EUBTG General Assembly Group Photo

EU BIM Task Group General Assembly 2024

On October 16th 2024 the EU BIM Task Group (EUBTG) held it’s annual General Assembly meeting in Berlin hosted by the Federal Ministry for Digital and Transport. Milena Feustel was appointed as Chair of EUBTG and Dmitrijs Kots as Co-chair until the next General Assembly. 

The meeting was moderated by chair Jaan Saar and Milena Feustel.  The meeting included 2 keynotes from Thomas Liebich about ISO/CEN/bSi standards and Christophe Sykes about CPR and construction products.

Additional speakers included Aidan Mercer from buildingSMART International, Pablo Gutierrez from DG GROW, Georgios Kontopoulos from PwC presenting the results of the EC study on “Support of the digitalisation of the built environment, public procurement and SMEs in construction”, Anna Moreno about the establishment of the EU openBIM Forum and Anette Persson about EPBD implications.

And we had country updates by members from Austria, Croatia, Czech Republic, Estonia, Finland, France, Germany, Greece, Hungary, Ireland, Italy, Lithuania, Slovakia, Slovenia, Sweden, Ukraine and also the European Parliament.

The full agenda:

09:00 – 09:30   Coffee and arrival
09:30 – 09:45   Opening words by chairs and DG GROW
09:45 – 10:40   Keynote presentations:

  • Christophe Sykes, Director General of Construction Products Europe
    “Implications of a revised EU legal framework for construction products (CPR)”
  • Thomas Liebich from buildingSMART Germany
    “Update on IFC and IDS developments”

10:40 – 10:50   Our contribution to EC activities and collaboration with DG GROW, planned activities 2025/2026 (Pablo Gutierrez, DG GROW)
10:50 – 11:00   “Digitalisation of the built environment” study results (Georgios Kontopoulos, PwC)
11:00 – 11:20   EPBD implications for the future (Anette Persson, DG ENER)
11:20 – 11:40   Establishment of the European openBIM Forum (Anna Moreno, buildingSMART Italy) and update on buildingSMART International main activities (Aidan Mercer, bSi)
11:40 – 12:00   EUBTG Workshops overview (Jaroslav Nechyba
12:00 – 13:00   Lunch
13:00 – 13:15   EUBTG Survey results overview (Dmitrijs Kots)
13:15 – 14:15   EUBTG planning 2025:

  • Changes in EUBTG chair/co-chair positions
  • Establishment of a possible advisory Board for EUBTG?
  • 2025 focus activities (survey comments, on-site discussion)
  • Collaboration with EUBIM Public Officials Group

14:15 – 15:15   Members updates, updates from last GA, how can the EUBTG support you?
15:15 – 15:45   Networking Coffee break
15:45 – 16:45 – Members updates continued…
16:45 – 17:00 – Wrap-up and closing

All the presentation slides can be downloaded as a single PDF file (27MB)

Along with updates and presentations the General Assembly also approved changes in the leadership of the EU BIM Task Group. Current Chair Jaan Saar and Co-Chair Jaroslav Nechyba relinquished their positions due to moving into the private sector. Current Co-chair Milena Feustel was appointed as the new Chair and Steering Committee member Dmitrijs Kots was appointed as new Co-chair. Congratulations to Milena and Dmitrijs 👏

Below are also some photos of the event in the wonderful venue graciously provided by the German Federal Ministry for Digital and Transport. If you have any questions or comments about the General Assembly meeting then please write to admin@eubim.eu.

Knowledge Sharing Workshops

One of the main activities of the EU BIM Task Group for 2023 is the organization of knowledge transfer workshops. The goal of the workshops is to have active round table discussions with on-site participants using the following format:

  • Discussion moderated workshop without long boring presentations.
  • 20-30 participants maximum to be able to keep discussions interesting and let any participant take an active part in the debate.
  • Topics and agenda of the workshop can be in advance shape by registered participants.
  • Outcome: Knowledge and suggestion document that will be published on the EUBTG website after the workshop

The first 3 workshops were already agreed in early 2023 with the following topics:

The workshops have been a very big success with the first 2 workshops attended by over 50 people from 15 different countries.

