The Owner Platform: Organized, Accessible, Flexible on Day One

Facility Owners today exist in a world of constant change and must stay flexible to adapt to any disruption – good, bad or indifferent. To carry out this ‘small feat’ and perhaps more than anything else in their organization’s world – they need full access to their assets and environments virtually.

As we saw in early 2020, a corona virus turned all of us on our heads. Now imagine the scenario inside the walls of any hospital. Not as a patient, but as the Manager of a facility needing to understand very quickly how to achieve social distancing, how to transition rooms to a negative space for containment, how to adjust building systems and more.

As the Owner begins to realize their facility through a virtual environment, the idea of a digital twin becomes clear. This begins to inform the development of Owner Standards for turnover at the project’s end, allows them to see what they need access to before it is built and opens the doors to communication between consultant teams.

Yet Owners are running into walls and roadblocks at every turn in achieving a basic Digital Twin environment. Why this is and how can the AEC industry align to Owner needs in managing a facility from a singleentry point while being flexible for lifecycle changes and constant renovations?

The Owner Standards and Guidelines

Owner teams need to supply Design and Construction Teams with the requirements for the turnover at the end of any project. There exist plenty of examples to develop Standards like Penn State’s Owner Guide , Building Smart and NBIMS-US to name a few. By setting up Owner Standards, teams can know straight away what is expected, plan and implement the steps to align to Owner needs.

The Standards should layout, at a minimum, the naming standards for models, data points, parameters, even the format and naming of documents relating to O&M, Cut Sheets,

Warranties, etc. Preferably the Owner is also defining the collaboration platform as well as software and versions to be used.

AEC alignment to Owner Standards

As a project begins, budget, scope and Owner Standards are provided to the consulting teams, the groundwork is set in supplying a more robust turn-over package, we can start to see the end goals for the models, data and documentation at kick-off.

Implementation of the Owner Standards should also define the milestones for turnover at critical stages of a project. This allows for the ongoing review and collaboration of requirements, ensuring teams are staying within alignment as well as early development of data points to be captured.

With this starting point in hand, the setup and integration of the Owner Digital Twin environment is not only in alignment to Owner Standards but is laying the groundwork for the integration of newer technologies within the Digital Twin over time.

We have already seen the plethora of Digital Twin technologies and use cases expand at a breakneck speed in just a couple of years. From a simple environment for the Operations team to predictive analytics, generative design and live system data streaming on ever-expanding Owner dashboards.

What is important to keep in perspective, is listening and delivering what the Owner requires at close-out for a given project. If we set up the project per the standards provided and those standards do not speak to integrated building sensor data, then it does not need to be provided at that time. But what we have done is set the Owner up for success not only in their current Digital Twin but going forward for future integration of building sensors and analytics. Traditionally, Owners have a need for ‘seeing’ information about their facilities for a variety of reasons: Square Footage reporting for Lease agreements, Medicare/

Medicaid reporting are a couple examples. Historically, this is ‘accomplished’ via excel spreadsheets across many departments and likely reside on multiple user desktops often with no active connection to a 3D model or set of Cad plans.

Additionally, various departments likely hold onto their own PDF sets which aligns to their needs for day-to-day requirements, but these are duplicated across departments, static in nature and can break down over time.

Asset Information Maturity Model

At the onset of an Owner’s Digital Twin, the framework for a data thread is only beginning to be realized. As more facilities come to have a Digital Twin, the necessary framework is being proven and will begin to inform future analytics, connecting operations and functions which in-turn allows for accessibility, establishing the Information As-Built environment. As stewards of the AEC industry, we must pay attention and provide information to align to Owner needs, defining and developing a foundation for the Information As-Built and allowing for expansion and flexibility to innovative technologies.

Day One Digital Twin Success

The Digital Twin during design is purely virtual, no physical ‘thing’ exists yet. And as the industry commonly defines a Digital Twin as ‘a virtual representation that serves as the real-time digital counterpart of a physical object or process’, some have asked if this is a Digital Twin? A better question might be are we aligned to Owner Standards?

