The document discusses CSI's role in developing standards to support Building Information Modeling (BIM). It describes several CSI classification standards, including UniFormat, MasterFormat, SectionFormat, and OmniClass, and how they are being enhanced and used to organize BIM project information. It also discusses CSI's involvement in the National BIM Standard and efforts to ensure its standards work together comprehensively.

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2. Everyone knows that BIM is basically graphic, but the thing that makes it BIM –
Building INFORMATION Modeling – is the other content, the other information the
model contains, whether that be textual, numeric, parametric, or otherwise.
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3. What this addition of information means is a shift in the way information is
presented, and a resultant shift in the role of the specifier much like the shift being
thrust upon all participants in the design and construction process by the advent of
BIM and IPD. It compels more collaboration, more need for communication and
coordination. New tools may have made the “one place” different, but saying it
there is still essential.
This provides a real opportunity for Chapter involvement as we chart the path to
allow our tools to continue to provide guidance for traditional solutions as they are
enhanced to provide guidance for new approaches.
Tech Com is working on outlining the shifting role and content of specifications in
BIM projects. I hope for more involvement from CSI members as we begin to
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identify gaps in the current vision of BIM knowledge transfer and work to make
recommendations to the industry.
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5. As you know, CSI produces a lot of standards and formats. Many
people think of them as stand alone solutions, crafted to address
one or another information issue depending on the application for
which one is familiar for using each of them.
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6. Taken as a whole however, the CSI family of standards and
formats are designed, managed, developed, and maintained as a
comprehensive suite of standardized solutions.
They are intended to work together, to not overlap, and to each
help address a variety of possible implementations effectively but
not make them so application focused that it hamstrings their use
for other possible purposes.
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7. UniFormat, a publication of CSI and CSC, is a standardized classification for
organizing preliminary construction information into a standard order or sequence
on the basis of functional elements. Functional elements, often referred to as
systems or assemblies, are major components common to most buildings that
usually perform a given function regardless of the design specification, construction
method, or materials used. UniFormat users can easily understand and compare
information since it is linked to a standardized elemental classification structure.
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8. UniFormat is useful for a variety of possible applications at several different
construction phases, but its chief use in BIM is the identification of BIM objects –
most BIM software uses some variation of UniFormat to identify object families –
starting at early design phases. Further refinements can be used to tag BIM object
elements as additional design requirements are added.
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9. As mentioned earlier, the intent is to allow CSI standards and formats to
satisfy traditional applications, but also to expand their possible application
to new information needs and applications. Starting with the 2004 edition,
MasterFormat, also a joint CSI/CSC publication, now has the capacity to
address a wider array of project types and also to provide standardized
locations for more specific types of work results, both helpful changes for
BIM.
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10. MasterFormat is now on an annual update process, allowing for the measured
addition of new subject matter. The 2010 Update was the first of these annual
updates, the 2011 update was released in 1st quarter 2011. The 2010 Update
added the first new division under the annual update process, Division 46 – Water
and Wastewater Equipment
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11. MasterFormat.com is a site with a database driven repository of the latest set of
numbers and titles, on which users can propose revisions, track recent changes and
additions to MasterFormat, and gain access to and search the current set of
numbers and titles. Access to the numbers and titles is a CSI member benefit.
CSI's Guiding Technical Principles 11

12. The three part specification as set out by SectionFormat provides locations in Part 2
for a lot of information that is now contained in the BIM model.
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13. But there is still a lot of specification information that is generally not included in a
BIM model, chiefly in Parts 1 and 3. How to best address that information is a
subject to be addressed further by CSI members and technical initiatives.
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14. OmniClass consists of a library of 15 tables. Though they are under
development, there has been growing interest from information providers,
large facility owners, software developers and others in North America and
abroad about their use to order information.
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15. It may surprise some of you to learn that OmniClass development started before the
Internet was in everyone’s homes -- CSI has been trying to solve the BIM problem
since before it was a BIM problem. OmniClass is now developed and maintained
as a joint CSI/CSC endeavor.
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16. The basis of the table concept that underlies OmniClass is derived from ISO
standards. This should ease relating OmniClass classifications to other ISO derived
classification systems in other countries.
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17. Faceted Classification:
Several tables that describe objects in the Built Environment from
various points of view
Entries on these tables can be combined to refine their classification
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18. Example of how to use faceting concept in OmniClass context.
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20. OmniClass development work proceeds in a series of alternating two-year
development cycles.
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25. Though end users can and some do use OmniClass in their practices to order
information without any intermediary tool, most end users will access OmniClass
through its incorporation in software used to develop and organize project
information.
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26. OmniClass and the National CAD Standard are two CSI initiatives that are being
referenced in the National BIM Standard-US, providing greater reach for those
standards and awareness of CSI in the AEC industry.
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27. NBIMS Version 1 was published two years ago, Version 2 will be published in 2011.
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