Manufacturer product data and standards

Su Butcher who runs the Just Practicing consultancy - https://www.justpractising.com/ - is currently working with the IET to look at how manufacturers can digital structure their product information.

The following report was published and the request for feedback made.

https://communities.theiet.org/blogs/948/6996

I dropped an email through to Su and also had a quick web meeting to discuss ideas. She mentioned that I should share my thoughts, so here we go...

A. The general principles

I think there is no doubt that the construction industry needs to do more in terms of adopting digital. So any discussions that are out there encouraging this are good discussions to have.

You only need to look at websites like RightMove or AutoTrader to see how much easier it is sourcing house or car information if you can digitalise and move into the cloud. Equally, where data structures can be openly agreed then even greater efficiencies are possible. Search for cinema times on Google or Microsoft Bing for example to see the data results being fed immediately back from different commercial outlets.

There is no doubt, we need to start harnessing the power of digital more across construction.

B. Declaring performance and third party certification

I thought the report itself could have been a little clearer with respect to third party certification. It sometimes talked about certifying physical product characteristics and at other times it was looking at certifying data structures. Looking at physical characteristics first, there are broadly three steps here when describing a product.

How secure is this door?

(Quick example picked - so apologies if this isn't technical perfect, it's just to illustrate principles)

1. Marketing information
   Example: The ABC Security Doorset meets all of your security needs!
   
   
2. Self declaration against national/international standards
   Example: The strength and durability of the ABC Security Doorset is Class 3-4 to BS EN 1192.
   (CE Marks are examples of this)
   
   
3. Third party certification against national/international standards
   Example: The BRE Redbook LPS test certificate confirms that the strength and durability of the ABC Security Doorset is Class 3-4 to BS EN 1192.
   

Certifying digital data structures is a different thing. The BS EN ISO 23386 and 23387 standards do a great job of explaining the framework that should be followed to actually digitally model product information such as the information above.

It covers concepts such as the property 'strength and durability' should have a link to the standard that defines the testing method (say BS EN 1192). Then what the property value is as a measure and a unit or whether there is a defined enumerated list of values etc... 

An interesting side topic here is whether the same physical door has the same digital information in different countries. In the above example, in France or Germany the data may simply be a translation of languages (as the standard is a BS EN). This is great as a manufacturer can get a product tested once, declare the information and sell into many countries.

But in Australia, the standards defining doors are different, so the the information could be Security classification G0, G1, G2 to AS/NZ 2343. So the same concept of 'security' - but completely different terminology and measurement rules. So that same physical door would have different digital data. The doors coming out of the factory heading for Australia would be stamped with different information and any landing page on the web would show country specific info.

The report pulled together by Su looks at whether there will be third party certification for the digital structures to the 23386/23387 framework. It's certainly an interesting topic.

C. Agreeing on digital structures and file formats

Finally, the report looks at whether manufacturers require further support from industry bodies who could manage a governance process to develop templates to assist manufacturers to produce standardized information. Do the research once and then share with the industry.

There have been a number of initiatives over the years (the first I remember was hearing about the buildingSMART DataDictionary project back almost 20 years ago) - there have been others to - to try and do something similar. Looking in at these initiatives there always seems to be tension between developing a commercial model to run and maintain the services and keep it current or whether it is government funded and largely run by expert volunteers.

As one person said at today's review meeting, 'the market will decide where this all goes'. I think that is right - digital is not going away!

But certainly good to keep the conversation going.

For those interested to see a little more what we are doing in this field at NBS, please read the following article:

- https://manufacturers.thenbs.com/resources/knowledge/nbs-source-and-industry-standards