ABSTRACT
Building product information is still mostly distributed, heterogeneous, unstructured, with inconsistent semantics and communicated using low technology means. Over the last decade, there has been little progress towards change. Architecture, Engineering and Construction (AEC) practitioners still face challenges when searching and acquiring necessary information and re-using it in their ICT tools. Whilst manufacturer information is more focused on trade and business processes, the demand for precision technical data by designers and engineers is continually growing with more mature and complex standards and ICT tools used in energy performance analysis, Life-Cycle Cost (LCC), Life-Cycle Assessment (LCA) and BIM processes. The majority of product manufacturers are small, regional companies, many with limited ICT capabilities and resources to keep up with this growing demand. In this paper we report on an enhanced approach to provide standard structured building product information with consistent semantics across multidisciplinary processes. The approach is based on Linked Data technologies.
