AUTOMATED IFC-BASED PROCESSES IN THE CONSTRUCTION SECTOR: A METHOD FOR IMPROVING THE INFORMATION FLOW

One of the main challenges in the implementation of BIM-based processes concerns interoperability issues. In fact, even if IFC format is recognised as an ISO standard, different barriers and problems are often encountered in IFC adoption. Generally, obstacles are due to the difficulty of users in personalising import and export options of IFC formats in BIM authoring tools with the consequent possibility of information loss. The paper presents a method for improving the information flow, based on the connection of information stored in IFC files and in external databases through automated processes. Therefore, information concerning one single project can be stored in BIModels and linked to external sources or, conversely, referred from external databases to objects in BIModels. Benefits deriving from the adoption of the proposed solutions concern the limited size of BIModels, the possibility to store information not considered in the IFC schema, and the reduction of IT skills required to building operators for exchanging information in an interoperable way

Re‐shaping the construction industry

Re-shaping the Construction Industry: an International Consensus seems to be convergent in order to trigger some impressive game changers. Namely, the Digitization appears as the most disruptive agent, together with the Circularity. It sounds a little bit paradoxical to imagine a radical innovation as far as a reluctant industry is concerned. A transformational narrative makes the transformation so easy to be achieved: nevertheless, such a storytelling encounters a fierce and silent opposition. This is the reason why the Digital Transition plays a crucial role, more relevant than the final destination, indeed. The XXI Century's early decades have been featured by Building Information Modelling (BIM) which arose and surged as the gate key entrance to the digital brave new world. It does mean that, once entered within the digital environment, any stakeholder needs to behave and act according to a computational way. It is clear that the stakeholders must be persuaded to enter the digital ecosystem by means of promising them to become more effective and finally to recover the lost productivity rates. To be viable, this expectaction has to be nurtured by arguing that the traditional players won't be menaced, in spite of the uberised ambiance of the disintermediation. Nonetheless, could they really avoid any fear or concern about the digitization's transformational power? Digitization has been correctly assessed as unavoidable, but the industry's analogical attitude remains quite deeply rooted. ISTeA, as a scientifical society, retains an institutional duty to foster the ultimate questions dealing with the digitization of the strategic supply chain. Apart from having been the societal chairman over the last six years, I have been involved into the international standardization works (at ISO and CEN level), the European institutional body (EU Task Group), some national initiatives (in Italy, France, Switzerland, and elsewhere), an academic joint research programme (between Italy and Germany), and I got a first hand understanding of the UK BIM Saga. The European digital journey is just starting, in spite of its origins dating back to the UK BIM Mandate issued in 2011 or to the US BIM Implementation: nevertheless, it is really astonishing to acknowledge how long it did progress since then. Likewise, the stated targets look as quite far to be reached, because of the intimate nature of the industry. I was learned to adopt a humble mood, my feeling became more and more cautious, because the items are quite sensitive and the stakes extremely valuable. The challenge lies between a couple of different poles: the whole digitization of the lowest tiered practictioners or trade contractors and the unforeseeable dimensions stemming and sourcing from Smart Cities and 4.0 Paradigms. How long the former intent will last? How deep the latter ambition will be? It is unthinkable to seek at answering such final questions: however, they undoubtedly conceal or disclose (?) the promise or menace of changing, re-inveinting, the usual identities. Artificial intelligence and machine learning are stimulating notions which entail new and unprecedented soft skills, although they recall a lot of expertises' replacement and erasement. A critical thought obviously avoids to accept any (re)evolutionary vision and prediction as forced and unescapable: meanwhile, the change drivers are so powerful and threathening. They cannot be neglected nor ignored. How our vision is differing from the actual on going outcomes? How our transformational efforts will be fanciful and whimsical, anything but a wishful thinking? ISTeA is currently accomplishing the six-year term I chaired: we were accepting an analogical legacy. At this time, our seminal scholars did retire and provided us with some interesting outcomes, which left forcefully unsolved the untrivial assumptions of the «industrial» era, to be faced again over our own term of office. I am not able to evaluate how successfully we performed: anyway, we tried to cope with the unknown phenomena searching at realizing any pros and cons. Eventually, the pioneering stages of the digital evolution are ending: our achievements might be judged as unstable. However, nowadays, ISTeA has the tremendous chance to freeze the ingrained issues pertaining to the Circular and Digital Economy and Society. Provided that, as the incumbent chairman, I might succeed in conveying to the successors the correct questions, as a trend-setter, the Scientifical Society's perspectives deal with problem-solving. Unfortunately, the strong temptation of explaining the radical and stochastic innovations in terms of incremental and mechanistic agents might seriously compromise any attempt, because a consulatory and selfish attitude can be adopted. My suggestions are focused upon the digital transition: it would be a hard task to renounce to a two-speeded route: the more the most advanced early adopters will progress, the more the laggards will suffer a gap. An intertwined approach, far away from chasms, has to be envisaged

