Common Data Environment : An Overview

As there has been observed a paradigm shift from the traditional practices in construction industry to the digitalization of the whole process with the implementation of Building Information Modelling (BIM), numerous data is generated throughout the project life cycle starting from the conceptual design to planning and the execution of the project. Therefore, a well-structured, automated and user-friendly centralized platform to keep the data, structure it, combining data from different sources, distributing to various stakeholder as per individual requirement is a necessity of the hour. Introduction of Common Data Environment (CDE) makes things simpler for digital collaboration in a BIM based projects. Providing a common digital space to different stakeholders to access the workflow of different processes from designing, modelling, scheduling, cost estimation and quantity estimation, resource allocation and levelling, progress tracking, forecasting etc. enables a consistent source of generating and tracking all the necessary information of the project. The aim of this paper is to provide an overview of the concept of CDE and highlighting its capability from its functions to the challenges in implementation by demonstrating it in a digital software, which integrates the different dimensions of BIM, called BEXEL Manager.