Blog:
Embracing the future – Information Management trends in 2024

• Compliance

With the introduction of the Building Safety Act, there was a flurry of activity for the 1 October 2023 deadline. We expect to see something similar with the upcoming 1 April 2024 deadline. As the industry navigates the new legislation, we will see a higher priority placed on the golden thread of information. In particular, how this can be captured, accessed and disseminated. Combining specialist building and fire safety consulting services with a data-driven Common Data Environment (CDE) platform will allow businesses to build robust safety cases to demonstrate compliance. It will also provide assurance on the providence, quality and completeness of project and asset information on high risk buildings.

• Security

With a focus on digitalisation, information and cyber security continues to be a primary concern. More companies require their data to be heavily encrypted and flexible for integrations and collaboration. This will add further demands for flexible deployment on client hosting platforms or on-premise hardware. Additionally, ‘in-country’ data sovereign demands (the governments in the UK and Kingdom of Saudi Arabia are already following this principle). We also anticipate cyber security professionals to demand more granular permissions that enable individual organisations to work on their discipline or trade data, but restrict their ability to federate this (after all, the whole is greater than the sum of the parts!)

Through our work with the Defence Infrastructure Organisation (DIO), we have developed the gliderbim® platform to meet their stringent security requirements.

We’ve invested heavily in developing a highly secure platform. As well as being ISO 27001 certified, we are CyberEssentials+ and MoD CyDR certified. These standards meet the UK data sovereign requirements for projects up to the classification of ‘Official-Sensitive’. This means that Major Programmes and Projects (MPP), Future Defence Infrastructure Services (FDIS) contractors and other related supply chains can be confident that, when working with Glider, their data is in safe hands.

• Back to basics

As more of the built environment gets digitised, there will be a shift to open and interoperable data exchange formats (e.g. IFC and COBie). This includes a more stringent focus on the quality of information being captured is fit-for-purpose for operation. For complex construction projects, the collation of data for operation and maintenance (O&M), building safety compliance and other statutory deliverables can be improved. When the data is validated at the point of entry against the clients information requirements to ensure it can be exploited and connected to downstream operational systems e.g. CaFM and property management platforms.

This enables a smooth transition at practical completion for operation teams running the building. However, by engaging the asset owner or operational team earlier in the construction project to identify their information requirements, the data can be structured and captured accordingly. We are seeing this soft landings approach happening more on complex projects successfully so we hope this continues into 2024.

Check out how Kier did this and achieved 100% compliance at handover for HMP Five Wells. View Video

• Digital twins

Digital twins are no longer just a concept for the built environment. External factors like rising utility bills, Net Zero measures, hybrid working patterns are all putting extra demands on how the spaces we occupy and use works for us and the wider society. In support of this, we’ve been working with a range of clients to help them achieve their information management goals to lay the foundations and enabling framework for digital twins, providing data-driven insights of actual utilisation and energy consumption and allowing interventions to be made accordingly. This journey starts with good structured data and an information management strategy. Underpinned by an Asset Information Model Common Data Environment (AIM CDE), these will ensure that data about spatial arrangements and maintainable assets from design and construction can be aligned to time-series data from building management systems and sensor networks.

As the industry continues to adopt information management technologies and digitise the built environment, we expect to see much more demand for digital twins linked to specific use cases and outcomes.

We’re looking forward to sharing more about some of the exciting projects we’ve been involved with very soon.

• AI & ML: Embracing new technologies

Artificial Intelligence (AI) and Machine Learning (ML) will begin to play a more pivotal role in the curation and operation of the digital and real-world built environment. In the last twelve months we’ve seen the impact ChatGPT has had in the short time that it’s been around. We anticipate we will start to see more AI-powered systems helping the industry. From an information management perspective supporting, some of the heavy lifting around legacy data and document discoverability, indexing and automated validation for compliance purposes. These will help to streamline processes and bolster data security and regulatory adherence. Any advancements in these areas will be very welcome.

Spoiler alert! Over the last 12 months our team has been exploring the potential of these technologies and we will have some exciting new functionality being released in 2024.

We’re excited to discover more emerging technologies in 2024 and see how they will be adopted by the industry.