Helping the construction sector make better informed purchasing decisions through improved access to the highest quality technical product information is at the heart of a new partnership announced recently between data classification leaders ETIM International and BuildingSMART.

ETIM’s global standard for classifying technical products will integrate with Building Smart’s Data Dictionary (bSDD) to deliver electro-technical product data that’s synchronized for the digital customer.

The announcement by the two organizations follows.

ETIM International and BuildingSMART International announce collaborative partnership

The recently signed partnership will strengthen the interoperability of open standards throughout the building and infrastructure lifecycle and value chain and improve the broader availability of digital product information.

BRUSSELS / LONDON. During its annual General Assembly in Frankfurt in February 2017, Franz Ernst, President of ETIM International, in the presence of most of the country members of ETIM, signed a MEMORANDUM OF UNDERSTANDING between ETIM International and BuildingSMART International.

Following exploratory meetings between the international offices of both organisations in the second half of 2016, complemented by successful collaboration at local level in the Netherlands and Norway, the two parties agreed on the critical benefits of promoting closer coordination of their respective activities to strengthen open-standard based interoperability throughout the building and infrastructure lifecycle and value chain.

ETIM and bSI will work together on a joint project in respect of the buildingSMART Data Dictionary (bSDD) and ETIM’s product classification standard. In particular this will consider the inclusion of a single representation of the ETIM standard on the bSDD platform taking account of the governance and work flow requirements of both standard systems.

Franz Ernst, President ETIM International, and Richard Petrie, CEO buildingSMART, agree that their respective working standards share the same strategic direction and complement each other perfectly. In particular, ETIM’s new modelling Class version, ETIM MC, has been identified as an area of common interest.

As part of the co-operation, both organisations will ensure that existing versions of their standards are future proofed. All new developments after the release of ETIM 7 (due later this year) will be aligned to the requirements of BuildingSMART’s processes. It is therefore reassuring to know that all existing product data based on ETIM can be used in the long term in increasingly digital processes in the construction sector.