Digital Built Environment Conference

Twenty years ago the notion of having someone from the communications portfolio speak at a conference about the built environment would have been rather mystifying.

Of course, twenty years ago the concept of having a conference about the digital built environment would have been equally mystifying.

But the work going on in the property and construction sectors mirrors what is happening in every sector of the economy. 

The combined effect of ever increasing computer processing power; the capture and storage of more and more data, much of it from sensors; and communications technologies which allow you to access data wherever you are – means that in every field of human endeavour we are discovering, almost daily, unexpected new ways to operate more efficiently and productively.

In your sector, the use of Building Information Modelling reflects these factors – and is growing very rapidly.

It is a good example of one of the most talked about trends of our time: “big data.”

Today I want to talk firstly about how this fits with the government’s directions in big data and open data.

Next I want to look at whether we can capture the same benefits when data is held privately – rather than by government.

Thirdly, I will touch on how the Virtual Australia & New Zealand Initiative is a case study of the benefits we can get from the imaginative use of data.  

Government agenda on Open Data and Big Data

Let me turn firstly then to the importance of big data and open data – and the government’s approach in these areas.

I want to quote from a report issued recently by economist Nicholas Gruen of Lateral Economics:

The more data is opened, the more it can be used, reused, repurposed and built on – in combination with other data – for everyone’s benefit. As our economy and society become more knowledge-based, data are core assets, creating value in their own right and driving social and economic innovation, growth and development.[1]

According to Gruen an open data approach could increase Australia’s GDP by $16 billion a year, and increase output across all of the G20 economies by around US$13 trillion over the next five years – or a 1.1% per year increase in GDP. [2]

His report offered some telling case studies. 

The WA government is using smart sensors in its road network to collect data on traffic flows. The data is fed into software which optimises movements across the network, increasing the throughput on the existing roads and hence deferring or avoiding the very large capital cost of building new roads or lanes to increase capacity. 

In the UK, the Roadworks.org website publishes data on roadworks nationally, drawn from the data sources of over 140 relevant authorities. This information is used by motorists to plan their trips and avoid delays.[3]

In a similar vein, PWC last week issued a report which estimated that data-driven innovation added $67 billion or 4.4% of GDP to the economy in 2013.[4]  According to PWC, the construction sector was responsible for $4.3 billion of that economic value added.

But of course before you can innovate with data you need access to the data.  A lot of data is held by government.  So a big question for government is how to make that data more freely available. 

If we can, we can expect benefits to flow.

Once the data is available, smart people will find ways to use it, to develop apps to make it accessible, and in turn to generate value from it.

.In other words, by government embracing ‘open data’, lots of people will find a way to take a ‘big data’ approach to it.

A good example of this principle is the TripView app - which uses data from Transport for NSW to give you as a user real time bus and train information on your mobile device.  I find that when I I am in my office in Lindfield wondering when I need to leave to catch the next train into the city – this app is extremely useful.

For the Abbott government, a key principle is that data sets should be made publicly available in an accessible format – of course taking proper account of privacy and security.

Since the election, more than 3,000 new datasets have been released online - a seven-fold increase in the amount of data available.  If you want to have a look, you can go to data.gov.au, the primary portal site for Government online information.

In coming months more high-value datasets will be opened up, and we are encouraging all agencies which hold useful information to examine their current data policies with a view to becoming more flexible and accessible where they can.

In a whole range of areas we think this data has the potential to underpin useful new applications – in categories such as Geocoded Addressing, Government Accountability, Finance, Energy and Infrastructure.

There are some basic requirements when you provide the data: it has to be easy to access; machine-readable; and able to be integrated with existing technologies.

To achieve this, government is building an open data network which uses machine to machine links.   

This draws on policy work – to coordinate and standardise the various Government data infrastructures.

It also involves technical work – to establish automated harvesting directly from the  ICT infrastructure of individual departments and agencies.

The Network provides centralised catalogue search and display layers.  This means departments and agencies can focus on data release and quality over building additional presentation platforms.

Using this approach of machine-to-machine networked infrastructures, 2,300 additional datasets were added to data.gov.au in January this year from only one additional Government agency.

Commonwealth bodies currently preparing to release data include the Departments of Environment, Human Services (DHS), Agriculture, the Australian Bureau of Statistics (ABS) and the Bureau of Meteorology (BoM).

Of course other levels of governments also hold a lot of data – so I am pleased to see representatives from a range of state government departments here today.  

Pleasingly, most state and territory governments have now published open data policies.

The Department of Communications will be holding a review into legislative, cost, cultural and administrative barriers to releasing data. This review will provide a list of recommendations to progress more efficient sharing of data within government as well as with the public.

