INNOVance: Italian BIM Database for Construction Process Management

Abstract

The INNOVance research project, funded by the Italian Ministry of Economic Development, wants to push a radical innovation into the Italian Construction sector by creating the Italian construction database - containing information about products, works, and spaces - along the whole construction service life. This research wants to improve the efficiency in using and maintaining objects' information - which is achieved by linking continually updated, extensible life-cycle objects data to independent software using Building Information Models - throughout the entire life cycle. The work done consists of three main steps: (1) to give an unambiguous name to everything in the construction process, from products to spaces, from activities to buildings, etc.; (2) to define structure and content of the information related to each named entity; and (3) to pair each entity in the database with a BIM object. The multitude of rules, definitions and practices that characterizes the Italian construction sector causes difficulties in data transmission among stakeholders; so, the first priority of INNOVance was to create a coding system based on a standardized and unequivocal name. To manage and use information through the construction process, technical datasheets have been defined and standardized among homogeneous object categories (construction products, spaces, construction operations, etc.) to allow users to easily and quickly compare and retrieve information. Data will be freely accessible throughout a web-based portal that relies on the INNOVance database. In addition, specific plug-ins allow creating, updating and linking objects directly from BIM software. At the end of the project, database interoperability is guaranteed by Building Smart Italy with the adoption of the IFC protocol.