Public seminar of the Construction Classification International Collaboration (CCIC), an international non-profit organisation, was held in Tallinn in December 2022. CCIC develops and promotes the Construction Classification International (CCI) classification system. There are plans in several European countries to use CCI as part of their respective BIM mandates. The seminar featured speakers from various countries where the CCI classification system is being actively developed and implemented. Although the seminar was held a few months ago, the development in the field of classification systems is not progressing so fast, that the information from the seminar would not be up to date. This article summarizes what the various speakers presented and provides an interesting insight into the situation regarding classification systems and BIM mandates in each country.
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Jaan Saar giving his opening speech at the CCIC
2022 seminar |
Jaan Saar, Chairman of the Board of Trustees of CCIC, opened the seminar with a brief description of the CCI classification system and the reasons why it was created. CCI is based on ISO 81346 tables augmented with some elements of the Danish CCS, while following the ISO 12006-2 standard. CCI was created as a single language to unify communication across all AEC professions and also across borders. In addition, Jaan Saar stressed that the facility management and operations sector is an integral part of the use and focus of CCI. In terms of the use of CCI, it is important that CCIC organization guarantees that any entity can use CCI free of charge, as the tables are licensed under Creative Commons CC BY 4.0 license.
Subsequent contribution from Jaroslav Nechyba presented CCI from a more technical point of view and with a broader description of the reasons why a uniform classification in the construction industry is necessary. Particularly interesting was the answer to the question why to create a new classification system and not use an existing one, such as Uniclass or OmniClass. Mr. Nechyba gave the example of a window that has dozens of classes in the previously mentioned classification systems, whereas in the CCI classification it is one class. This more simple approach enables use of the same class for one element throughout the whole lifecycle process from design, through construction, to facility management and operations without having to change the classification.
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Jaroslav Nechyba at the CCIC seminar |
The next
speaker, Raido Puust from Tallinn University of Technology and The Chair
of the Technical Committee of CCIC, described the current situation of CCI
implementation in Estonia. In Estonia, the requirement of The Ministry of
Economic Affairs and Communications to develop a building classification system
was established in 2018. Over the following years, the CCI-EE system was
developed, using CCI as a basis and extending it with the Estonian data
standard (CCI-EE). Raido Puust then presented two pilot projects. This is an
existing cruise ship terminal where CCI-EE has been tested for cost management.
The second example is the digitalization of the Tallinn University campus,
where CCI-EE will be used in digitization of 15 buildings and will be further
used for facility management and operations.
The
description of the current situation with adaptation of CCI in the Czech
Republic was again taken up by Jaroslav Nechyba. The national BIM
strategy was presented, including CCI and the Data Standard for Buildings
(DSS). Plans for linking CCI to other governmental agendas, such as use within
the Czech Office of Surveying and Cadaster, The Register of Territorial
Identification, Addresses and Real Estate or the Czech Statistical Office and
subsequent use for example for construction management or tax collection, were
also mentioned.
This was followed by a presentation of Elzbieta Wielechowska from Poland, where the situation with the BIM mandate is a bit less advanced compared to the situation in the Czech Republic or Estonia. In Poland, it was only in 2022 that discussions have started with the state apparatus to envision the requirements for a BIM mandate and a working group will be formed in 2023. However, buldingSMART Poland representatives in this group will promote the use of CCI and CCI-PL, which is extended Polish classification system. The Polish colleagues are inspired by neighboring countries where the preparation of digitization of the construction industry is a little further along, such as the Czech Republic.
The presentation by Martin Mišún from BIM Association Slovakia shed light on the situation in this country. The support from the state apparatus here is also not at the same level as in Scandinavia, for example, but the situation is starting to move in the right direction. In 2021 four working groups have been established to work on digital building standards. The Slovak association is working closely with their Czech colleagues with the expectation that CCI will be used as a standard classification system. The translation of the CCI tables into Slovak language was completed last year and the plan is to create a similar website with CCI classification and API interface as in the Czech Republic. A new specialized plugin for classifying elements with CCI classes in Autodesk Revit software, Class Feeder by Arkance Systems CZ, was introduced. CCI tables available in Class Feeder are currently localized in English and Czech languages. The BIM Association Slovakia is planning to create an open API for the Slovak CCI translation database so that similar tools could use Slovak language CCI tables. As a brand new application, Class Feeder will be available free to use until the 30th June 2023. Users can access the Class Feeder application currently for free, just by filling the request form. After June 30th, commercial sales of this application will start.
