Workshop 4: SANS19650 and National Annex

Workshop 4 - 18 April 2024 : SANS19650 and National Annex

As Building Information Modeling (BIM) gains momentum worldwide, South Africa is taking proactive steps to enhance its construction industry through the development of a National Annex to ISO 19650. Similar to the UK's adaptation, this annex will tailor BIM standards to align with South Africa's unique construction landscape. It will encompass industry-specific procedures, procurement processes, and supplier selection criteria, ensuring efficient BIM implementation across projects. By providing clear guidance and requirements, the annex aims to foster collaboration, improve project outcomes, and drive innovation in South Africa's construction sector, setting a benchmark for excellence.

The outcomes from the CODESA 4 will be unified awareness of the need for, and nature of the national annex, and a call to action to be involved in stakeholder engagement and focus group sessions.

Zutari hosted our workshop at their Head Office in Tshwane, where we focused on the development of the National Annex to the SANS 19650 series (adopted by SABS from the ISO 19650 suite of standards).

1) Welcome and setting the scene - Richard Matchett, Zutari

2) ISO19650 and the IM Process - Paul Shillcock, Operam Academy

3) Path to the National Annex and ISO19650 to SANS19650 - Rudd van Deventer, Spaceworx and Ishmail Cassiem, CIDB

4) Q&A - Richard Matchett, Facilitator

5) Workshop Stage Feedback - The Community

Question: How do we currently manage information for each of the 8 Steps?

Why do we need BIM and why do we need a national policy?

Step 1 - Assessment and Need

Comments started with a concern about operational challenges to going digital throughout the country. This is a challenge in the remote areas if there is reliance on a digital model that gets updated remotely – special arrangements will have to be made within the contract to ensure that updates are timeously distributed to site and that the site has a means of sharing these updates across the site electronically.

The second concern was the level of Digital Adoption by the client bodies. The lack of awareness and capability within the client bodies was seen as a problem for adoption of a digital process and then an execution strategy that is reliant on working with a digital model – awareness of clients requiring paper-based documentation to suit their processes and handover. This meant that there needs to be a process of educating the clients.

Discussions later brought forward the concept that the Digital Model needed to be an explicit requirement of the appointment as well as the management of this Digital Model. With many clients this was regarded as a ‘freebie’ from the architect and did not attract fees. The costs of this need to be explicit in the upfront appointment.

There was some concern about procurement requirements that clients and the state were imposing on contracts, many to comply with state policy. These were not geared towards skills but to lowest cost for the construction only. The final aspect is that there needs to be a place where the Digital model can be stored for long term use. Too many clients receive digital documentation on memory sticks to CD-Rom discs and these are not stored in their enterprise data system but locally with the FM of PM section, where staff turnover leads to lost records. There needs to be a repository for this information within the client’s systems.

Step 3 - Tender Response

When it comes to step 3 of the information management process (Tender Response), there is good news and bad news. The bad news is that it appears to be like the wild west when it comes to delivery teams providing a response that procurement teams can make an informed decision on.

The good news is that this is common in all countries. When it comes to the requirement for a tender response and the evaluation criteria, the group felt that there was a contrasting approach between public sector and private sector procurement teams. It was also felt that the approach differed between the various asset lifecycle stages – particularly design and construction. Typically, the BIM Execution Plan is developed as a method statement which is included within the tender response.

The other key outputs of step three, such as the capability and capacity assessment, mobilization plan and risk assessment are only prepared if requested – which is very rare. The group also felt that most procurement teams saw information management as a tick-box exercise and so long as the boxes were ticked, then delivery teams didn’t spend too much time on this aspect of the response. Typically they would rely on reusing information from previous tenders and including the CV’s of their best people – who often are never involved during the appointment – although concepts such as super-intendence can overcome some of these issues.

Step 4 - Appointment

ISO 19650-4 specifically recommends concepts and principles for the exchange of information between parties throughout the lifecycle of an asset. This applies to both receivers (appointing party) and providers (lead appointed party, appointed parties) of information.

What Information do we currently receive in South Africa?

BIM Execution Plan (format Word Document, PDF)
Company Information (PDF)
Project Brief (PDF or Hard Copy)
Contract Documents (PDF or Hard Copy)
Appointment Letter (Hard Copy, PDF, or Email)

Below Information isn’t shared:

Exchange Information Requirements, EIR (Word Document or PDF)
TIDP, Task Information Delivery Plan (Excel Sheet)
MIDP, Master Information Delivery Plan (Excel Sheet)

How is the Information currently shared and stored?

