The FaBIM research project aims to develop and implement a holistic approach to the planning, construction and operation of factories through the use of Building Information Modeling (BIM). The BIM methodology is already used in various ways in the construction industry, but has not yet been researched much in the context of factory planning. The focus of the project is therefore on the development of an Open BIM-based factory planning system that enables the integration of production systems and buildings. The early collaboration and coordination of the two specialist domains enables planning errors to be identified and corrected at an early stage. Interactions such as those between the supporting structure, the media supply and legal requirements (e.g. escape route lengths) can be repeatedly compared and checked for consistency during the planning process. This optimizes processes, ensures improved data management over the entire life cycle of a factory and increases scheduling and cost certainty.

The background to the project is the fact that around 5,820 factory and workshop buildings requiring approval are completed in Germany every year with a total volume of 4.72 billion euros. Around 60% of these projects miss their cost targets by around 10%, resulting in additional costs of around 283 million euros per year. FaBIM aims to close this gap through improved project organization and technical innovations.

In the area of ​​scientific innovations, the project includes several central elements. These include the development of BIM-specific use cases for factory planning, the analysis of roles and tasks, and the creation of process diagrams that show the interfaces between the various planning participants in the building and factory planning context. In addition, an Information Delivery Manual (IDM) is being developed to standardize data delivery and use. Furthermore, a comprehensive attribute database is being created that contains all relevant planning data and supports the use of Industry Foundation Classes (IFC) for structured data modeling and exchange. Another important element is the development of a Common Data Environment (CDE) for efficient data management over the entire life cycle of the factory.

On a technical level, the project includes several innovations, including the use of an advanced CDE based on BIM Level 3. BIM Level 3 covers the entire life cycle of a building, from early planning to maintenance and dismantling, all phases are supported and managed by the BIM model. The project relies on a fully integrated and collaborative data environment that enables seamless collaboration between all disciplines and stakeholders in order to maximize the efficiency and quality of the project. Other key aspects are the creation of a digital twin of the building and its components and the optimization of the relocation logistics of existing factory buildings through laser scanning and digitization. In addition, a closed-loop approach is being investigated in which data from the digital twin is fed back into the BIM model and used to optimize operations and for further (re)planning phases of the factory building.

To validate the results, various tests are carried out on a parallel modeled BIM model of a battery cell factory. In conjunction with the information exchange requirements developed, test rules are developed in collaboration with the Building Information Cloud GLWG GmbH. In the first step, the LOI check is used to automatically check whether all the required information is present in the respective sub-models. The quality check is then used to automatically check whether the alphanumeric information in the building planning and factory planning model is consistent. For example, the required media connections of the equipment from the production system planning are compared with the planned media connections from the building planning.

The project is supported by a consortium with 5 partners from different specialist areas, including Building Information Management GLW GmbH (BIM consulting & BIM management), ifp Consulting (factory planning consulting), CONTACT Software (product lifecycle management & IoT), Kohlbecker Gesamtplan GmbH (general planning), and Fraunhofer IGCV (factory planning). Multipliers such as buildingSMART Germany, VDI and the Industrial Internet Consortium support the dissemination of the project results.

The FaBIM project runs from September 2022 to August 2025 and has a budget of 1.9 million euros. By combining scientific and technical innovations, the project aims to realize an efficient and cost-effective approach to factory planning. In the long term, this should help reduce project costs and increase the planning and construction quality of factory buildings in Germany.

The project qualifies for the special prize “Digital Cooperation/Open BIM” because the project works exclusively with the IFC file format and a common data environment (CDE) is designed for factory planning. In addition, information exchange requirements (IAA) are defined as part of the project and then compared with the openBIM data format IFC. It is to be expected that not all relevant information for holistic factory planning can be transported via IFC. Missing information classes are identified and communicated to the IFC standardization organization buildingSMART in order to be able to further develop the open data exchange format accordingly.