A New Building Information Modelling-Based Approach to Automate Recyclability Rate Calculations for Buildings

To address environmental challenges, the Architecture, Engineering, Construction, and Operations (AECO) industry, which is known for its high resource consumption and waste production, needs to switch to a circular economy (CE). This approach focuses on reducing, recycling, and reusing materials to narrow, slow, and close material loops. However, one of the main problems which the AECO industry is still facing is the lack of common, standardized, and automated procedures to consider the recyclability and presence of hazardous materials. To address this problem, this study focuses on extending the recyclability rate from the material to building scale, considering the presence of hazardous materials based on the European Waste Catalogue (EWC), hence defining a new KPI. It adopts Building Information Modelling (BIM) and Industry Foundation Classes (IFCs) and integrates them with bespoke programming in Python to develop a standardized and automated procedure that complies with Italian regulations. The new KPI will help clients and designers to rate the overall recyclability of a building and to choose the best combination of materials and components. The procedure includes data acquisition, transmission, and data/model integration, resulting in practical and trackable measures that could be globally scalable. Scenario analyses are also developed to consider the impact of maintenance attitude on waste production

METHODOLOGICAL FRAMEWORK TO IMPROVE PPP PROJECTS

The Public–Private Partnership (PPP) plays a significant role in the construction industry. It is of special importance because of its weight in the global economy and the lack of funding for major projects. The PPP concept, as a procurement strategy, is successful only if the major stakeholders, namely the public sector, private consortium, and end–users are all satisfied with project outcomes. There have been reported cases of problems associated with the initial stages of the PPP process in terms of bidding costs and anticipated costs of construction and operation. The banks’ attention is currently centered on the promotors’ financial stability rather than on project quality. The key issue is to improve the efficiency for the whole building lifecycle. In this context, BIMM philosophy (not just Building Information Modeling but also Information Management) may be a powerful tool. In other words, is there room to put this concept in practice without jeopardizing service quality, innovation and efficiency? The answer to this question is explored in this paper. The use of Technical Sheets for PPP procurement like policy models may enhance systematic and integrated management of the whole building process. This technical framework allows one to collect project data, grouped into three areas: design, construction, and operation. In so doing, a Public Agency may assess project quality

La piattaforma digitale nazionale INNOVance a supporto della filiera delle costruzioni

Il primo volume della collana presenta il quadro generale, evidenziando gli strumenti messi a punto e integrati in INNOVance e mostrando come questi siano indispensabili per traguardare fattivamente la transizione al digitale del settore delle costruzioni. Dopo un’introduzione di carattere generale, vengono descritti il sistema di classificazione e co- difica definiti per poter identificare in modo univoco i diversi oggetti contenuti nella banca dati, dai prodotti della costruzione sino alle opere, passando attraverso livelli di comples- sità tecnologica, ovvero gli elementi in opera, i sistemi assemblati, i sistemi tecnologici co- struttivi e impiantistici, nonché quelli spaziali e quelli relativi alla gestione dei processi, ovvero le attività, con le risorse umane e i mezzi d’opera necessari per svilupparle.In secondo luogo si riportano le schede tecniche digitali che rappresentano la struttura della Banca Dati INNOVANCE, e in particolare in questo volume quelle relative ai livelli di più elevata complessità tecnologica, come quelle relative all’opera in quanto tale e al si- stema funzionale-spaziale. A seguire si presenta la Banca Dati INNOVance e quindi il portale, con i suoi contenuti, ov- vero la BIM Library, il BIM server e gli strumenti utili per la gestione delle gare indispen- sabili per poter affrontare le nuove frontiere del digitale secondo quanto previsto dal nuo- vo Codice degli Appalti in una prospettiva rivolta a Industria 4.0, oltre che naturalmente le funzionalità relative alla profilazione degli utenti e alla gestione degli oggetti contenuti nella Banca Dati. Per concludere il volume riporta in sintesi gli sviluppi della Banca Dati INNOVance in merito all’interoperabilità potenzialmente verso qualsiasi tipo di software e la sua applicazione agli aspetti di efficienza energetica, nonché le ricadute sulla normativa in primo luogo na- zionale nelle diverse parti delle norme UNI 11337 “Gestione digitale dei processi informa- tivi delle costruzioni”, utili anche per poter dare un contributo nazionale alle norme in- ternazionali in fase di sviluppo nei gruppi di lavoro ISO TC 59 SC 13 “Organization of infor- mation about construction works” e CEN TC 442 Building Information Modelling (BIM)

