Background
The SFT Standard information management plan has been adopted by the City of Edinburgh council (CEC) on several new education projects. These include the Currie and Liberton high schools, part of the Learning Estate Investment Programme (LEIP), and Kirkliston and Maybury primary schools.
They have appointed client-side information managers (IM’s) to support the consistent specification and quality delivery of their project and asset information requirements, at key project stages. The various design team, contractor and supply chain parties will produce and deliver this information digitally, in accordance with ISO 19650 standards and using an agreed Building Information Modelling (BIM) process.
Abbreviations & Definitions
ACR: Authority Construction requirements are the clients final project brief + the output specifications and performance requirements.
AIR: Asset information requirements in relation to the operations of an asset (ISO 19650-1:2018; 3.3.4)
OIR: Organisational information requirements in relation to (clients) organizational objectives (ISO 19650-1:2018; 3.3.3)
PIR: Project information requirements in relation to the delivery of an asset (ISO 19650-1:2018; 3.3.2)
PLQ: Plain language questions are requests for information expressed in simple, easy-to-understand terms (BS 8536-1:2015; 3.1.44)
Uniclass 2015-PM: Project Management table from Uniclass 2015 classification (www.thenbs.com/our-tools/uniclass-2015)
Exemplar Standard information management plan
Each information manager met with their respective CEC project delivery and asset management teams at the outset to determine and capture the project information requirements within the SFT Standard information management plan workbook.
Whilst this approach was productive it was deemed potentially repetitive and time-consuming when applied across multiple CEC projects and different information managers.
During an SFT, CEC and IM’s feedback session it was agreed to collaboratively work as a group to produce an exemplar CEC Standard information management plan workbook. This resource would be pre-populated with baseline information requirements and offer a consistent, and structured approach to information specification and delivery on future CEC projects. The following steps were undertaken:
Approach
1. The IM’s reviewed a typical set of CEC high school Authority Construction requirements (ACR) and evolved a baseline set of high-level project information requirements (PIR).
2. Plain language question’s (PLQ) and task’s were developed for each PIR and scheduled out for future use on CEC projects. The IM’s used the NBS BIM toolkit as their initial source for the PLQ’s and task lists : https://toolkit.thenbs.com/
3. Each project information requirement (PIR) was assigned a classification code using the Uniclass 2015 Project Management (PM) table.
4. The list of PLQs, aligned tasks, PIR’s and Uniclass PM values were used to populate the SFT Standard information management plan exemplar workbook.
5. An activity diagram (below) was produced to identify the process and decision-making steps each CEC project delivery team should consider when adopting the Standard information management plan exemplar resource on new projects.
Figure 01- CEC ACR to Std info management plan adoption activity steps
CEC ACR to PIR examples
|
ACR Section |
CEC checklist (PLQ) |
CEC/ project team task |
ACR high level project info requirement (PIR)
|
Uniclass 2015 -PM code (Project management) |
Applicable project stage(s)
|
|
Design Philosophy |
Have all the members of the project team had input into the strategic brief?
|
Contribute Cost Information to preparation of Strategic Brief |
Cost model and indicative costing |
50_30_18 |
RIBA stage 0 |
|
Site requirements- Health & Safety |
Have the statutory requirements for Health and safety been met?
|
Develop Health and Safety Strategy |
Health & Safety Strategy |
40_20_36 |
RIBA stage 2 |
|
General Design – Fire Planning strategy |
Has the fire strategy been agreed?
|
Fire Strategy - confirm requirements |
Automatic fire suppression performance requirements |
35_30_04 |
RIBA stages 3,4 |
|
General Design – Design Approach and Deliverables |
Has the team had the opportunity to review and comment on the building services technical design?
|
Prepare building services Technical Design. |
Building services models |
40_35_10 |
RIBA stage 4 |
Through the collaborative work of the City of Edinburgh council and their information managers the following initial benefits and opportunities have been realised:
Benefits
o The time and effort to capture CEC’s project and asset information requirements on future educational projects will be greatly reduced through the adoption of the exemplar resource.
o The baseline set of PIR’s linked to a typical set of CEC Authority Construction requirements (ACR) increases the client and their delivery teams ability to deliver a consistent, structured information management process on their projects (i.e., briefing, planning, production and approval)
Opportunities
o The exemplar CEC standard information management plan and activity diagram approach can be adopted by other local authorities to better define and manage their own project information requirements across the wider Learning Estate investment programme (LEIP).
o The exemplar resource can be initially used and further developed by the local authorities and their internal departments to capture wider organisational information requirements (OIR’s) and estate-level asset information requirements (AIRs).
SFT will support the further development of the above opportunities through wider group collaboration and facilitation workshops.
Organisations involved in the development of the CEC exemplar