Results of the workshops:

Workshop I: Open BIM – Information Requirements (PDF)

Workshop II: Common Data Environment (CDE) in the Public Sector (PDF)

BIM-based building permits session at WDBE

Join EU BIM Task Group co-chairs Jaan Saar and Milena Feustel for the session “The (R)evolution of the Building Permit Process – From Paper to Digital to BIM” at the World of Digital Built Environment (WDBE) Summit on September 29th in Tallinn and on-line (Vimeo link will be added here before the event).

Utilizing Building Information Models (BIM) to automate the building permit process may be the “killer app” for BIM that many of us have been waiting for, especially in the public sector. Experiments and prototypes of BIM-based permit checking in countries like Finland, Estonia and Dubai have identified that a fully BIM-based digital process is faster and cheaper than manual processing. This session will explore the opportunities and challenges associated with the transition to a BIM-based permitting process.

During the session we will dive deeper into the following questions:

  • How can BIM-based permits be more efficient and what are the main benefits?
  • What are the prerequisites for developing a BIM-based permit process?
  • What is the role of classification, (open) standards and data templates in the building permit process?
  • Is the industry ready for BIM-based permits?
  • What have been the biggest challenges for early adopters?

The session is co-organized with the EU BIM Task Group and the ACCORD Horizon Europe research project.

Event website www.wdbe.org

AGENDA

Thursday 29th September 2022
09:30 – 11:30 CET

Introduction Moderated by Jaan Saar, Head of Digital Construction at the Estonian Ministry of Economic Affairs & Communications, Estonia
How the EU BIM Task Group is Helping Public Clients to Benefit from BIM Milena Feustel, Co-Cchair of EU BIM Task Group, Senior Advisor at Institute for Federal Real Estate, DE
ACCORD Research Project – Automated Compliance Checks for Construction, Renovation or Demolition Works Rita Lavikka, Senior Scientist at VTT and co-ordinator of ACCORD Horizon Europe research project, FI
BIM-based Permits – A Global Trend or aA Passing Anomaly?  Rick Klooster, Founder and CTO of Future Insight, NL
Rava3Project and the Outlook for BIM-based Permits in Finland Anna-Riitta Kallinen, Rava3Project manager and owner at ARKCON
Implementing a BIM-based Building Permit Process in Estonia Christopher Raitviir, BIM Project Manager at the Estonian Ministry of Economic Affairs & Communications, EE
Discussion panel + questions from audience Moderator + presenters (6)

VIDEO STREAM

Check back here to watch the LIVE video stream of the session on Thursday 29th September 2022 at 09:30 – 11:30 CET.

Send your questions to the pane at sli.do #wdbe

Condolences: passing of R. Petrie, CEO of bSI

It is with deep sadness that we akcnowledge the passing of Richard Petrie on April 17, 2022.

Richard was the Chief Executive Officer (CEO) of buildingSMART International (bSI) and leaves behind his wife Jane and three adult children, Michael, Maddie and Lottie. The EU BIM Task Group expresses its deepest condolences to Richard’s family.

Richard’s career has focused on improving performance for clients and contractors involved in the acquisition and operation of high value physical assets. He was a Chartered Engineer, with an MBA from INSEAD, France and was an internationally valued vocal advocate of BIM.

He will be missed.

Methodology for Cost Benefit Analysis for the Use of BIM in Public Tenders – ONLINE EVENT 31-05-2021

DOWNLOAD THE MATERIALS

Cost Benefit Analysis for the use of BIM_user handbook (PDF)

Cost Benefit Analysis model for the use of BIM (XLSM file in ZIP container)

 


The development of a methodology for a cost benefit analysis for the use of BIM in public procurement is one of the first deliverables of the Renovation Wave for the construction ecosystem. It aims to build the case for the introduction of BIM in public procurement for individual public projects, by demonstrating costs and benefits from the perspective of public clients.

