Ireland's BIM Mandate: A Guide to ISO19650 for Design Organizations
Since January 2024, the Irish government introduced BIM requirements for publicly procured projects of €100M and above. The BIM mandate implementation is spread out over a 4 year period with key milestones for the mandate to be entirely adopted across design & construction stages of the Capital Works Management Framework (CWMF). By the end of year 4, projects of €1M category will require BIM enabled processes. 
Project Category Value Milestones Month
100m Milestone 1 – Design Team only Month 0 (Jan 2024)
100m Milestone 2 – Contractor and Supply Chain Month 12
20m Milestone 3 – Design Team only Month 12
20m Milestone 4 – Contractor and Supply Chain Month 18
10m Milestone 5 – Design Team only Month 18
10m Milestone 6 – Contractor and Supply Chain Month 24
5m Milestone 7 – Design Team only Month 30
5m Milestone 8 – Contractor and Supply Chain Month 36
1m Milestone 9 – Design Team only Month 36
1m Milestone 10 – Contractor and Supply Chain Month 42
1m Milestone 11 – Design Team only Month 42
1m Milestone 12 – Contractor and Supply Chain Month 48 (Dec 2027)
Table Reference - https://www.gov.ie/en/publication/81d55-bim-and-the-cwmf/#public-sector-bim-adoption-timeline
If you’re a design organisation tendering for public projects under the CWMF in Ireland, then the immediate requirement of Milestone 1 above applies to you. In practical terms, this requires your internal processes to align with ISO91650. The mandate specifies that the Irish annex of ISO19650 should be utilised going forward. https://www.nsai.ie/certification/management-systems/bim-building-information-modelling/
What is ISO19650?
ISO 19650 is a suite of International Standards documents for the organisation of information on construction & civil infrastructure projects in Ireland. The UK also adopted ISO19650 with some variations contained in UK annex section of the documents.
At a high level & put simply, ISO19650 recommends how design information is managed. The ISO standard specifies that design information, should be stored in a Common Data Environment (CDE).
It further says that information should progress through four key states as the information develops throughout the design process. Design information being any data that informs the design such as Drawings, BIM Models, Specifications, Reports, Surveys & Bills of Materials to name a few.
The four states refer to 1. Work in Progress (WIP), 2. Shared, 3. Published & 4. Archived. The standards use terminology such as “Container” to describe what we can also interpret to be mean “a file”. A drawing is a file and a container of information.
Below is an example of a CDE with folders being used to manage the state of each file.
Image Reference – Autodesk Construction Cloud
In addition to the container requirements, a naming standard should be adopted for all design documentation that is stored in the CDE. The naming standard enables project members to immediately recognise the originator of a document and the type of information that is contained within the file. For the Irish BIM mandate, this naming standard is defined in the Irish Annex section of the ISO19650 document available from the National Standards Authority of Ireland (NSAI). Please note that the UK annex uses a slight variation to the Irish naming requirement.
The ISO standard further sets out requirements regarding how information is planned, produced & shared by design teams. Documentation terms in ISO19650 that you should be aware of include OIR, EIR, AIR, BEP & MIDP’s. ISO19650 Part 1 outlines the concepts & principles behind this terminology.
Conclusion
Whether you are new to BIM or mature in your journey, it is always a valuable exercise to define your main outcome for adopting BIM processes. What is your desired outcome for working with this mandate - Is it to win more public projects or is it to drive efficiencies through BIM or both?
Once you define this outcome at an organisational level, you should then take a closer look to which digital technologies do you have in place that can support your BIM journey. Can these technologies be used in a smarter way to maximise the benefit?
This Irish BIM mandate will put more demand on digitisation within organisations. Over the past 10+ years, the construction industry in Ireland and its organisations have built a strong foundation for the BIM mandate to be a solid success. It is also envisaged that greater BIM adoption, will support carbon measuring & reporting on construction projects.
If you would like to discuss any of this further do not hesitate to contact the team at Diatec.
About the Author – Jonathan Reinhardt is a Senior Consultant with NTI-Diatec, a Chartered Architectural Technologist and chair of the CIAT BIM Committee (IRL). He has worked in the AEC industry since 2005.