{"id":132380,"date":"2023-10-04T14:46:44","date_gmt":"2023-10-04T13:46:44","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.pbctoday.co.uk\/news\/?p=132380"},"modified":"2023-10-04T15:44:00","modified_gmt":"2023-10-04T14:44:00","slug":"harnessing-metadata-powering-up-bim-document-management-digital-twins","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.pbctoday.co.uk\/news\/digital-construction-news\/bim-news\/harnessing-metadata-powering-up-bim-document-management-digital-twins\/132380\/","title":{"rendered":"Harnessing metadata: Powering up BIM, document management, and digital twins"},"content":{"rendered":"

Metadata is often overlooked, but every organisation involved in the built environment is producing it every day. Dan Rossiter FCIAT, vice-president technical at the Chartered Institute of Architectural Technologists, looks at how to harness it to support BIM, information management and digital twins<\/h2>\n

As the built environment undergoes its digital transformation, there are several concepts that underpin this transformation. Whilst BIM and information management (via the UK BIM Framework<\/a>) and interoperability (via the GIIG <\/a>) have been explored in detail, metadata has remained a relatively unexplored topic.<\/p>\n

Metadata, put simply, is data about data. When considering metadata, many built environment professionals may think of ISO 19650-1<\/a>\u00a0(information management using BIM concepts and principles), which references metadata as a concept needed to support the use of a common data environment.<\/p>\n

Seeing the term used here, many may consider metadata to be a specialist subject. However, unbeknownst to most, all built environment professionals create and use it daily.<\/p>\n

The use of metadata in construction<\/h3>\n

For many, their most recent use of metadata will be when they last sent an email. This is because emails use a header populated with metadata (e.g., sender, receiver, timestamp) to enable their delivery.<\/p>\n

In addition, all of the technical documents produced as part of a project or to undergo maintenance work are rife with metadata. Put simply, anything found within a title block or a document\u2019s header or footer has metadata. For example, a drawing (data) will have a title (data about that drawing) and a date of issue (data about that drawing).<\/p>\n

Thankfully, support is available to those who wish to make the most of their metadata.<\/p>\n

For technical document metadata, there is ISO 7200<\/a> (Data fields in title blocks and document headers). This standard specifies the mandatory and optional data fields for title blocks and document headers. In doing so, it provides a consistent name for each field, as well as its recommended character length.<\/p>\n

In addition, the standard provides some example title blocks which conform to the provisions of the standard and work well with ISO 5457<\/a> (Sizes and layout of drawing sheets).<\/p>\n

Example mandatory fields include Legal Owner; Identification Number; Date of issue; and Title. Example optional fields include Revision index, Document status, and Language code.<\/p>\n

As such, ISO 7200<\/a> provides a useful set of fields for an organisation, such as an architectural design practice, to create metadata-enriched technical documents.<\/p>\n

Using metadata will improve an organisation\u2019s discovery, use, and management<\/h3>\n

Regardless of an organisation\u2019s digital maturity, using consistent metadata on documents will improve their discovery, use and management.<\/p>\n

For more mature organisations, there is EN 82045-2<\/a> (Metadata elements and information reference model). While the EN 82045 series focuses on document management more generally, Part 2 focuses on metadata in a manner which makes it machine-readable through its application of an EXPRESS-based information reference model.<\/p>\n

In doing so, EN 82045-2<\/a> has taken metadata from ISO 7200<\/a> (and other standards) and has identified for each element:<\/p>\n