BuildingSMART

buildingSMART is an alliance of construction and facilities management organisations established to standardise processes, workflows and procedures for building information modelling (BIM). It has representation across Europe, North America, the Middle East, Far East and Australasia.

Its mission is to, 'Proactively facilitate with key leaders the active use and promulgation of standards enabling civil infrastructure and building asset data and life-cycle processes to be seamlessly integrated openBIM standards, improving the value achieved from investments in the built environment and enhancing opportunities for growth.'

buildingSMART UK is the United Kingdom and Ireland chapter of the international buildingSMART programme. It is managed by the Building Research Establishment (BRE). Organisations within buildingSMART include consultants, contractors, supplies, building owners, facility managers, software vendors, government agencies, researchers and academics.

buildingSMART UK develops standards, tools and training for the construction industry to ensure it is familiar with open BIM and how it can be used to '…achieve greener, leaner and more efficient buildings and infrastructure in the UK.' It helps BIM users gain familiarity with BIM and encourages experienced users to extend the application of BIM.

Its work includes:

BIM training and Accredited Professional status.
International Organisation for Standardisation (ISO) development.
Construction Operations Building Information Exchange (COBie), a non-proprietary multi-page, spread sheet data format for the publication of a subset of building information models (BIM) focused on delivering asset data rather that geometric information..
Developement of Industry Foundation Classes (IFC), a neutral, non-proprietary data format used to describe, exchange and share information.
International Framework for Dictionaries (IFD) development.
Information Delivery Manual (IDM) development. Now known as the buildingSMART standard for processes.
Interfacing with buildingSMART international.
BuildingSMART Data Dictionary (bSDD). A catalogue of what objects are called (the 'vocabulary').

buildingSMART UK consists of:

The BuildingSMART UK Management Board.
The BuildingSMART UK Technical Group.
The BuildingSMART UK User Group.
BuildingSMART UK Training and accreditation.

NB: At the 2017 buildingSMART summit, it was announced that buildingSMART UKI the would merge with UK BIM Alliance by the end of 2017. UK BIM Alliance's Ann Kemp said; "Shared common goals and the intention of both parties to work towards a digital built industry makes this the ideal time to collaborate and deliver the needs of the industry today and for the future”.