During the online event on 31st of May RINA and B1P Group S.r.l. will present the handbook Calculating costs and benefits for the use of Building Information Modeling in public tenders – methodology handbook and the related work realized to develop a methodology for cost-benefit analysis for the use of BIM in public tenders.

AGENDA

Chair: Ilektra Papadaki, Policy Officer for Construction, European Commission

Introduction by the European Commission (15’)

Fulvia Raffaelli, Head of Unit for Construction, DG GROW
Natalia Martinez Paramo, Head of Unit for SMP/COSME Pillar, European Innovation Council and SME Executive Agency

Introduction by the EU BIM Task Group (10’)

Milena Feustel, co-Chair of the EU BIM Task Group, Bundesanstalt für Immobilienaufgaben

Presentation of the team and the work carried out during the project: the handbook (45’)

Alessandro Bozzolo, Manuela Gussoni, Matteo Proia(RINA Consulting S.p.A, B1P Group)

  • Purpose of the CBA and target groups
  • Background analysis (literature research and on-field data collection)
  • Presentation of the methodology and step-by-step guide to use it

Break (10’)

Training session with the participants (60’)

Edoardo Ardizzone, Sara Botto, Matteo Proia (RINA Consulting S.p.A, B1P Group)

  • Practical application of the CBA tool and handbook to a case study (building asset)
  • Questions and answers

Conclusions (10’)

Souheil Soubra, Chair of the EU BIM Task Group, Centre Scientifique et Technique du Bâtiment (CSTB)

DOWNLOAD THE MATERIALS

Cost Benefit Analysis for the use of BIM_user handbook (PDF)

Cost Benefit Analysis model for the use of BIM (XLSM file in ZIP container)

General Assembly 2020 recap

The EU BIM Task Group General Assembly for 2020 was held on 15th of December 2020 on-line. Below is a summary of the discussions and presentations.  

“Digitalisation of the Construction Ecosystem”

Fulvia Raffaelli, Head of Unit “Clean Technologies and Products” (DG GROW)
Download presentation

Fulvia Raffaelli starts her presentation saying that since the last General Assembly in 2019, there have been many policy developments in the area of Construction and digital construction particularly.

Indeed, as part of the European Green Deal many initiatives have highlighted the importance of the construction sector through notably the announcement of the Construction Products Regulation revision (in the Circular Economy Action Plan) and the Renovation Wave strategy.

The renovation wave aims at doubling the rate of renovations and decarbonising the European Building stock. It also aims at contributing to the green and digital transition in Europe from the side of buildings and construction. In that context, three areas of action mentioned in the Renovation Wave are of particular interest for the EU BIM Task Group members: the digital building logbooks, the digital building permits, and the spread of the use of BIM for public procurement and beyond.

Regarding the digital building logbooks, they will address the challenges of data availability in the construction sector and increase transparency, trust and informed decision-making. The Commission envisages logbooks as the single tool through which all building-related data, information and documents will be accessed in fair and European terms. Logbooks should be secure tools that allow owners to have control over their own data as well as digital and dynamic, able to keep and update a record of all events in the life of a building.

As mentioned in the Renovation Wave, Logbooks should make use and link to existing platforms and tools, including Energy Performance Certificates, the Smart Readiness Indicators, renovation passports and others.

In the years to come, the Commission will continue working on the further definition of the datasets and functionalities of logbooks, as well as on the interoperability between different tools and platforms. The goal is to digitalise the built environment, and grasp the benefits of data, not only for collaboration and convenience, but also for resource efficiency, safety and the creation of new business models and opportunities.

This also requires research and innovation, for this reason, Fulvia Raffaelli’s unit with other services and the Member states have been involved in the definition of the Horizon Europe Work Programme.

Another action announced in the renovation wave is the digitalization of the building permits. The discussions with construction stakeholders and authorities revealed that more research and innovation projects could contribute to an EU Framework.

