Life Cycle information exchange (LCie)
ORGANIZATION: USACE, Dept of State, NIBS
Chair
Bill East
bill.east@us.army.mil
(217) 373-6710
Standards are the First Step
The specification of standard data models is all well and good but models don’t explain how to create business value. For example, the buildingSmart’s Facility Management Handover Model View Definition is a very concise statement of the data model that delivers, in the United States, Construction Operations Building information exchange COBie data.
To practically implement COBie or any other model view, the model is necessary but insufficient. Project teams must define who provides what information when. The gap between data models and these practical implementations means that the value of open building information standards remains just out of reach for most owners and practitioners. Until now…
Unlocking the Value
Here’s an example of how LCie provides business value. Let’s say you wanted to document the installation of a piece of equipment. What information would you need to know to document the installation of that equipment?
You would want to know the name of the equipment as identified in the design’s equipment schedule. To that you would want to add the serial number and installation date, you may want to add a photo of the installation and possibly name plate data. If the subcontractor installing the equipment captured that information on their smart phone, how could they get it to you?
If you used LCie the format for this information exchange is standardized - you can use any device you want to send the information to any project repository that consumes the standard information. It’s as easy as that. The best part is if you capture the information at installation, you won’t have to pay to do a post-job equipment survey.
The bottom line for LCie is that you don’t have to worry about the whole building model, if all you want to do is to update certain parts of that model.
What is LCie?
LCie is a specification of partial COBie model views that can be directly used to capture COBie data. These individual exchanges of partial COBie models can be seen in one of two ways. The first way to review these exchanges, that may be the easiest to initially digest is a business process model diagram. This diagram shows each of the information exchanges during a project’s life cycle that exchange specific types of COBie information.
A tabular view of these information exchanges, cross referenced against Project Phase, Contracting Phase and OmniClass Tables 31 (Phase), 34 (Actor), and 32 (Services) can be found in Table 1 of the paper describing the LCie project. Specifications of individual LCie exchanges can be found in the following links. As projects are developed to use the LCie exchanges during 2011 the complete set of LCie specifications will be provided.
General Description
Initiation Phase
Requirements Phase
Design Phase
Construction Phase
Operations Phase
LCie Example Files
The following projects have been developed based on the LCie specifications. Each of the projects has a brief description, a 3D PDF file, and the set of LCie files (in COBie spreadsheet format) developed for that project. The Design stage IFC 2x3 Coordination View file is also provided. Some projects may also have redacted floor plans or other drawings that provided the basis for the project. The evaluation and checking of each of the files, the process of merging the data into the building model and other topics are all subjects for additional discussion as the LCie project proceeds.
Along these lines, the current state of the model, before and after processing an LCie file, is available in the COBie spreadsheet, IFC, and IFCXML formats. While the report link contains the reports generated after processing each LCie file, such as a space or system report, results of the COBie2 compliance checking for each LCie file can be found by selecting assessments. Finally, the logs link contains all the logs related to the reporting and processing of the LCie files.
Duplex Apartment Example
Medical Clinic Example
LCie Tools
Currently the free BimServices engine, a lightweight building information model server, can demonstrate the evaluation and use of LCie batch and transactional files. This engine may be downloaded from AEC3 UK
Who Developed LCie?
LCie was developed by the same international team that developed the COBie specification. LCie was first published at the 27th Annual Conference on Information Technology in Construction (W078) held by the International Council for Research and Innovation in Building and Construction (CIB) under the title “Life Cycle Model for Contracted Information Exchange.” The presentation of this paper may be found here. This work was supported, in part, by the U.S. Army Research and Development Project "Life Cycle Model for Mission Ready, Sustainable Facilities." The Principal Investigator on that project was Dr. Bill East, Engineer Research and Development Center.
Additional Resources
Licensing
Life-Cycle information exchange by buildingSMART alliance is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NoDerivs 3.0 Unported License.
