By Steve Rizer
“You don’t have to be experts” to participate in the process to develop the next version of the National Building Information Modeling Standard – U.S. (NBIMS-US), Jeffrey Ouellette, vice chair of the National BIM Standard v3 Project Committee, stressed to construction professionals attending the Ecobuild America Conference last week in Washington, D.C. The committee is looking for volunteers to sit on various subcommittees and workgroups for Version 3, which is expected to be finalized in early 2014. “This is a peer-based group…. We need to hear from industry in order to do this right; otherwise, it’s just going to be pushing from the top down.”
With applications due Dec. 31, volunteers are being sought for the following panels:
- The Product Development Subcommittee, which will develop the means and methods of proactively seeking, collecting, monitoring, developing, and balloting any existing (and ongoing) industry initiatives and projects that may result in future NBIMS-US content.
- The Technical Subcommittee, which will ensure the technical accuracy and consistency of all information exchange (“technical” and “reference”) ballots and NBIMS-US content, as guided by buildingSMART International best practice documentation and specifications.
- The Terminology Subcommittee, which develops and maintains a set of terminology definitions and polices for use throughout NBIMS-US ballots and content.
- The Implementation Subcommittee, which develops and maintains the overall style and content structure of NBIMS-US, and develops and manages a “ballot to content” process that streamlines production of the end product. “How does it look on the Web?; How is it published?; How does it look in a PDF?; [and] How do you navigate it?” are among the questions that this panel addresses, Ouellette said.
- The Standard Practice Subcommittee, which develops, manages, maintains, and evolves the “best practices” aspect of NBIMS-US (ballots and content). “Everybody is experimenting right now,” according to Ouellette. “Some things are floating to the top and are working out as well. We want to know what those are. We want to know if those are transferable to everyone else. And if not the entire working method , … what’s the best common denominator? What can we learn from those experiments that can be applied for everyone?”
- The Market Education Subcommittee, which promotes NBIMS-US and educates the market about the overall effort and product.
- Ballot Review workgroups, which review and vet ballots in preparation for commenting and voting by the membership. The exact number of workgroups will be established as the ballot-submission period approaches, based on the estimated workload. Currently, there are expected to be six groups.
Also included in ConstructionPro Week's Ecobuild America coverage (ConstructionPro Network member access):
- More Details about Version 3 of NBIMS-US
- Architect Discusses Version 6 of the National CAD Standard
- Progress in Bradley BIM Initiative Reported
- Exhibitor News Briefs Featuring AceCad Software LTD, Autodesk Inc., FM Systems Inc., Neighborhood Innovations LLC, and CodeBook Solutions Inc.
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