PAS 1192-2: 2012 CIC Liability Panel Comments

The Construction Industry Council (CIC) is the representative forum for professional bodies, research organisations and specialist business associations within the construction industry. It provides a single voice for professionals in all sectors of the built environment through its collective membership of 500,000 individual professionals and 25,000 firms of construction consultants.

These are the comments submitted on behalf of the Liability Panel of the Construction Industry Council. The panel has some 40 members consisting of representatives from CIC’s membership, the legal professions and specialist insurers.

1. While the basic intention of PAS 1192-2 is to function as a compliance document for the delivery of BIM information, it should not be overly prescriptive, set out chains of responsibility or pre-empt what is in the contract between the parties. The tone of the language used (e.g. words such as “shall”, “fit” or “suitable for”) is not always appropriate. It may be better to substitute the word “should” for the word “shall”. It would also be an improvement if the focus was on the roles which are required.

2. There is also a concern that the document pushes for too much certainly in the process at the outset of a project. This is not entirely realistic. For instance the way in which 4.2 Production of Employer’s Information Requirements (EIR) (page 19) is drafted seems to assume a very high clearly defined brief at the start of the project.

3. Many of the documents referred to ( e.g the MDIP - a primary plan setting out when project information is to be prepared, by whom and which protocols and procedures o use, incorporating all relevant MIDIs) , are agreed 'post contract'. It is therefore difficult to see how the contracts will reflect the MDIP duties.

4. A relationship diagram for the various plans mentioned would be a useful addition to the PAS document. How do all the plans mentioned tie in with each other? For instance, by producing the SCIEP after the EIR, there is the risk that the requirements and procurement might not align. Admittedly this is taken care of by the modification/verification step identified here (which is to be welcomed) but it does mean that the EIR and SCIEP are separate documents - i.e. this is not a single evolving document.

5. It would be better if the PAS focussed on a series of standard definitions which contracts could refer to, rather than trying to define relationships and duties The PAS as currently drafted also refers to “ensuring” and “fit for purpose” type obligations in several places, which most consultants would have difficulty with.

6. The document is long and could benefit from some editing. The first paragraph of the Introduction under the heading General Information on Page 7 could be replaced by a simple sentence which states that - “The design process requires a collaborative approach”. Another example is 4.1.5 (page 19). It may be better to redraft this paragraph as “ The employer, or the employer’s representative should include their information requirements in project contracts in such a way as to avoid duplication of responsibilities”.

7. Page 12 of the current draft refers to both Building Information Modelling and Project Information Modelling. This may be a good opportunity to establish the terminology once and for all. Perhaps we should simply refer to “information modelling” .

8. In the section headed Background and Context of PAS 1192-2, page 8 of the May 30 draft 3.7.2, the CIC Scope of Service document is called incorrectly the CIC Scope of Works.

9. The overly prescriptive approach can also be seen in the diagram on page 23 which is not given a title or name in the 30 May 2012 draft but which is known as Figure 4 - The Whole Supply Chain Contributes to the SCIEP, on the May 15th draft of the document. In this diagram the boundary between Contractor and Designer may be at earlier or later stages. Should we differentiate as they are information creators/refiners and providers. The example as currently set out seems to assume a particular procurement arrangement, which we feel must be avoided.

10. One of the elements brought up in discussion of this document was the level of complexity and fragmentation in the current PAS. This is evident particularly in section 6.5 where there seem to be a multiplicity of roles – project delivery manager, project information manager, lead designer, task team manager, task information manager and interface manager. These six roles are mentioned on pages 31 and 32 of the document. Once again this is too prescriptive. There is a risk that as soon as responsibility is divided up, blame and risk are divided and this becomes a non-collaborative model. Would it not be better to have a simple statement such as “teams have to be structured so that there are clear responsibilities for….”? The overall aim must be to move towards producing the simplest procedure that will allow the “information producing” parts of a project to have responsibilities for the interfaces.

11. Some have argued the role of Project Delivery Manager on page 31 might be better described as Project Lead, the rationale being that the role is a leadership one rather than a management one.

12. Some of the issues raised in this PAS are perennial ones such as the issue of - What is approval? For instance in 6.5.4.1 on page 31, there was discussion on the definition of the words “suitable for purpose”. Might it be better to say “authorise for use” with the qualifier that it must be stated what the use is.

13. In 8.7.1 (page 53) there is a need to replace “will not exist” with “may not exist” to cover healthcare ADB briefing databases.

14. In 9.2.2 (page 62) there is a specification for a cloud survey. This is not cheap and potentially may not be the most effective method. This another instance of over-prescription. Why not substitute “could” for “shall”.

15. Some of the discussion on the appendices criticised the Annex B in particular. Rather than a single responsibility matrix, a view was put forward that it might be better to split this into two, one being a role responsibility matrix and the other a component responsibility matrix. A view was also expressed that the appendices in the document could be seen as redundant. For instance, the work done in relation to the BIM protocol – the appendices in the BIM Execution Plan – also cover this area. These two sets of work ought to be in alignment.

16. The present PAS document is to some extent an amalgamation of material and sometimes it is not wholly consistent. For instance, Note 2 on page 10 states that “One of the key level 2 requirements is the exchange standard of COBie and pdf, as well as copies of native files. On 8.1.4 page 40, it states that “Data delivery will include some, any or all of the following data entities, native (product-proprietary) file formats, COBie-UK-2012 and pdf to enable a complete level 2 project”. A big message from a production viewpoint is the need to develop a capability to deliver COBie data drops. The drafting of the PAS document needs to ensure this.

17. The comment has been made that the uniclass numbering system mentioned on page 60 has not been taken up by the industry and much more need to be done to bring the manufacturers on board. There are those who feel that uniclass represents a “designer’s view of the world”.

CIC Liability Panel – BIM Sub-group

22/06/2012