The Construction Innovation Hub’s Platform Design Programme, working in partnership with both government and industry, is developing a platform construction system consisting of a standardised kit of parts that we believe will be able to deliver social infrastructure buildings. Here Alex Luck, Hub Security Manager, explains that by working with potential adopters of the platform approach, we can determine the needs for these buildings and incorporate them in the platform specification and development of the designs.
The value of information, which is managed effectively and shared securely so that the people can make the best decisions, is becoming increasingly well understood and is an important element of the digital ecosystem which makes up part of the platform programme.
The ability to integrate and link of data and information from different sources over the lifetime of products, in isolation and combination, in order to measure greenhouse gas emissions will be a key requirement in building the next generation of buildings that have a net zero footprint.
The use of the Information Management Framework, proposed by the National Digital Twin Programme, is being tested by the Hub to help meet this challenge.
The Information Management Framework (IMF) consists of three technical elements:
- Foundation Data Model (FDM);
- Reference Data Library (RDL); and
- Integration Architecture (IA),
More information about which can be found in the Pathway to an IMF document.
The thin slice of the IMF being built for the platform will be a seed for the FDM that will ultimately need to be developed to be able to link multiple digital twins.
The first steps of this FDM Seed project has been to survey the ontological landscape as well as to examine existing industry data models in order to determine the choice of start point for the FDM and RDL respectively.
The two survey papers are available here:
- A survey of Top-Level Ontologies – To inform the ontological choices for a Foundation Data Model
- A Survey of Industry Data Models and Reference Data Libraries – To identify requirements for, and provide input to a Foundation Data Model
Next steps
The team is now, using the findings of these survey papers, working on developing the top level ontology and initial industry level for the FDM seed.
Alexandra Luck is the Security Manager for the Construction Innovation Hub.
