Each project party needs guaranteed long-term access to a complete, consistent and indisputable documentation of facts (“audit-trail”) to be prepared for possible claims and court procedures.
Detailed documentation helps all parties in dispute to clarify legal position and legitimat claims.
This helps to avoid lengthy and expensive court proceedings with uncertain outcome.
How does the demand for complete, consistent and indisputable documentation available to all project parties in the long term coincide with current BIM practice and new developments like CDE, Decentralized CDE, Linked Building Data, Semantic Web technologies ?
CDEs aren’t a new development. They have been around for decades in other industries.
An IFC dataset can be stored in a version control system, such as Git, SVN, Hg, CVS, P4, and so on, and that can achieve out of the box:
Complete, consistent and indisputable full log of changes including what changes were made, when, why, who, and relationships to various other 3rd party documents such as contracts
Digital signatures in line with government-grade cryptography standards via the PGP standard
Digital encryption to ensure access restriction to various parties who have responsibilities over certain things
Support for centralised data management strategies, if required
Support for decentralised data management strategies, if required
Access control listings to allow different people to modify various things
QA procedures to ensure changes are properly reviewed
Integration with robust data archiving and backup procedures
Ability to query the history for legal requirements
You can achieve this now with 100% free software standards which has been used for decades to provide the exact same benefits in the software industry, in the data warehousing and database industry, in the games industry, and in the film and VFX and animation industry.
In fact, the OpeningDesign studio has been using Git with digital encryption to do this already.
There is no need to develop yet another standard, since this is a solved problem. You can get started now, by learning how to use Git, and using it with IFC.
Dion @Moult, you’r totally right, but like always I have a different view
Please please please don’t see things with “PROGRAMMERS” view
The maority of your target users are people who don’t have programming background and “won’t” learn something new, you have to “simplify” processes as much as possible, that even a kid can learn it
This is why today the majority use Revit, Tekla, or similar software, because “maybe they don’t support things well” but are user friendly
UX/UI is really important, even important than the solution and its technology/method
So, you’re right CDE is not a new thing, even in the built environment industry, and even some know that CDE generally wasn’t “successful” before
So, it means that if someone wants build a promising CDE, “SHOULD” think about processes more than anything
People working in the OpeningDesign team are not programmers but are capable of using these standards successfully. There are also very non-technical people at my work who are now able to use Git for their BIM projects. All it takes is a simple UI. I have found that the Github desktop client is extremely simple and takes about 5 minutes to train somebody how to use.
I think what is required is a new Git client with a nicer UI and with presets specific to the AEC industry, as well as using more AEC jargon. The underlying tech can be the same and buildingSMART doesn’t need to spend time reinventing the wheel.
Thx for starting the discussion.
I like the way to use existing solutions instead of reinventing the wheel.
But what about reliability, warranty, guaranteed long-term availability, trustworthiness?
Scenario a) P - A the current standard case without CDE:
Every project party stores its own “truth” as its “personell” audit-trail.
In case of dispute each party of dispute takes that part of its “personell” audit-trail that supports best its position at the court.
In the absence of indisputable documentation we often see battles of subjective pseudo-facts (different “truth”) leading to lengthy and expensive court proceedings.
Scenario b) P - CDE/P - A
A will not trust P to provide complete and neutral audit-trail in case of dispute.
Hence, A will run its “own” shadow audit-trail finnaly leading again to different “truth” presented at court.
Scenario c) similar (mirrored) problem like in Scenario b)
Scenario d)
If CDE/P and CDE/A are synchronized permanently to ensure reliable consistency (single, common truth) then the demand for indisputable documentation is fullfilled.
Legal provision is needed in case of data-loss (e.g. intentional data-loss if data is detrimental for the corresponding party). Who is risk-taker and has burden of proof in case of (intentional) data-loss?
Scenario e)
CDE/N is operated by a neutral trustee. This takes the burden of multiple CDE operaton from the project. Project parties need not run their own CDE. But the neutral trustee is an additional service provider causing additional cost.
The trustee has to warrant in a legally binding way the long-term availability of the complete, consistent and indisputable documentation of facts (“audit-trail”).
Technically, IT provisions like replication on different locations are needed
Commercially, the trustee needs a high level of organizational long-term stability (like public infrastructure operators) @Moult
I am sure that free software can handle the technical requirements.
I am NOT sure if the requirement of organizational long-term stability is fulfilled.