11-01-2021
Part 1: Course BSI Training Academy
In this blog series I try to explain how VAN AKEN was the first architectural firm in the European Union has received a KitemarkTM certificate for BIM Level 2 in accordance with the ISO 19650. I will describe our findings during our route to a KitemarkTM certificate and hopefully encourage multiple agencies to follow us in obtaining a KitemarkTM certificate for BIM Level 2 according to ISO 19650.
As most people already know, the BIM standard ISO 19650 part 1 and 2 was launched at the end of 2018. Of course we at VAN AKEN were interested and we fairly quickly purchased both ISO standards.
Then, on the BIM practice day 2019, I got in touch with BSI who, not entirely inadvertently, had a booth on the information market. Our conversation was mainly about the added value of this standard for our company, which is usually the first consideration in new developments. That is where BSI drew my attention to the possibility of a training on the new ISO 19650-1 and ISO 19650-2, which in May 2019 would be given for the first time in the Netherlands. I had read and studied both ISO standards, however an additional course to better understand exact processes seemed to make sense. After internal consultation it was therefore decided that our office manager, Martijn Govaarts, and I would follow this 3-day course, then we would see if we would continue with this.
The course turned out to be held at the Mercure hotel Amsterdam West, where you could book an overnight stay at the same time. Certainly worthwhile for us as an Eindhoven architectural firm not to have to travel back and forth to Amsterdam for 3 days in a row (and also risk the chance of arriving late due to traffic jams).
The course was divided into 2 parts: “BIM Fundamentals Training Course” and “BIM ISO 19650-2: Project Delivery Training Course”. The BIM Fundamentals took 2 days and the Project Delivery 1 day.
During this course it turned out that our English course leader had contributed to the drafting of this new BIM standard, so we could ask him all background information. The other students did not only come from the Netherlands (which we ourselves had expected), but there were also students from Belgium and Finland. The fields of work were also diverse, there were contractors, BIM consultants and even people from BSI itself.
If you have ever read an ISO standard (which is also in English) then you know that it is always good to know the rationale behind some of the paragraphs. The first 2 days mainly focused on the technical knowledge of the standard, and the last day was more focused on its application to a project. It was therefore quite long days, but luckily we were not the only students who stayed overnight at the location. This allowed us to chat in the evening during and after dinner about the material learned and other BIM matters that kept us busy.
This course, which is an official course of the BSI Training Academy, has given us a better understanding of the new BIM standard and we therefore recommend it to everyone. For us, this course was the real starting point on the route to a KitemarkTM certification.
For more information, please contact me: bart.jeurissen@vanaken-cae.nl
