The IAI and the Industry Foundation Classes

Originally formed in North America in 1996, there are now 9 Chapters worldwide, each serving the needs of a geographical region. Membership of the IAI has grown to over 650 companies from more than 20 countries. Industry Expectations The aim of IAI is to develop communication and process solutions that meet increasing expectations from the AEC/FM industry. Three key expectations have been identified:

1. Building owners are demanding flexibility and quality in their buildings that stand up to the pressures of their business environments.

2. The life cycle of design and delivery for most products today has decreased from a few years to a few months. The facility, its reconfiguration, and its creation are expected to keep pace.

3. It has been estimated that up to 30% of the cost of a building project is due to the fractured processes and communication of the AEC/FM industry. Building owners demand facilities that are less expensive to construct, maintain, and operate.

Industry Foundation Classes

The key deliverable of the IAI are the Industry Foundation Classes (IFCs). These are defined within the IFC Model which is developed using the EXPRESS data definition language.

IFC Releases

From an initial Release 1.0 in early 1997, IFC development has progressed incrementally in approximately annual releases through Release 1.5 in 1998 and Release 2.0 in 1999. A number of commercial implementations of Release 1.5.1 are now on the market or about to be released including from market leading CAD vendors Autodesk (Architectural Desktop), Graphi-soft (ArchiCAD 6.5) and Nemet-schek (AllPlan) as well as many smaller and non CAD vendors. An implementation of the Release 2.0 model is expected from Visio and a number of other organizations working within the BLIS project. It is anticipated that most vendors will migrate to Release 2.X on its completion with new major vendors expected to include Bentley Systems (Microstation).

IFC Release 2.X

Release 2.X marks the change in the way that IFCs are developed and released. This release of IFCs will create a platform containing classes that provide the framework for the integration of models developed by projects and that provide for the sharing of information between domain areas. Projects will develop models using the platform and will issue models independently as work is completed.

It also marks a change in the software tools used by the IAI Model Support Group to develop and integrate models. Following review of the software products on the market supporting EXPRESS based development, the EPM VisualExpress software was selected as being best suited to IFC development needs.

Using VisualExpress

A key factor in selecting VisualExpress was that it offered an integrated environment in which models could be developed, documented and delivered. Previously, development had been carried out using an EXPRESS-G editor for graphical model development and a custom built repository in which all definitions were specified and from which the deliverable HTML documentation could be generated. VisualExpress offered most of the capabilities that we needed to be able to incorporate development into a single environment. But you can never get everything you want! So it was with in this case. One of the important things we try to do in IFC documentation is to provide detailed usage definitions to eliminate implementation ambiguity. To do this, we often incorporate illustrations. Initially, this was not possible through the software and we were faced with the task of manually editing HTML code to incorporate them. However, when we put this to EPM, they came back to us with a solution that now allows us to embed native HTML code within the descriptive text that accompanies a schema, entity, attribute or rule. OK, we still have to write the code, but the fact that we can include it in descriptions means that we can get 'nearly' final documentation out first time. It may be that we can actually get final documentation, but we haven't got to that point yet so we can't be certain.

VisualExpress also provides us with other benefits. The ability to link schemata, to create long form versions of EXPRESS from short form and the validation of definitions also contributed to our choice of the software.

Future IFC Development

There are many projects in IAI that will be able to take advantage of the capabilities of the Release 2.X Platform. Ranging from architecture, through building services and structural engineering, on to cost estimating and planning, project management and then to maintenance and space management aspects of facilities management, IFCs are pointing the way forward for one of the most traditional and fragmented industries. Added to this are exciting developments in delivering information from product libraries and the importance of work on the IAI Reference Process Model.

Along with our 650 member companies from the industry, EPM is helping us to get there.

For more information about the IFC models contact:

Jeffrey Wix (Release 2.X Product Manager) jeffrey.wix@dial.pipex.com
Thomas Liebich (Model Support Group Leader) liebich@uumail.de
Juha Hyvarinen (Release 3.0 Projects Manager) juha.hyvarinen@vtt.fi
For information about IAI, point your browser to www.iai-international.org