BIM Uses were developed through a consensus effort by a committee made up of BIM experts from multiple disciplines and market sectors. The committee worked to identify the unique reasons why BIM is implemented through the life of projects and facilities.

The development included gathering BIM Uses from existing versions of NBIMS and other sources. Each BIM Use was discussed within the BIM Use Definition Workgroup and evaluated for any necessary revisions to align with current industry practices. The workgroup included a standardized, structured approach to develop BIM Uses, which provides flexibility to create or document additional BIM Uses consistent with the national standard. While the BIM Use Definitions are not intended to describe means and methods, necessary components of the BIM Use have been identified (i.e., prerequisites, input, output, etc.).

Additional considerations of the BIM Use Definition Workgroup included:

• Conducting a detailed review of BIM Uses from existing resources referenced above, engaged sound scholarly research and user interviews/surveys to identify additional BIM Uses that are candidates for inclusion.
• Evaluated the list of BIM Uses for inclusion in primary list of BIM Uses based on:
  • Is this BIM Use Widely Adopted?
  • Is this BIM Use Essential to successfully adopting BIM on a project?
  • Is this BIM Use a part of another BIM Use?
  • Has the technology and/or processes facilitating this BIM Use matured beyond the research and development or piloting phase?
  • Is this BIM Use representative of all phases and market sectors rather than only specific to one?
• Created a framework for BIM Uses including:
  • Identifying the necessary attributes of a BIM Use.
  • Creating a naming convention for a BIM Use beginning with a verb.
• Consolidated and expanded upon BIM Uses based on similar purposes which greatly reduced the number of BIM Uses because the traditional list included elements such as Phase, Level of Development, or Key Stakeholder.
  • Consolidating terms that use different technology to achieve the same purpose.
  • Consolidating terms that identified different Levels of Development (LOD) or project phases. While a BIM Use may apply to a single phase of a project, the goal of the BIM Use could also be achieved over multiple phases.
  • Consolidating terms that used different party or stakeholders.
• Reviewed of preliminary BIM Uses by outside experts and industry practitioners.