The argument for developing content in IFC
Adherence to Government expectations
• IFC is acceptable by governments and ensures future proofing for single building model Level 3 iBIM.
• COBie (the digital Operations & Maintenance manuals as expected by UK Government) is fully compatible with IFC.
Adherence to standards
• IFC means the data is compliant to ISO 16739:2005 and therefore internationally acceptable.
• IFC means the data is BS5481:2012 parts 1, 2, 3 & 4 compliant and therefore acceptable in the UK.
• IFC means only one file per ‘object’ type is needed to work in all BIM authoring software packages.
• IFC removes the need to keep updating files in line with the proprietary BIM authoring software application’s annual updates, thus significantly reducing on-going costs.
• Classification to all dominant UK systems.
• IFC ensures that all software, (complex e.g. BIM authoring,, or simple e.g. spreadsheets), can access the data upstream or downstream.
• IFC ensures compatibility with the NBS Create specification model http://www.thenbs.co.uk .
• IFC ensures data will be accessible even if software becomes obsolete.
Currently, IFC works to provide Content for ‘Materials’, ‘Frozen’ or ‘Catalogue’ objects which covers the vast majority of construction products used in BIM’s. This is not common to IFC as the same applies to exported IFC from the vendor packages.
Development is underway to provide IFC for configurable or ‘Engineered to Order’ objects by our development team, which will be backwards compatible with Frozen Object IFC.
The Future potential for IFC
• Creating an IFC structured data of your product lays the foundations to expand functionality later when the fully configurable IFC (Engineered-To-Order) toolkit has been developed. This has the potential to increase efficiency in the business by significantly reducing technical queries from designers.
• IFC will ensure compatibility with the imminent RICS/BCIS estimation model.
• IFC will ensure compatibility with future eProcurement routes.
• IFC will ensure compatibility with imminent EU (CEN350) environmental product declarations.
IFC is not limited to standard data fields. Fields can be added to our Content on a bespoke basis dependent upon the requirements of host organization we are working with.
