When it comes to working out details for the National BIM Standard – United States Version 4, figuring out how it easily can be applied in contracts has become a bit of a mantra.

“NBIMS has always had different chapters,” said John Messner, Chair of the U.S. National BIM Standard and professor in the Department of Architectural Engineering at Penn State, during the BIM Council’s semi-annual meeting on June 9. “You’ll see parts of NBIMS v4 coming out this year. But it’ll be much more modular … clear, concise and shovel-ready, so it can be implemented.”

Computer scientist Andrew Tanenbaum has said: “The good thing about standards is that there are so many to choose from.”

For better or worse, Tanenbaum’s quote ties into a project of the National Institute of Building Sciences buildingSMART alliance (bSa), which aims to update the National Building Information Modeling (BIM) Standard for the built environment.

The National BIM Standard (NBIMS) is updating its BIM Execution Planning (BEP), BIM Use Definitions (BUD), COBie, and Core BIM Requirements (CBR) content for the AECOO industry through four workgroups. To do this work, we want to draw upon the best of the industry.

Since 2011, there have been a lot of changes in the industry. For this NBIMS effort, we are looking for the best examples of contract language, BIM execution plans, and industry templates.