Process-based information exchanges mapping for energy efficient retrofit projects

Access and exchange of building information in a timely and standard manner between construction project teams and applications during design and construction plays a major role in assuring efficient building energy simulation during retrofitting. Yet, in spite of several efforts in major technological developments in information management, building data and information remains highly fragmented and frequently inaccessible to project teams. This paper presents a table for categorization of information exchanges items and illustrates their dependencies between internal process activities, and between activities of different processes. The paper uses the HVAC design process as a baseline to map-out the information input-and-output relationships of various activities and shows how an information item produced by an activity is consumed by another, thus creating information exchanges dependency. The table can serve as a reference point for project teams and for software developers to understand interoperability requirements of process activities and applications. It will also be beneficial to analyze impact of changes as change to an information exchanges item can impact on other activities where it is required as an input. The paper concludes by formulating a roadmap to utilize the table in order to support development of Information Delivery Manual (IDM) and other information exchanges initiatives.