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| Martin Mišún presents Class Feeder for Revit at the CCIC seminar |
After the
lunch break, the presentation by Gunnar Friborg from Denmark started. The
presentation was very interesting, as Denmark started working on the
requirements for the use of classification systems in the public sector back in
2007 and the author of the presentation was there from the beginning. Thus, in
the framework of the Cuneco project, between 2011 and 2015, they developed a
CCI classification system based on international standards. The development
happened in collaboration with representatives from the public and private
sector. One of the main requirements was for the classification system to work
well in coordination with IFC. Most publicly funded construction projects today
thus require the use of CCI or the Danish version of this system, CCS. CCI/CCS
is adopted in many software solutions and is also used for facility management.
On top of the CCI/CCS classification system, a system of standardized entity
properties called the Molio dictionary has been developed. In the last four
years work has started on the use of CCI in infrastructure projects, where CCI
is now starting to be used on pilot projects in both the public and private sectors,
such as in the design of the Femern tunnel, Denmark's largest infrastructure
project. Gunnar Friborg points out that the implementation of CCI to production
has taken a long time and a long time horizon should not be feared.
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| Gunnar Friborg presents At the CCIC seminar |
The subsequent presentation by Andreas
Persson from Sweden was conceived from the perspective of a property owner
(AB Familjebostäder is the public real estate company owned by the Stockholm
municipality) and generally described the use of the CoClass system for these
purposes. CoClass is a classification system used in Sweden, similar in
structure to CCI.
Jiří
Buneš then
presented experiences with pilot projects from the Czech Republic. He presented
not only the experience with the use of the classification system, but also the
identification part and use of data templates. The first two pilot projects
shown were road construction infrastructure projects, followed by examples from
the building environment. Practical application was shown mainly on the
examples of property management and a renovation project of Prague Airport.
This was followed by a demonstration of the idea of using CCI for construction
management, technical infrastructure construction and urban planning. Jiří
Buneš concluded by emphasizing that currently the deployment of CCI depends
mainly on the personal initiative of individuals. He also added, that companies which have
deployed CCI on pilot projects will continue to use it in the future after
positive experience with the classification system.
A
presentation on the use of CCI in Lithuania was given by Mindaugas
Kiriejevas from The Construction Sector Development Agency and Darius
Pupeikis from Kaunas University of Technology. In Lithuania, BIM mandate is
being prepared for oversized construction contracts (contracts over 5 million
Euro). Furthermore the NSIK, which is the Lithuanian national classification system,
is under development and is based on the CCI. This classification system was
presented by Darius Pupeikis in depth.
At the end
of the day Mindaugas Kiriejevas signed the accession documents and Lithuania
became the fifth member of the CCIC.
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| Mindaugas Kiriejevas signs Lithuania's CCIC accession agreement with Jaan Saar |
It is
evident from the whole seminar that in all concerned countries, the application
of the BIM mandate and consequently the CCI classification system faces the
same challenges and individual countries can learn a lot from each other. The CCI
classification system appears to be a good basis for classification and
subsequent work with data within the requirements of both the public and
private sectors from design, through construction to facility management and
operations. A broader data system is being developed in each country, with CCI as a basic building bloc, whether it is Czech Construction Data Standard (DSS), Estonian CCI-EE, Lithuanian
NSIK, Polish CCI-PL, Estonian CCI-EE or the Danish Molio dictionary. These
systems have different names and are adapted to the needs of different
countries, but the purpose is the same with all of them. The most advanced country
with regards to BIM mandate and classification is obviously Denmark, but
positive developments can be seen in all countries which were presented on the
seminar.
If you are
interested in learning more about CCI and the situation regarding the standardization
of BIM classification systems in different countries, the full seminar was
recorded in the video below.
