Preface
Christophe CASTAING1,2,3
1 buildingSMART International, Paris, France
2 Groupe Egis, Paris, France
3 Projet MINnD, Paris, France
In memory of Richard Petrie Chief Executive Officer of buildingSmart International
P.1. The history behind this volume
This BIM volume of the encyclopedia “SCIENCES” has a history. It was largely written by editors working in academics and the field of construction, under the framework of the national project1 MINnD (Modeling Interoperable Information for Sustainable Infrastructure2). The approach transcribed here is based on an expression of needs, linked to the practice of concurrent engineering in infrastructure contracts for large road, rail or industrial infrastructures, developed initially in the COMMUNIC research project (2007–2011) funded by ANR.
We can summarize the needs resulting from this practice of concurrent engineering as constituted around the search for gains:
- productivity in data exchanges between the various parties involved, beyond the constraints imposed by the traditional organization of contracts;
- productivity in the validation processes of deliverables at each stage of the lifecycle;
- in the verification of the performance achieved, given the growing importance of requirements, particularly in the environmental field.
It should be noted that the identification of these needs was accompanied by the observation that the software industry evolution did not offer the corresponding technical answers. In particular, it ...