intended for adoption by building and facility owners, but is written to provide criteria for delivery by the building project team.
• The Guide utilizes existing information and BIM guidelines and standards for its development. No new research has been undertaken.
• The Guide is generic and process-oriented to allow for easier adoption by large sectors of the architecture/engineering/construction/owner/operator (AECOO) industry.
• The Guide is concise and written for owners to allow for easier adoption by all sectors (governmental, institution, commercial) of building facility owners.
• The final draft Guide will be reviewed by the National Institute of Building Sciences buildingSMART alliance® members, supporting organizations and other interested parties for consideration by the committee and revised based on their review.

Advisory Committee

Owners (federal, state and local governments; institutions; and universities) that currently have developed and require BIM standards were asked to join an Advisory Committee for the project. The Advisory Committee reviewed the work of the committee for its compatibility with their standards and its possible adoption in the future. The following owners were identified to be asked to join the committee:

Army Corps of Engineers
Defense Health Agency
Department of Veterans Affairs
General Services Administration
Naval Facilities Engineering Command
State of Wisconsin