Contracts are distributed via email and stored in appointed parties local storage
In the industry contracts are preferred to be hard copies for security reasons however these are filed physically.
Appointed Parties have internal cloud solutions for all these deliverables:
- SharePoint
- Dropbox
- Google Drive
- ACC

Project managers track the deliverables on an excel sheet, however sheet is kept in local cloud storage.

Step 2 - Invitation to Tender

The group reported that there is currently no structured, standardised, consistent or even streamlined information management processed implemented in South Africa, during the Invitation to tender, as a process.

Step 2 has 5 sub-steps within it and the following discussion summary under each:

5.2.1 • all information generating activities are not fully understood and or implemented • the biggest misguided assumption in this step is that: clients assume consultant “ought to know” what is required • current observations are that the FM practitioners do better in driving the conversations around identifying activities that generate/provide information

5.2.2 • no exchange information requirements are stipulated at this stage, usually later on and not very effective • client and direct consultant may hint on certain exchange information requirements but seldomly between consultants • no transparency

5.2.3 • no means to share/no common reference data • available reference data/historic data is in 2D or printed formats, not archived well nor easily accessible • lack of clear reference data make it difficult to respond to tender better and required extensive Requests for Information through out the tender process

5.2.4 • not implemented at all

5.2.5 • common practice is for pitch/proposals to be submitted in PDF format and hand delivered! • Proposals usually requested in design options

Step 5 - Mobilisation

The South African market is already familiar with some form of mobilisation when we initiate projects. We would have start-up meetings, specify the technology we will use and how we will communicate this information to different parties. The mobilisation phase should not be seen as a tool to disadvantage potential bidders but rather as a way to outline how the bidder will perform their tasks. For example, either teaching staff or hiring a resource for a specific job. This could also fall inline with how we can support our socioecomic growth by allowing 30% of all tasks to be outsourced to allow for skills transfer and education within a specific industry.

The ISO 19650, the international standard for managing information over the whole life cycle of a built asset using building information modelling (BIM). Part 2 of ISO 19650 deals with the delivery phase of information management. Section 5.5 focuses on mobilisation for information management, which involves establishing the necessary processes, resources, and infrastructure to effectively manage information throughout the project lifecycle. This section typically covers activities such as setting up the project information management system, defining roles and responsibilities, and establishing communication protocols among project stakeholders.

Table 1 is an excerpt of the SANS19650 summarising the activities for the lead appointed.

5.3.5 Establish the delivery team’s mobilization plan

The prospective lead appointed party shall establish the delivery team’s proposed mobilization plan that will be initiated and implemented during mobilization (5.5). In doing this, the prospective lead appointed party shall consider their approach, timescales, and responsibilities for:

testing and documenting the proposed information production methods and procedures;
testing the information exchanges between task teams;
testing the information delivery to the appointing party;
configuring and testing the project’s Common Data Environment (CDE) in accordance with 5.1.7;
configuring and testing the delivery team’s (distributed) CDE and its connectivity to the project CDE (if applicable) in accordance with 5.1.7;
procuring, implementing, configuring and testing additional software, hardware and IT infrastructure;
developing additional shared resources to be used by the delivery team;
developing and delivering education (knowledge required to delivery team members;
recruiting additional members of the delivery team to achieve the required capacity; and;
supporting individuals and organisation that join the delivery team during the appointment.

Table 1 - Excerpt from SANS19650-2, Section 5

Step 6 - Collaborative Information Production

The production of information process, as applicable to SANS19650, is probably the most important as this deals with the production of information in the concept, design, detailed design as well as the procurement stages. We had to discuss how the various stages within this process is currently managed in South Africa and my team had the following to say:

Information standards and specifications for the various work packages and disciplines are poorly captured learning to fragmented, silo working.

In terms of reference information, the feeling is that information is being generated more than once on projects as South Africa does not have portals/information libraries where reference information can be stored and re-used. This impacts on project costs as information has to be captured, and this information e.g. maps, may exist as part of other projects.

Information is produced in silos in our country at the moment between the owner, engineer and those that manage assets. There is very little collaboration as the regulatory environment does not foster collaborative working, red tape is an issue.

There is little to no, input from the asset managers during the upfront design stages, leading to costly changes at the end of projects.

The team felt that information is continuously being manually updated throughout the project lifecycle and this is unmanaged. The addition of a Common Data Environment will help.

In terms of Quality Assurance processes, the team felt that this occurs, but in each discipline and not on an overall project basis. There is a feeling that each stakeholder is playing ‘broken telephone’ and not aware of other disciplines QA processes or how this impacts them.

