The importance of organizing users

Since 2005 buildingSMART has certified software. The certification is meant as the organizations objective guarantee for functionality. But what are the criteria for being certified? Today the main criterion for certification is the Coordination View. The Coordination View targets the coordination between the architectural, mechanical and structural engineering tasks during the design phase.

The Coordination View certification has improved interoperability substantially and it will be further improved by the second version. That being said, it does not cover special need for functionality. It focuses on import and export to/from modeling software. It will not certify if a tool for cost estimate or clash detection improves efficiency and quality in the value chain. It is only the end-user, who knows the business, that can define the real needs for functionality.

This is why the International User Group (IUG) is working to establish an organization of users on both regional and international level. The national/regional user groups define the needs and the IUG then communicates needs to ITM/ISG for implementation of functionality in software.