The government is also aiming to bring the ‘International Open Data 500’ to Australia this year.  This is a public/private research program designed to generate new business opportunities harnessing open data.

CSIRO & NICTA Initiatives using open data

One of the key areas of activity within government is spatial and geographic data – and there is an obvious crossover with the work VANZI is doing.

One example is the CSIRO’s work with the AuScope National Infrastructure Program for exploration of minerals opportunities. The program developed the ‘Spatial Information Services Stack’ (SISS), which enables integrated access to the various datasets of Australian Geological Surveys.  

It is a good example of the public and private benefits from better utilisation of data.  The project allows exploration companies to bring forward new mineral resource discoveries, with clear benefits for new investments and productivity in the sector. In addition, the cost savings associated with AuScope, through a more targeted exploration effort, are estimated to be around $35 million per year.

Another example is the NICTA’s ‘NationalMap’ project. The map gives users access to a single platform for Government geospatial datasets, including those from the Bureau of Meteorology, the Australian Bureau of Statistics and data.gov.au.

In its first week in operation the website had over 7,000 users explore and download the hundreds of datasets that were made available. The next step for the NationalMap will be improved integration with data available from states and territories. We expect data will be available from all levels of government by the end of this year.

The Government worked closely with ANZLIC, the spatial information council, to negotiate the release of data on the authoritative administrative boundaries of Australia.

New layers of data can be added and integrated as they become available.

To take one example, MyBroadband is an existing web-based database of broadband availability and quality around Australia.  This data can now be accessed as part of the NationalMap project. 

So a user can interact with the MyBroadband data in new and innovative ways – for example by overlaying electoral boundaries or comparing broadband speeds to population density. 

Another layer, the ‘Geofabric’, adds a set of spatial datasets showing the surface and hydrology features of Australia such as rivers, water bodies, aquifers and monitoring points.

The work the Australian government is doing is very much in line with international approaches to capitalising on open data.

A number of UK Government agencies have developed their own open data strategies which are available through the data.gov.uk website.

There are 17,800 datasets currently available on data.gov.uk compared to approximately 10,500 available across the nine Australian governments.

In comparison, the US Government has over 108,261 datasets available to the public via its data.gov website.

Last year a group of US government departments and agencies signed a memorandum which committed their agencies to an open data policy to manage information as an asset.

In addition to the open data policy, the US Government created ‘Project Open Data’, an online public collection of code, tools and case studies. It enables the public to share best practices, examples and software code to assist Federal agencies with improving the data it makes available.

Similar principles can apply where data is privately held

I have talked about the benefits which can flow from providing access to data which is publicly owned and held by government.

When it comes to the property sector, much of the interesting data of course is owned privately.  For example, the detailed digital drawings of a building are typically the property of the owner of the building. 

Clearly there can also be very large benefits from improving access to, and utilisation of, data which is privately owned.  But because of the ownership issues involved, the strategy needs to be somewhat different.

A critical issue is the setting of standards – so that where commercial terms can be agreed for access to data, then transactions costs are minimised because the data is made available in an agreed and immediately usable format.

It is encouraging that industry is developing common national Building Information Modelling, or BIM, protocols and guidelines. This means that BIM data can be consistently applied and continuously shared between all parties in a project.

The commercial advantages of wider adoption of BIM are many:

• Digital visualisations can help clients understand design, improve decision making and health and safety;
• variations undertaken during construction can be reduced;
• there can be greater certainty for budget estimates and construction costs; and
• design analysis and construction simulation allow for improved delivery sequencing.

The 2010 Allen Consulting Group Report, ‘Productivity in the Buildings Network: Assessing the impacts of Building Information Models’ drew some very clear conclusions about BIM.

According to the report, accelerated adoption of BIM would make a significant difference to national economic performance; the use of BIM delivers estimated construction sector productivity improvements of 6-9 per cent; and contractors and owners can capture savings of up to 9.2 per cent.

There were similar findings from a recent review of the adoption of BIM in the United States for 32 major projects. The benefits included a 7 per cent reduction in project time; a 40 per cent reduction in unbudgeted changes; and an 80 per cent reduction in the time taken to generate a cost estimate.[5]

Clearly therefore BIM can offer very significant benefits.  And that view has been reinforced by the recent findings of the Productivity Commission, in its report released in July from its Public Infrastructure Inquiry.

The report recommended:

For complex infrastructure projects, government clients should provide concept designs using Building Information Modelling (BIM) to help lower bid costs, and require tender designs to be submitted using BIM to reduce overall costs.

The report also had some clear recommendations about how government could drive the consistent use of BIM in its projects, saying that the federal and state and territory governments should work together to do two specific things:

facilitate the development of a common set of standards and protocols in close consultation with industry, including private sector bodies that undertake similar types of procurement

and

include in their procurement guidelines detailed advice to agencies on the efficient use of BIM.[6]

Now this is a report to government, not a report of government.

