Government plans to mandate the “Soft Landings” handover protocol across all central government projects by 2016 – to be closely aligned with the planned BIM roll-out – will be on the agenda at a CIOB Facilities Management conference on November 27.
The Cabinet Office is understood to be on the point of announcing that “Government Soft Landings” will form part of the public sector procurement process from 2016.
The process is likely to be tied in to the Construction to Operations Building Information Exchange (COBie), the data management protocol that forms a key part of the government’s plans to achieve Level 2 BIM from 2016.
The expected move marks a closer link between the government’s Soft Landings team and the BIM Implementation Group, both part of the Cabinet Office.
GSL will also draw on the Soft Landings framework, published by BSRIA and the Usable Buildings Trust in 2009, as a guide to how project teams should stay engaged after practical completion – hand-holding the client during the first months of operation to fine-tune the building.
John Eynon FCIOB, an independent BIM and design management consultant, and one of the speakers at “Soft Landings – Delivering Buildings that Work from Day One” said the move to align Soft Landings with BIM made good sense.
“Public sector procurement will be driven by COBie outputs. In other words, the long-term view is that any public sector procuring agency becomes an intelligent buyer of asset management data, managed through COBie.
“COBie helps public sector managers identify their requirements at briefing, design, construction, completion and aftercare stages, and Soft Landings helps achieve a smooth handover and commissioning process. Together, they will form an integrated system for asset management.”
As with BIM, it’s thought likely that government will set out its expectations on GSL, without specifying exactly how the industry should deliver them. But Eynon said he thought main contractors would be ideally placed to develop GSL.
“The great stumbling block for loads of people is doing a great job to get the project finished, then seeing it messed up when the client doesn’t get good aftercare. So a really good handover process – like Soft Landings – gives you a happy client and repeat business.”
Eddie Tuttle, policy manager at the CIOB, welcomed the news. “Government’s intentions are clear. We’ve been discussing this with the Cabinet Office and the BIM Implementation Group, because the closer we work with government on what they’re doing, the more it helps us with what we’re doing [on membership and training].”
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The Government Soft Landings Policy is now on the BIM Task Group website:
http://www.bimtaskgroup.org/gsl-policy/
I strongly suggest that you download Soft Landings Framework (BG / 2009) for free from the BSRIA webite. You will then find that it starts at project Inception and goes through a series of Post Occupancy Evaluation over at least 3 years of Aftercare.
It is not a question of a patronising ‘holding the client’s hand’, but living up to the responsibility that just about every other industry has of an “after sales service”. Does a maker of airliners forget about them once sold? No, they work constantly alongside the airlines to maintain their airworthiness. What do I do if my dishwasher or vacuum cleaner has fault? I call the manufacturer to send mechanic to repair it.
COBie is just a series of downloads from BIM software. And those are Excel spreadsheets. As Paul Morrel has explained, BIM is a process, not just software. Its role is to enable much better communication and decision making within the integrated project team from client, through FM manager and construction manager, right down to the end of the supply chain
BIM is there to enable collaboration under Soft Landings. Leading companies and, probably, some public sector clients are already implementing BIM and Soft Landings.
Finally, unlike software, there is currently only one Soft Landings and that is the one on the BSRIA website. GSL will be based on that, be essentially it will be a process, not a choice of software. All this information is easily available from websites.
I would like to question the title of the event “Soft Landings – Delivering Buildings that Work from Day One” . A key aim of Soft Landings is to work towards a graduated handover of buildings rather than day one completion mindset. Due to the increasing complexity of buildings the point of optimisation of these buildings is often 1- 2-3 years after PC.