Construction Industry overview

The construction industry is a complex and dynamic sector which involves professionals from different backgrounds required to collaborate and design, construct and maintain a built asset. This revolves around production, managing and exchange of information among all the stakeholders in the project. As the project becomes more complex, this process results in chaos if it is not regulated and streamlined. This inefficiency further affects the overall budget, schedule and sometimes the end result, the building functionality. Over the years, the Construction industry has seen very little development in adopting digital technologies and efficient processes to convert an idea to reality. Building information modeling as an overall approach to the project is now becoming more popular allowing major developments in project delivery.

In traditional 2D CAD design, the different participants must wait for each other’s design completion; the data deliverables are piled in silos before they can be exchanged between the design teams. In such cases, data can become obsolete, in other words, the data goes to waste. In contrast, in BIM-based design, early and timely exchange of incomplete information between participants is enabled by sharing and integrating the building information models of the teams at any point in time. This allows real-time design adjustments and development. The information is then always up-to-date, and the clear design intent visualization facilitates communication between players and allows for continuous information flow instead of interrupted batch flow.

As the market is transitioning into a more digitized way of design and construction there was a lack of uniform project & asset information delivery plan throughout the life cycle of the built asset majority of the time causing duplication of data or data redundancy. In the traditional design construction and operation stage there is no connected database. Right from the initiation of the project till the handover of the asset there was a need for standard operating procedure to develop, manage and maintain the information.

The BIM framework in UK’s Publicly Available Specifications (PAS) spread across multiple standards, proposed a set of guidelines for construction projects -allowing owners, designers and construction teams a structured information production and exchange protocols. This greatly benefitted all stakeholders to communicate the requirements and deliver projects around the globe. Desapex project delivery framework was compliant with the PAS standards, creating a great foundation for the digitization plans it had.

Since these standards originated in the UK and there was an increase in demand by professionals across the world, there was a need for slight modifications to suit international standards and allow more collaboration between projects working in different countries. ISO 19650 is the internationally accepted framework for BIM implementation.

Desapex and its efforts towards digital transformation

Desapex, being India’s first digital life-cycle design company for the built environment, was started in 2016 to upskill India’s youth workforce to be able to deliver construction projects using the latest technologies. Since inception, Desapex has been working towards digitization of the construction industry in all stages of the life cycle of an asset- preconstruction, construction, handover and facility management, all come under Desapex’s wide umbrella of services it provides to its clients. Desapex's delivery team consists of a skilled, multi-disciplinary team- specializing in Building information modeling, project management, Architecture, Structure, building services (MEPF), facility management and sustainability.

ISO 19650 certification and its impact

BIM is an increasingly important part of the global design marketplace.  It is a collaborative way of working that uses digital technologies to enable more efficient methods of design and engineering. The publication of ISO 19650 creates an opportunity for international organisations collaborating on projects to minimise wasteful activities and increase predictability around cost and time, through a common approach to the management of information. It will assist with the digital transformation of the global engineering sector and help develop internationally agreed best practice approaches.

As a new, yet capable organization, Desapex needed a way to get globally accepted standards for delivering BIM projects, countering so-called ‘BIM-wash’ – firms making unsubstantiated claims about their BIM capability. BSI’s new Kitemark ISO 19650 provides that differentiation, and with it a competitive edge in its marketplace. Moreover, it makes life easy for the project stakeholders who adopt the standard way of project delivery.

ISO 19650 Kitemark certification goes a step further, demonstrating commitment to best practice and highlighting a high level of BIM maturity. Although Desapex had already aligned themselves to PAS 1192 -2, without any certification process just to bring the standard best practices, Desapex management invested in getting the original licensed copy of ISO 19650 standard and inducted the team to understand the new standard ,the kitemark process started with initial gap assessment which highlighted the gaps in the current process and flagged  the improvements which can be done to make the delivery and feedback process better. This was followed by Onsite- Audit by BSI UK and India teams in Desapex, Bangalore, India office, where there was a two day audit conducted on the selected projects, following a key client visit for one to one customer satisfaction benchmarking.

BSI ISO 19650 Kitemark has been developed in collaboration with construction industry stakeholders and is integrated with BSI’s existing certification solutions for the sector. It has provided a robust level of certification for an organization, using management system standards such as BS 11000 Collaborative Business Relationships and ISO 9001 Quality Management, as well as PAS 1192-2. It encompasses three main areas: assessment of completed BIM projects, customer satisfaction, and supply chain management which are very key aspects from the Desapex management perspective for scaling up any business in general.

BSI Kitemark for ISO 19650 acts as a seal of approval for construction businesses around the world, confirming that they can provide digital transformation at the design, construction & asset management phase of a project. In the emerging market where there are no standard local guidelines for implementing BIM in a project, the ISO certification helped us in creating the following:

1. Being one of the first few organizations to achieve this certification, Recognition as a business leader in the national and international market.
2. More business opportunities to provide services to international clients, following the globally accepted ISO 19650 BIM framework.
3. Reassures clients of Desapex’s capacity and capability to support their migration to BIM platforms.
4. Become clients representative for the digital project management and review the implementation process.
5. Streamline the information production and management process with all stakeholders- internal and external teams.
6. Reduced rework by implementing Common Data Environment (CDE) platform for data exchange among Owner, design and construction teams.
7. Provides framework to measure clients satisfaction with respect to project delivery
8. With an accepted, consistent way of working among different clients and locations, reduced costs and time associated with personnel (administrative and technical) changes and training for each engagement.

Conclusion

Desapex has adopted this international standard to ensure that our clients get assured information delivery throughout the project lifecycle and use of digital technology becomes more widespread across the Indian and international construction market and also the whole construction life cycle. Backed with the certification, it greatly saves efforts that go into convincing a client and trying to assure your capacity and capabilities to deliver large complex projects. It assists the teams to spend more efforts into discussing the details of the project and brainstorming efficient ways of project delivery.