The Government – and specifically the Department of Infrastructure and Regional Development – is scheduled to provide a response by the end of this year.

That being said, the Department of Industry has indicated that it sees the promotion and adoption of BIM as something for the construction and property industries to drive through industry processes. 

Certainly, the work that these industries are presently doing to drive the adoption of BIM makes a lot of sense. 

Equally, the notion of steadily creating a ‘Digital Built Environment’ makes a lot of sense, so that there is a digital record of, for example, the CBD of our major cities. 

But clearly there are difficult issues because much of the requisite data is privately owned. 

Consider all of the players involved in a major construction project – many of them large companies.  To create – and make publicly available – a virtual model of the building under construction requires the consent of each of the players – which each owns part of the data that is required for the model.

Not only do the companies involved have their own terms of use dictating how their data is used, these projects have to deal with the laws and regulations of each level of government – local, state and federal. And as these projects often involve digital models which may be designed offshore, international regulations further complicate the data ownership issue.

The VANZI/Digital Built Environment initiative

The Digital Built Environment initiative which VANZI is leading,with the support of buildingSMART Australasia and the Spatial Industries Business Association, aims to overcome these many difficulties.

It aims to be a framework for a fully integrated dataset – based on open standards for information sharing by buildingSMART and others – so users can model the natural and built environment using software of their choice.

The aim is to build a digitised 3D model of the natural and built environment – with the idea of using this model throughout the ‘property cycle’ of planning, design, construction, financing, insurance, management and leasing through to sale and decommission.

It is clear that such a model, if it could be realised, would offer substantial benefits. 

It could help in such tasks as managing transport, energy and water flows – and in responding to emergencies.

With the right inputs and agreements, it would enable the construction and property industries to plan, design, test, and obtain approvals for all new projects in digital versions of cities – to deliver projects in the real world more quickly, at less cost and with reduced risk.

The vision as it has been explained to me goes beyond a digital model of the physical attributes of our built environment, to include information about the legal and construction rights, responsibilities and restrictions – linked to the model itself.

Another idea is that your rights over any individual virtual property included in the model would mirror your rights over the physical property.  So if you were the owner of an office block, you would also have ownership of the digital representation of that office block contained in the model.

If you leased a floor of the building to a tenant, under the lease the tenant would also get access to information about that floor contained in the digital model.

Obviously therefore the model would involve a combination of publicly owned data and privately owned data.   The business model proposed by VANZI is for the privately owned data sets to be held within a ‘data bank.’

There are clearly some complex legal and jurisdictional issues here.

But if these can be overcome, then this could be a good example of the benefits of ‘big data.’

Many of the government spatial datasets are already publicly available, as I have discussed, and could be readily integrated into the model which is built.

For example, a virtual representation of a building could be augmented with information about water flow patterns in the river which the building stands next to.

Conclusion

Let me conclude therefore with the observation that there is enormous potential in many different fields for the use of data to improve productivity and efficiency.

The work which VANZI is doing, towards building a virtual model of the built environment, is a good example of the benefits which big data can potential bring.

Only a few years ago such an approach would not have been technically feasible.  Today it is.

There are some complex issues to work through, particularly because the model needs to include large quantities of privately owned data – data, moreover, which is owned by hundreds of thousands of different parties.

But there are also clearly benefits for all parties in co-operating – in making their data available and in turn having access to the overall model, or at least the relevant parts of the model to which they are granted access rights. 

To me it seems that the signs are good that you will be able to establish a framework in which industry stakeholders are incented to participate.

The drive and imagination with which you are working to capture the benefits of big data in the property and construction sectors is impressive.  I have no doubt that it will deliver significant benefits – and that this conference will be an important milestone in your process of getting this detailed digital model of the built environment operating and accessible.

I look forward to hearing of the continuing success of this important initiative.

[1] Open for Business: How Open Data can help achieve the G20 growth target page i

[2] http://apo.org.au/research/open-business-how-open-data-can-help-achieve-g20-growth-target

[3] Open for Business: How Open Data can help achieve the G20 growth, page 65

[4] PriceWaterhouseCoopers, Deciding with Data: How Data-Driven Innovation is Fuelling Australia’s Economic Growth, www.digitalinnovation.pwc.com.au

[5] Centre for Integrated Facility Engineering 2007, see page 695 of the Productivity Commission, ‘Public infrastructure inquiry report’ (14 July 2014).

[6] Productivity Commission's Report on Public Infrastructure p44 http://www.pc.gov.au/projects/inquiry/infrastructure/report