Oct 12 2011
Dear buildingSMART alliance member,
- Voting has begun and the months of preparation for the NBIMS-US™ Version 2 are now complete. Voting by the self-nominated Project Committee will run until the end of October. Publication is still scheduled for the end of December. You may want to consider becoming a member of the Version 3 Project Committee.
- The Alliance is financially strained currently, as are most systems and sub-systems in the facilities industry. The economic downturn is taking its toll at a most unfortunate time for us. I would be lying if I did not let you know that this will likely have a negative impact in us making the goal of completing the standard on time. It will also affect the initiation of Version 3.
- We are reviewing and improving the balloting process with what we learned during Version 2 and I suspect some ballots for the improvement of the Rules of Governance may be at hand in the not too distant future. Each succeeding round will be that much easier as we identify new opportunities and learn from our mistakes. We not have many ballots to use as examples for future efforts.
- The NBIMS-US™ effort has also kicked off several additional discussions in areas that were not quite ready for balloting, such as Level of Development and implementation and education of IFC.
- This month saw a collision of many events all occurring on nearly the same date. The management team divided, conquered, and was able to support nearly all the requests for their time. The crunch week was that of the week of the 19th.
- The kick-off of the I2SL/IFMA Research agenda was held immediately prior to the I2SL (Labs for the 21st Centaury) conference in Providence, RI. There were presentations from I2SL, IFMA, NIBS, and Va. Tech. It was a strong beginning and the next event is planned for IFMA Fusion in Phoenix, AZ on Oct 28 at 2:45pm.
- The buildingSMART International technical and user group meetings were held in Singapore September 21-23. David Morris represented the Alliance. There were also meetings held to discuss the status of ISO 16739 (IFC) as well as other standards of interest such as ISO 15926 sponsored by FIATECH.
- Tom Gay, Birgitta Foster, and Deke Smith attended the sixth annual IFMA Capitol Hill Workshop on the morning of September 21st where four congressmen discussed the issues facing the facility management community. This provided an excellent opportunity for the Alliance to be recognized for its efforts. Dr. Get Moy chair of the High Performance Building Council was also one of the speakers.
- Tom Gay, the Chairman of the Alliance Board of Direction delivered the report to the NIBS Coordinating Council on September 21. In the report, he spoke of improving coordination between the councils in the Institute and to focus on supporting High Performance Buildings because there is legislation in place as well as Executive Orders to implement the capabilities of High Performance Buildings throughout the country.
- David Jordani participated in a meeting with the Open Geospatial Consortium in Boulder, CO. The primary item of interest to us was CityGML. Its capabilities will help link us to the geospatial community also in an open approach.
- Deke Smith also delivered a talk to the local chapter of the American Fire Alarm Association at their request that week. We do want to support inclusion of all sectors in providing as nearly complete model as possible.
- Deke Smith then went on as an invited guest of BIPS in Denmark to deliver two presentations in Nyborg, Denmark. This initiated in beginning the development of a Memorandum of Agreement with Denmark for support of the furthering of the NBIMS effort. The presentations were well received by a group of nearly 300 attendees at the keynote address he provided.
- Later that same week he delivered a presentation to the CFTA Conference also in Washington. We see college and university Physical Plant personnel as some of the folks receiving the highest return on investment because they have reasonably large portfolios and they conceive of and then manage until demolition those facilities on their campuses.
- Related to ISO 15926 (iRing) and ISO 16739 (ifc), a coordination document has been developed by FIATECH with input from the Alliance and is undergoing final edits. We will provide this report to the members as soon as it is available.
- For the second year in a row, Birgitta presented at ASU's Annual ACE BIM Conference. The 5th Annual BIM Conference was held Sept 14 and 15 in Phoenix AZ with the conference titled, "The Owners' Conference". On the first day, there was great speaker line up with John Messner (PSU), Steve Jones ( McGraw Hill) , Mike LaFavre (Holder Const), John Moebes (Crate & Barrel), and Theresa Thompson (Indiana Unv) to name a few. The second day was a morning BIM workshop for Owners with the speakers working individually with each owner group through a sequence of questions to develop a BIM action plan for their organizations. Owners who attended were Intel, City of Phoenix, Maricopa County, and Luke AFB.
- The new edition of JBIM is planned out this week and work toward writing and editing that document occupied the staff time during the month.
- Week of September 19, Birgitta Foster and Tom Gay met to develop bSa's FY12 budget. bSa current budget is very limited and without increased financial support, we will not be able to make the necessary strides to develop open, interoperable BIM standards the facilities industry has been clamoring for in all sectors. However, with the changes in the economy and reduced federal dollars, there is a need to for more sponsorship coming from the Private sectors. We will be reaching out to more private Owners, the ones who in the end will benefit the most from our work at the Alliance in the coming months.
- Membership in the Alliance is an investment in your future. How much are you willing to invest in your future? You are the only one who can decide, is your future worth $75, $1,000, $5,000, $10,000 or more. You control how quickly we move forward as an industry in our transformation effort. We are not supported by any other means than your membership. The Institute is a non-profit organization. The only government money we currently receive is from those government members and sponsors. Your investment ensures that we are able to attend meetings that affect you directly such as the ones mentioned earlier. It also goes toward bringing more sectors into the Alliance as well as providing the travel funds necessary to deliver presentations to educate the benefits of the Alliance and our work to various groups.
