by Brianna Crandall — March 6, 2017 — This January, following a year-long development process, the National Institute of Building Sciences (NIBS) released its new guideline to help building owners utilize building information modeling (BIM). Now the Institute has agreed to allow the Chinese affiliate of the Building Owners and Managers Association (BOMA) International, BOMA China, to translate the National BIM Guide for Owners (NBGO) into Mandarin.
NIBS, with the support of BOMA and global building technology society ASHRAE, and financial support from the U.S. Department of Defense – Defense Health Agency, compiled a balanced, integrated team to craft the NBGO. Available free online, the NBGO provides building owners with an approach, from their own profession’s standpoint, to create and fulfill BIM requirements for a typical project. The guide addresses three broad areas the owner should understand in order to work effectively with the project BIM team: process; infrastructure and standards; and execution.
Hundreds of people from at least 33 countries have since downloaded the guide. The NBGO offers building owners with a documented process and procedure for their design teams to follow to produce a standard set of BIM documents during the design and construction of the facility, and for maintenance and operations of the facility upon handoff.
Institute President Henry L. Green, Hon. AIA, stated:
Translating the National BIM Guide for Owners will provide building owners in one of the largest economies in the world with the tools they need to understand and apply BIM through the development, construction and operation of their facilities.
The new guideline, which is based on a number of foreign, federal, state and local BIM guides that already exist, is geared to a generic facility with uniform requirements for use by a variety of government, institutional and commercial building owners. It references a range of documents and practices, including those contained within the Institute’s National BIM Standard-United States.
BOMA China pointed out that there is increased awareness and use of BIM in China. The group will provide copies of the translation to their members in China, in both print and electronic versions. The translation is expected to be complete within six months. The English version of the National BIM Guide for Owners (NBGO) is available to download from the NIBS Web site upon brief registration.