Finally, through the Renovation Wave, the Commission expressed its commitment to accelerate adoption of BIM in public procurement. In the course of 2021 and 2022, the EU BIM Task Group will be called upon in order to develop and provide a Commission Recommendation.

In the meantime, in collaboration with the Chair and co-chair of the Group and through a service contract, a model to conduct cost-benefit analysis for the use of BIM in public procurement is under development. This model will be made available to all public procurers across Europe by May 2021.

Digitalization of construction depends as well on the industry. As part of the Digital Europe Programme there will be support for Digital Innovation Hubs and Testing and Experimentation Facilities, which subject to the commitment and orientations of the Member states can contribute to the digitalization of construction SMEs and the industry in general.

During 2021 and 2022, DG GROW will be working particularly on the development of a digital maturity scan for construction SMEs, an interactive guidebook and on site trainings to help SMEs network, become aware of the possibilities, receive support and digitalise.

As a conclusion, Fulvia Raffaelli underlines the fact that the diverse situation across different Member States is something to look into, and through the exchange of good practices can become our strength. As part of the European Construction Sector Observatory, a new Analytical report will be produced on the digital transformation of construction, looking at both the transformation of industry and public administration.

Election of the Chair, Deputy chairs and new Steering Committee

The possibility of having two Deputy Chairs proposed by the Steering Committee is unanimously adopted.

A drafting amendment of the governance document is proposed by Spain to replace the one presented and approved by all the members:

“… up to three of its members to respectively act one as the Chair and up to two as Deputy Chairs of the EU BIM TG. The term of office of the Chair and the Deputy Chairs is two years. The term is renewable once.”

The following Steering Committee’s proposal for the nomination of the chair and Deputy-chairs:

  • Souheil Soubra / Chair of the EU BIM TG
    Director of Information Technologies at CSTB (Scientific and Technical Centre for Buildings)
  • Milena Feustel / Deputy Chair of the EU BIM TG
    German Institute for Federal Real Estate
  • Jaan Saar / Deputy Chair of the EU BIM TG
    Head of Digital Construction – Estonian Ministry of Economic Affairs and Communications

Is accepted by unanimity.

The Steering Committee’s proposal for the nomination of its members:

  • CZ: Jaroslav Nechyba
  • DE: Milena Feustel (Deputy Chair)
  • EE: Jaan Saar (Deputy Chair)
  • ES: Susana Espana (Jorge Torrico)
  • FR: Sara Angotti
  • IT: Pietro Baratono (Cinzia Gatto)
  • LT: Dainius Cergelis
  • NL: Benno Koehorst
  • NO: Ramnath Falch Ambathy
  • + Chair: Souheil Soubra

Is accepted by unanimity.

The Steering Committee’s proposal to appoint Liana Anagnostaki, TCG’s Head Directory of Public Relations, International and European Affairs (GR) as a new member of the Steering Committee is also accepted.

Tarmo Savoleinen’s application (FI) for the vacant position is also accepted during the session.

Regarding the United Kingdom’s situation in the European Union, all the members of the General Assembly support the proposal to continue the close cooperation under special partnership and to mandate the Steering Committee to finalise the special partnership agreement.

Progress on the Roadmap actions

Presentations are made to update the following topics (download presentations):

A1 – Cost Benefit Analysis
by Milena Feustel

See also detailed presentation “BIM in Public Tenders: Methodology for a Cost-Benefit Analysis” by RINA Consulting.
Milena Feustel thanks in advance the members who agreed to answer the questionnaire sent by the Italian consulting company Rina before the end of January.

Finland would like to propose one out of the planned 6 use cases.

C3 – Common Classification System
by Jaan Saar

Spain will get in touch with CCIC to exchange views on the development of a Spanish classification system for railway infrastructures.

E1 – Unified Digital Platform (H2020 project DigiPLACE)
by Claudio Mirarchi (Polimi)

Follow this link to become a member of DigiPLACE Community of Stakeholders.