It doesn’t matter what we define a Digital Twin as; what matters is that we are providing the Owner team information which can be applied to budgets, scheduling, and projection data over the lifecycle of the facility. The process is a foundation for the Project’s Digital Twin helping to align with Owner needs as well as what is important for them as the operator.

As the project nears close-out, certain activities need to occur to get to our ‘Day One’ digital twin set up. Critical components to review for alignment to Owner Standards:

• As-Built Record Models federated to Owner Standard.

• Asset data assembled and updated to infield install. O&M, warranty, specification, approved submittals compiled.

• Space/Room data assets and systems have been identified to the given space.

• Parameters correctly named and data points populated.

Data normalization - not just for databases

‘Data’ is a big word. It is used across almost every industry, and we have all heard that ‘data is more valuable than oil’ or perhaps more accurately, ‘data is the oil of the digital era’. For Digital Twins normalizing and organizing the data must come first. There exist two main data environments for integration to the Digital Twin database. Owner As-built models: A compilation of discipline models developed during the project. The Owner’s design technologist establishes a federated model environment for the Owner, allowing for centralized model data by discipline which standards can easily be applied.

Documentation: is a big piece of the data pie rarely talked about. It is normal for the GC team to provide a PDF book of all O&Ms in one single document, or sometimes, when it gets too large, they may break it into two documents or even break it up by Divisions. Either way – consider the problem of connecting an asset to an O&M if the document resides in a 958-page PDF. How will the database ‘find’ the correct document? What will it display? Is the intent to leave the Owner team to search the 958-page PDF to find a sump pump or centrifugal fan?

Let’s be database smart

If a document for an asset is buried in a PDF book, this is not easily associated to the asset. The goal at a minimum is efficiency of the database in accessing assets connected to documents, systems and spaces.

By breaking documentation by asset type, it becomes easier to find, search, review and maintain by the Owner team. Improving accessibility by the Owner team, documents are organized and the database remains flexible.

Conclusion

Digital Twins provide a range of services; from predictive analytics of building operations to individual asset performance as well as monitoring of large complex systems, they include at a basic level reliable virtual representations which can be integrated with both third-party platforms, developing technologies and connected to simulations and machine learning processes. With this approach the Owner is ready to progress in the Digital Twin environment and can expand as needed. Overall, an Owner’s Digital Twin should realize the convergence of data from disparate sources and formats while remaining flexible and scalable and above all – Be Accessible on Day One!

Projectconceptualization has the largest impact on the functionality, performance, and cost of a building - this is when key decisions about layout and aesthetics are being taken. Although the depth of data required to make these decisions is best served by BIM, it is understandable why architects are reluctant to use BIM tools in the creative process.

What makes building design inefficient today?

A couple of years ago, MRVDV pioneered a system to involve the residents of Hamburg in an urban rejuvenation plan. The Grasbrook Maker was envisioned as an interactive, multi-user platform to democratize design. Architects set up the design framework within which participants could place public buildings.

Collecting inputs from multiple stakeholders is fundamental to design and construction. Every project, from a residence to an urban masterplan, involves a team of clients, architects, engineers, contractors, financiers, government bodies and many more.

Moreover, the key principle of ‘Building Information Modelling (BIM)’ is to frontload decision-making to control costs and time. This means that collaborative design must begin at the concept phase, to significantly improve costs, design and even the project timeline. Projects become efficient when all the stakeholders are involved right from the start, i.e., higher profits, lower costs and fewer delays.

While the concept of BIM has created a dent in the design to construction process, the tools that support BIM have users wanting more. The BIM tools today, are too complex to handle the fluid nature of design at the concept stage. That’s the reason why ‘non-BIM’ tools like AutoCAD, Sketchup, or Rhino continue to dominate concept design. These programs are fast and flexible, helping Architects iterate over their designs easily.