BIMReL: The Interoperable BIM Library for Construction Products Data Sharing

BIMReL is an online platform for construction industry operators (primarilymanufacturers, but also designers, construction companies, facilitymanagers, trade associations and owners) because it allows using and sharing all the technical and commercial data of construction products. Moreover, it helps collecting and exchanging data about performances, durability and environmental indicators in a simple and user-friendly way. The creation of such a tool became necessary because, despite many interesting developments in Information and Communication Technologies (ICT), the data exchange along the building process is hardly efficient and still mainly based on a transmission of paper documents, on a plurality of classification systems, as well as on a use of different criteria and practices. The lack of a common structure for data storage involves different inefficiencies and it also may affect such essential aspects for users as comfort, safety, health, energy saving and environmental sustainability. Inefficiency means a waste of time (and therefore a waste of money) because it often may cause complicated variations during the construction stage or misunderstandings, which may lead to legal disputes. Therefore, BIMReL has been developed in order to provide a new digital tool for sharing product data in a BIM environment and such as to enable the user to choose the most proper product but also to easily retrieve all useful information during its use, its maintenance or its disposal.