Suggestions for 2021 actions and AOB

Germany suggests, in the framework of the renovation wave cooperation action with DG Grow, to extend BIM to already existing buildings.

Charlie (Luxembourg) also suggests extending it to demolition and deconstruction processes.

A specific Task Force will be launched about renovation and deconstruction. The SC will send proposal to the GA for the organisation. Charlie is already interested.

UK announces that the next Global BIM Summit will take place online on 17 March 2021 (https://www.globalbimsummit.org/) and that contributions could be requested from the EUBTG members.

 

List of pariticpants:

 

 

BIM-based Building Permits Seminar

Utilizing Building Information Models (BIM) to automate the building permit process may be the “killer app” for BIM that many of us have been waiting for. Earlier experiments of BIM-based Model Checking (BMC) solutions in Norway, the Netherlands and Singapore have clearly identified that a digital process can be expected to be faster and cheaper than manual processing. The results indicate that development of an automatic compliance-checking platform will return ten times the investment required. 

Many building authorities around the world have started taking the first steps towards implementing BMC in the building permit process and at the BIM-based Building Permit Process Automation Seminar in Tallinn, Estonia on February 20th they shared some of the latest developments and best practices. Around 130 participants from 14 different countries took part in the seminar on-site and over 220 attended on-line from 25 different countries. The surprisingly high level of attendance shows that this is a hot topic around the globe and many public authorities want to take advantage of BIM to speed up the permitting process. Prototype solutions were presented from Estonia, Finland, Germany, Netherlands and UK. All presentation along with the video recording are available on the event website.

The event was kicked-off by Jaan Saar with a short introduction about the EU BIM Task Group followed by Richard Petrie and Nicholas Nisbet from buildingSMART International (bSI) highlighting the need for open & neutral data exchange. It was great to have the Chief Executive of bSI start the seminar because open standards, especially IFC, were a common theme throughout all presentations. This was a key takeway that IFC was the standard of choice for most public authorities. Tomi Henttinen from buildingSMART Finland also noted in his presentation that without good BIM standards it is not possible to reach full automation.

Jaan Saar and Rick Klooster presented the Estonian proof-of-concept (POC) web solution based on opens source components (BIM Server, BIM Surfer, Voxel Server). The POC solution was developed by the Estonian Ministry of Economic Affairs and Communications in 2019 with the help from the European Structural Reform Support Programme. Although Estonia already has a fully digital building permit process it is still based on “digital paper” (DWG-s, PDF-s) and the design drawings submitted with the building permit application have to be reviewed manually. The POC demonstrated that using smart algorithms to checks BIM models can automate many (if not all) of the labor intensive manual checks. The POC also highlighted the benefits of algorithm-based checks which are less sensitive to BIM errors compared to strictly rule-based checks. Estonia plans to implement BIM-based model checking in the existing building permits system in 2021.

Pekka Virkamäki and Jekaterina Masjagutova from the City of Vantaa showed a rule-based workflow for permit checking using Solibri Model Checker. They started doing 3D inspections with Solibri already 2 years ago (2018) as part of a KIRA-digi prototyping project and results have proven a time saving of at least 20% compared to the traditional process. Vantaa also utilizes the 3D city model to visualize the planned building along with the surrounding environment.

Michael Theiler from Planen-Bauen 4.0 gave a detailed overview of how they plan to seamlessly integrate BIM into the official building application process using XPlanung and XBau systems in Germany. The research project was started in 2018 and lasts until 2020 but already a working software solution was demonstrated. The solution has lots of functionality and the first piloting is being done in Hamburg.

Rob Roef from TNO explained how algorithmic based checking of BIM can save a lot of time and add transparency, which translates into less end user stress. Rob also did a great job explaining how AI works and how it could be applied to automate the process using open-source BIM bots, the same technology used in the Estonian POC. Another example is the “MPG BIM Bot” which is an algorithm based tool for environmental impact checking in the Netherlands.  An MPG report often has a turnaround time of at least 1 day but using “MPG BIM Bots” it takes minutes to an hour to generate a report.

