http://buildingsmartalliance.org/index.php/newsevents/proceedings/buildingsmartchallenge13
Autodesk: 9 minutes to correctBentley: 3.6 hours to correctGraphiSoft: 8 hours to correct
Im afraid, this out-of-context information re. the ‘bSa COBie Challenge 2013’ result is rather misleading and omits a number of important aspects. As this was a ‘challenge’ rather than a ‘competition’, I don’t want to go down the road arguing which company won, but I’d like to clarify:
Format Compliance
Undoubtedly, ‘Format Compliance’ with the COBie requirements of the output is most important for COBie producers (architects & engineers) and especially COBie consumers (facility owners & operators).
The organizer (Engineer Reseach Development Center of the US Army Corps of Engineers) concluded:
‘This company [Bentley] successfully completed the construction COBie challenge by producing the handover COBie file of the Medical Clinic model. No errors were encountered based on the quality control report; therefore no penalty was applied for the data format, delivery of required fields, and proper referencing across the worksheets.’
In fact, AECOsim Building Designer was the only application in the arch/MEP category to score 0 errors based on the quality control report (Autodesk Revit 2013: 1 error) and 0 penalties for the data format, delivery of required fields and proper referencing across the worksheet (Autodesk Revit 2013: 5-minute penalty to correct the error).
Content Quality
The ‘minutes/hours to correct’ mentioned refer to ‘Content Quality’, i.e. the reproduction of the sample model (a 260-room hospital) for the challenge.
By count of Types and Components, Bentley’s model was by far the most complete and data-rich, thus posing a greater potential for data mismatches/penalty minutes. It was also created with a beta version of AECOsim Building Designer, thus penalized issues have been or will be fixed in the final release.
But more importantly, penalty minutes for content quality of the reproduced sample model have little relevance for the compliance with the COBie requirements of the output. Therefore, the conclusion that ‘a user utilizing Bentley software would have to spend 3.6 hours fixing/cleaning the COBie file’ is rather arbitrary and meaningless as it depends on the type of data, size of the model, skill of the user, etc.
AECOsim Building Designer Ss4
Also worth noting is that AECOsim Building Designer Ss4 actually produces the FM Handover IFC file, while Revit does not. This
In addition, AECOsim Building Designer provides an IFC/COBie Transformation Utility that can even transform 3rd party IFC files into COBie spreadsheets.
For additional information, please see my Forum post dated March 15, 2013.
I hope this provides a more complete and balanced assessment of how Bentley did in the ‘bSa COBie Challenge 2013’.
Regards,
Volker