LEXiCON

LEXiCON was an initiative which aims to provide the construction industry with a plain language 'dictionary' to share product data in a consistent way. The broad intention is to clarify the process of standardising product information for use in Building Information Modeling (BIM).

It aimed to increase the accessibility of product information for those requesting and those providing it, i.e. manufacturers. In essence, LEXiCON aimed to create ‘product DNA’ information that is attached to a product and is added to throughout its lifecycle.

The Product Data Definition was published by the government’s BIM Task Group in April 2016, and defined a methodology to enable information to be requested and provided in simple terms, capable of being exchanged by mapping to core properties.

As the implementation of this methodology, LEXiCON was being developed by the Construction Products Association (CPA) with support from BIM4M2 and the BIM Task Group. BRE and ActivePlan were supposed to develop the software.

LEXiCON claimed to utilise tools and templates that could be used across different software platforms, and information would be requested according to the level of detail or quantity that suits the purpose. By using Global Unique IDs (GUIDs), information would have been shared between different formats and software packages.