Clearview National April 2020 - Issue 221 | Page 36

DOORS&WINDOWS
DOOR HARDWARE LEADING THE WAY IN BIM FOR
CONSTRUCTION PRODUCT MANUFACTURERS
UK door hardware manufacturers are at the forefront of supporting the
integration of building products in BIM into British and European markets.
» THE GUILD OF
Architectural Ironmongers (GAI)
is working with the National
Union of Hardware Industries
(UNIQ), the French trade
association for door hardware
manufacturers, to create BIM
templates for hardware products.
The new BIM templates are being
translated from the GAI’s original
templates released in 2017 and
adapted to make them suitable for
use in France.
The GAI is already represented
on a number of European
Committee for Standardisation
(CEN) product standard
committees and this is the first
foreign language project of its
type that the GAI has embarked
upon.
This work is part of a wider
project being co-ordinated
by ARGE, the European
Federation of Associations of
Locks and Builders Hardware
Manufacturers, looking at
the implementation of prEN
ISO 23386. This standard will
cover digital processes used in
construction using a common
methodology to describe, author
and maintain properties in
interconnected data dictionaries.
European generic BIM templates
and data dictionaries for hardware
industry are being created to
conform with this new standard.
Frédéric Ducloyer, general
secretary of UNIQ, said:
“This is a major issue for
our industry. We are seeking
to standardise the definition of
properties for our BIM objects
and data templates, which will
make it much easier for our
members to set up their own
private BIM objects for their
products.
‘It is a huge step forward for this sector to
be involved in the creation of such standards’
“Our goal is also to set up
some generic BIM objects, with
a selection of properties, that will
be of use to architects at the early
stage of their projects. It did not
make sense for us to do this on a
national level, as when it comes to
standardisation, it is always better
to look at this at a European
level.
“This is the main reason why it
was important for us to lead that
project with GAI and to bring
this forward together as a next
step within ARGE and CEN.”
36 » A PR 2020 » CL EARVI E W- UK . C O M
UNIQ is in the process of
creating its first three templates
for door closers, locks and central
locking for windows. The next
phase of work will be to adapt
the template alongside ARGE for
use in wider Europe in line with
prEN ISO 23386. The templates
need to be easily adjustable in
order to address the areas that
may differ from country to
country, for example specific
legislation on equality, as well
as local product standards and
certification requirements.
The GAI is also part of a
consortium of construction
organisations in the UK led
by the Construction Products
Association (CPA) to develop PAS
14191:2020 Built Environment
– management and operation
of interconnected construction
data dictionaries – specification.
This PAS will assist with UK
implementation of prEN ISO
23386 and form the basis of
LEXiCON and other UK
construction dictionaries.
It will cover the governance
and management of digital
construction product data
information sets and aims to
provide the construction industry
with a plain language ‘dictionary’
to standardise product data for
use in BIM.
Douglas Masterson, technical
manager of the GAI, said:
“It is a huge step forward for
this sector to be involved in the
creation of such standards that
impact wider construction, not
just ironmongery. The Guild is
embracing this opportunity to be
part of an initiative to improve
product data, traceability and
ultimately building safety.”
This project is the next stage of
a project initiated by The Product
Data Definition, published by
the UK government’s BIM Task
Group in 2016. It aimed to create
a method to enable information
to be requested and exchanged
by mapping to core properties.
As part of this, LEXiCON
was developed to utilise tools,
templates and Global Unique
IDs (GUIDs) that could be used
across different formats and
software platforms.
www.gai.org.uk