ANDIL experience for building process optimization through an efficient data management / L’esperienza di ANDIL per l’ottimizzazione del processo edilizio attraverso una gestione efficiente delle informazioni

A building process optimization needs a systemic approach in order to correctly manage its complexity. Despite many important contributions have been provided in the last few years, both from a procedural point of view and from a normative one, building process management is often fragmented. This may cause repercussions on building quality and inefficiency in cost and time management. That is why, the research project INNOVance has developed an unambiguous classification system for every object and informative attribute for construction, creating a unique database to smartly store and share information. This through a proper definition of the content of data sheets which can be collected and easily shared together with their complementary attributes by different stakeholders. Unambiguous language and standardized information, in and of themselves, increase building process efficiency. If we then consider that data exchange is possible through the exploitation of a user friendly web portal and some interoperable web services, efficiency and economic savings in the entire construction chain could be extremely relevant. The present paper describes the results achieved during the last year of the research project, in terms of information standardization and data collection

Tracking users' behaviors through real-time information in BIMs: Workflow for interconnection in the Brescia Smart Campus Demonstrator

An intelligent building supports the needs of its occupants by data analytics. Nowadays, buildings are evolving from being products to become effective service providers for end-users: thus, occupancy topics become crucial. The paper focuses on building operations, pointing out how advantages in supporting the needs of users could be derived through the implementation of Building Management Systems (BMS) into a Building Information Modeling (BIM) environment, connecting real-time information collected by sensors to a BIM database. The connection and the integration of information between BIM and BMS have been established based on the Industry Foundation Classes (IFC) neutral data format; moreover, web-interfaces and apps have been tested for enhancing information to be visualized by different end-users. The ongoing research has a twofold scope: 1) to point-out how buildings should evolve, managing knowledge coming from sensors in order to anticipate the needs of users, and 2) to analyze whether and how the centrality of users should change the building process. The proposed workflow has been tested on the Brescia Smart Campus Demonstrator, a building equipped with 94 off-the-shelf sensors

Early Aggressive Versus Initially Conservative Treatment in Elderly Patients With Non–ST-Segment Elevation Acute Coronary Syndrome A Randomized Controlled Trial

ObjectivesThis study sought to determine the risk versus benefit ratio of an early aggressive (EA) approach in elderly patients with non–ST-segment elevation acute coronary syndromes (NSTEACS).BackgroundElderly patients have been scarcely represented in trials comparing treatment strategies in NSTEACS.MethodsA total of 313 patients ≥75 years of age (mean 82 years) with NSTEACS within 48 h from qualifying symptoms were randomly allocated to an EA strategy (coronary angiography and, when indicated, revascularization within 72 h) or an initially conservative (IC) strategy (angiography and revascularization only for recurrent ischemia). The primary endpoint was the composite of death, myocardial infarction, disabling stroke, and repeat hospital stay for cardiovascular causes or severe bleeding within 1 year.ResultsDuring admission, 88% of the patients in the EA group underwent angiography (55% revascularization), compared with 29% (23% revascularization) in the IC group. The primary outcome occurred in 43 patients (27.9%) in the EA group and 55 (34.6%) in the IC group (hazard ratio [HR]: 0.80; 95% confidence interval [CI]: 0.53 to 1.19; p = 0.26). The rates of mortality (HR: 0.87; 95% CI: 0.49 to 1.56), myocardial infarction (HR: 0.67; 95% CI: 0.33 to 1.36), and repeat hospital stay (HR: 0.81; 95% CI: 0.45 to 1.46) did not differ between groups. The primary endpoint was significantly reduced in patients with elevated troponin on admission (HR: 0.43; 95% CI: 0.23 to 0.80), but not in those with normal troponin (HR: 1.67; 95% CI: 0.75 to 3.70; p for interaction = 0.03).ConclusionsThe present study does not allow a definite conclusion about the benefit of an EA approach when applied systematically among elderly patients with NSTEACS. The finding of a significant interaction for the treatment effect according to troponin status at baseline should be confirmed in a larger size trial. (Italian Elderly ACS Study; NCT00510185