GLOSSARY
The vocabulary of ISO 19650, in plain language
The standard's acronyms come up in every tender and every kick-off meeting. Here is what they mean in practice for an architecture firm, without paraphrasing the normative text.
- ISO 19650Series of international standards
- The international framework for organising and managing information throughout a building's life cycle using BIM. Parts 1 (concepts) and 2 (delivery phase) are the ones that directly concern a firm; part 3 covers operation, part 5 information security.
- Appointing partyPartie désignante
- The actor who commissions the information, usually the client. It writes the requirements (OIR, PIR, EIR) and approves deliverables in the CDE.
- Appointed partyPartie désignée
- The actor who produces information in response to an appointment: the architecture firm, engineering offices, contractors. The "lead appointed party" coordinates the others for a given package.
- OIROrganizational Information Requirements
- Information requirements at the level of the client's organisation: what it needs to manage its estate, independently of any project. OIR feed the AIR and the PIR.
- AIRAsset Information Requirements
- Information requirements for operating and maintaining an asset: the data the client wants to find in the delivered model to manage the building after handover.
- PIRProject Information Requirements
- Information requirements for a given project, derived from the OIR: what the client needs to know at each milestone to make decisions (costs, areas, compliance, schedule).
- EIRExchange Information Requirements
- The contractual document that tells the firm what to deliver, in which format, at which level of information and when. It is the project's data specification.
- BEPBIM Execution Plan
- The design team's response to the EIR. It describes who produces what, with which tools, under which conventions and schedule. A "pre-appointment" BEP accompanies the bid; a detailed BEP is updated during the project.
- CDECommon Data Environment
- The single, structured and traceable space where all project information is stored, shared, approved and archived. It is not only a tool, it is also a process for managing states.
- Information containerConteneur d'information
- Any named, identifiable file or set of information in the CDE: a model, a drawing, a table, a document. The standard requires a unique identifier and a naming convention for each container.
- CDE statesWork in progress · Shared · Published · Archive
- The four states of an information container: work in progress (visible to the team only), shared (made available to other teams for coordination), published (approved by the client) and archived (history retained).
- LOINLevel of Information Need
- The quantity and precision of information (geometric, alphanumeric, documentary) expected for an object at a given time, defined from the need rather than an abstract scale. It gradually replaces the notion of LOD.
- LODLevel of Development / Level of Detail
- A scale (100 to 500) from US practice describing the degree of development of a model element. Still widely used in French EIRs, it is being replaced by LOIN within the ISO 19650 framework.
- PIMProject Information Model
- The set of containers produced during design and construction. At handover, the PIM feeds the AIM.
- AIMAsset Information Model
- The set of information kept for operating and maintaining the building, built from the PIM and the AIR.
- MIDPMaster Information Delivery Plan
- The consolidated schedule of all the project's information deliverables, aggregated from each team's plan (TIDP).
- TIDPTask Information Delivery Plan
- A team's (for example the firm's) information delivery plan: the list of containers it must produce, with owner, format and date, which feeds the MIDP.
- Federated modelMaquette fédérée
- The assembly, without merging, of each discipline's models (architecture, structure, MEP) positioned on the same coordinate system, for coordination and clash detection.
- Clash detectionDétection de collisions
- Automated checking of interferences between elements of several models (a beam running through a duct). Only useful if detection rules are defined and results are sorted, assigned and followed up in coordination meetings.
- IFCIndustry Foundation Classes
- The open, standardised exchange format (ISO 16739) for transferring a model between different software. A clean IFC export requires category mapping, a model view definition (MVD) choice and a check in an independent viewer.
- BCFBIM Collaboration Format
- An open format for exchanging model-related comments (viewpoint, screenshot, elements concerned, owner, status) without exchanging the model itself. It is the natural medium for clash follow-up.
- BIM ManagerRole
- Responsible for the firm's BIM strategy: protocols, templates, tools, upskilling, responding to EIRs. Usually does not model day to day. On a project, the standard rather speaks of the "information manager".
- BIM CoordinatorRole
- Responsible for the consistency of models on a project: federation, clash detection, running coordination meetings, quality control before sharing in the CDE.
- BIM maturityOrganisational notion
- The degree to which a firm's BIM practices are formalised, shared and repeatable from one project to the next, independently of individuals. It is measured on processes (CDE, roles, conventions, training), not on the quality of an isolated model.
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