ASSA ABLOY Project Specification Group says it supports the third ‘Building safety’ report by the Industry Safety Steering Group (ISSG), calling for greater leadership within the industry with more transparent and collaborative ways of working.
The ISSG, chaired by Dame Judith Hackitt, last month produced its third annual report, evaluating the progress made by the built environment industry in response to the Grenfell Tower fire of 2017 in west London.
Brian Sofley, Managing Director of Project Specification Group, pictured, says: “Dame Hackitt and the ISSG are correct in their statement that meaningful, lasting change requires visible leadership and collaboration, with transparency and responsibility central to all decision-making.
“The ‘golden thread’ of information is essential to understand the steps needed to keep buildings and people safe, now and in the future. We should be managing buildings as holistic systems and allowing people to use information to design, construct and operate their buildings safely and effectively.”
Project Specification Group says that Building Information Modelling (BIM) could create greater transparency and produce the ‘golden thread’ of information, allowing building elements such as doorsets to be managed through a single platform – from specification to installation and ongoing inspection.
Brian adds: “BIM applications can help to lock in positive behaviours from the very start of a project and support an increase in trust and confidence that safety is paramount throughout a building’s specification, construction and maintenance. We agree with the ISSG that safety and culture change are everyone’s responsibility, and in order to combat the fragmented landscape we need to implement more collaborative ways of working, and BIM could hold the key to this.”
Project Specification Group recommends the firm’s Openings Studio BIM application, which integrates with design software to create and visualise openings for door, frame and hardware schedules and specifications. The platform enables extraction of door design intent and all relevant interfaces to assist architects and specifiers to seamlessly develop complete door requirements that meet building regulations.
Product information, performance data and budget information are captured within the BIM design. These designs can be validated for compliance, functional performance, and aesthetics, plus presented as 3D views that can be fully re-integrated into the overall project design.
With linked internal systems, ASSA ABLOY use this final schedule of information to manufacture the complete doorset, including the leaf, frame and all specified hardware.
This collaborative tool helps all on a project minimise costs and streamline the data sharing process throughout the project lifecycle – from the initial design, right through to construction, delivery, asset management and beyond, the firm says. An extension to Openings Studio has recently been developed, which offers a mobile app that accesses this data for use during the door installation.
This is for product compliance prior to project completion and compliance of product in service through after sales inspections. The app offers a ‘check box’ system to carry out and capture detailed inspections based on the specific details of each door included in the schedule.
This report validates if a door has remained compliant, or identifies what elements need to be corrected or replaced to return the product to the standard required, providing traceability.