In order to apply BIM-based regulation checks you need to make the regulations machine readable tables. Usually that is not easy because regulations are messy and have lots of subclauses. Nicolas Nisbet from AEC3 demonstrated a solution that can automatically create logical statements from color-coded regulations text. The “AEC3 Require1” tool was built years ago based on experience from Singapore and has been tested on several different regulations with promising results. Although there is limited BIM integration the tool shows potential and hopefully will be developed into a commercial product in the coming years.

The seminar was wrapped up by Francesca Noardo from TU Delft who presented a new workflow for the building permits issuing using GeoBIM. This means the integration of geoinformation (GIS) and BIM which creates the possibility to carry out not only technical checks but also zoning, parking, accessibility and environmental issues. This approach was tested in Rotterdam which has a very detailed digital twin of the city. Francesca also introduced the “European Network for Digital Building Permits” which aims to develop common tools and methods to support the digitization and automation of the building permit issuing process.

The BIM-based Building Permit Process Automation Seminar was hosted by the Estonian Ministry of Economic Affairs and Communications and organized in co-operation with the EU BIM Task GroupThe seminar is also part of a series of pre-events leading up to the World Summit on the Digital Built Environment (WDBE) in Helsinki/Tallinn in September 2020. 

EUBTG at the HELLASCO Conference in Greece

EU BIM Task Group Co-Chair Milena Feustel gave a great lecture about the EUBTG titled “The EU BIM Task Group roadmap for the digitalization οf the construction sector”and received huge interest at the HELLASCO Conference 2019 in Athens, Greece on 26th September 2019. Several requests for  collaboration were received plus positive feedback about our ambitious work. The Greek hospitality was outstanding too.

 

 

EU BIM Task Group BIM seminar in Oslo

On August 28th the EU BIM Task Group (EUBTG) in collaboration with Statsbygg organised a BIM conference for public sector clients covering the new Statsbyggs BIM manual and digital twin developments in various countries.

You can download the presentations in PDF format by clicking on the title links:

Statsbyggs new digital BIM manual 2.0
Frode Mohus – Statsbygg, Norway
Harald Onarheim – Statsbygg/DIGIBIM, Norway

Defragmenting the Construction Industry
Jaan Saar – Ministry of Economic Affairs & Communications, Estonia

The National Digital Twin
Mark Enzer – Center for Digital Built Britain, UK

Digital Twin in Statsbygg
Leiv Engelschøin – Statsbygg, Norway

Digital Twin Czechia and Prague
Jiří Čtyroký – Prague Institute of Planning and Development, Czechia

 

EU BIM Workshops successfully delivered

10 x 6hr instructor-led practical workshops have been delivered on Building Information Modelling (BIM) to 250 public officials across the European Union over the last 5 months. (cover image: EU BIM Workshop in Tallinn, Estonia)

The content was primarily based on the content of the EU BIM handbook with some customisation for each workshop (i.e, local, national context, resources and contacts to be supplied by the appropriate EU BIM Task Group representatives).

Following topics were covered in each session:

  • Background, membership and objectives of the EU BIM Task Group
  • Size & importance of the European construction sector
  • What BIM is to a public sector official
  • Challenges and drivers for digitalisation & BIM
  • Benefits of BIM and European public sector alignment
  • Purpose and value of public sector leadership
  • Strategic framework for public sector BIM programmes
  • Scope and definition of BIM through the common performance level for the implementation of BIM
  • Current state within the country/region/organisation
  • Local BIM implementation & ideas for a business case
  • Sources of additional information & support

EU BIM Workshop in Zagreb, Croatia

The feedback has been simply outstanding accompanied with strong desire from each member state taking part to receive follow up workshops and refresher courses to support their continuous learning path on BIM as well as to involve more of their in country peers e.g. from neighbouring municipalities to learn about the opportunities to put BIM into practise.