Revision control on deliverables is problematic and very poorly managed – there is no single common view of this information. The team agreed that information for sharing/construction was poorly managed with manual signatures.

The current process in SA does not cater for the approval of 3D information, only 2D plans which does not enable a digital way of working or BIM for that matter.

Step 7 - Information Model Acceptance

The effectiveness of this step 7 (IMA) is dependent on the preceding 6 steps being meet effectively. As ISO19650 is not formally implemented sufficiently in the SA environment (and therefore not mature enough) this is expected. An example from a SOC suggests that while emphasis for the asset design information (and technical specifications) are often in place there is a gap in a number of other information areas which include operational life information (operating specifications, maintenance strategies, quality of maintenance equipment and materials and maintenance competencies to execute work). Furthermore depending on the type of asset activity (supply of equipment, construction, supply of services) the following information could be also provided in this process: construction or production schedules, service provider capabilities and competencies that will be applicable to that specific activity);

Current procurement processes do not include most of the information requirements to the required standard as a screening requirement for successful bidder appointment. The incompleteness of information requirements would need to be introduced proactively to ensure fairness of the process so therefore development of standardized models or guidelines will assist to gain traction for adoption;

A risk to adoption could be seen if the gap between the prevailing practices and ISO19650 practices will lead to extended procurement practices. A large effort should go into managing the change needed to establish an enabling environment for information management to the benefit of industry sectors and public/private organisations. Models, open source information standards and collaboration can all support this enabling environment.

Step 8 - Project Close-Out

Our group identified some pretty big differences between the structured approach of ISO19650 Step 8 and the way we manage information here in South Africa.

As a team, we see that our approach to asset information management tends to be a bit informal. We usually stick to physical papers or basic digital files like PDFs on CDs or USB drives. These files include all sorts of documents - marked-up drawings, red lines, commissioning data, certificates, warranties - and they often end up in zip files with names that nobody can really make sense of. This unstructured way of doing things makes it tough to find and use project information later on. This means that asset owners have to call up former consultants or project managers to dig up the data they need.

This does not reflect negligence, but the current system - or lack of one - makes it easy to lose track of important info. Each project manager might do things a bit differently, which only adds to the confusion and inefficiency.

We also noted how these practices affect the later stages of our projects, especially when it comes to operations and maintenance. The whole point of setting up an asset information model is to make operations smoother. But the transfer of all that crucial knowledge from the construction team to the operations team often doesn’t happen as it should because we don’t plan or budget for managing information digitally from the start.

Our take away is that if we included these considerations from the beginning of a project, managing this information wouldn’t be such a huge task later on. But often, we don’t think about it until it’s too late, and then it becomes a big, expensive problem to solve.

In short, our feedback really highlights a gap in how effectively we manage asset information compared to ISO19650 standards. We need to shift our approach to avoid these operational headaches and financial strains down the line.

6) What should be in the National Annex? - The Community

In the Foreword - Terminology - call things what we call them, for reference in our domestic contracts.

In the Foreword - Normative and Informative Standards

In the Annex:

reduce ambiguity
work arounds for blockers

Measurements, units

Classification systems (US / UK / ...)

Container Naming Standards

Naming Standards - there are pitfalls...

Start with the international examples.

Related issues

Involvement of software developers

Qualifying grades - to also relate to the capability in Information Management capability

Project value threshholds - consider the turn-around in the UK dialogue about threshholds and the value of work.

We need an information Protocol guidance.

Need to fornalise the standard within the CBE ?

The contract, if it requires the ISO19650, will be the enforcing process on a particular project.

The Annex is a key to enable the formalising of the standard. Without it, we cannot formalise the ISO19650.

Information standards are needed.

How does the ISO19650 relate to the socio-economic / developmental objectives in RSA?

RIBA Stage 0 - opportunity to introduce the ISO 19650 process on a project?

7) Summary and Wrap-up - Amanda Mtya, UCT

CIDB National Annex Focus Group

The CIDB is putting together a National Annex Focus Group. This group will consist of professionals who come from different stakeholders across the Built Environment. If you are interested in serving, please send your details to the email below. - Name, Surname, Job Role, Company, Industry (ie contractor, owner, FM, Email and Contact Number.

I want to join the CIDB National Annex Focus Group

Shared live MIRO board for ISO/SANS19650

In the spirit of community openness, transparency and collaboration, we’ve made our ISO/SANS19650 working board open for you to view, collaborate on and interact with.

PLEASE DO NOT DELETE ANYTHING.

View the MIRO board