Digital workflows through openBIM for Fire Safety Engineering

Fire safety engineering (FSE), a specialised yet integral discipline within building design, has historically faced challenges due to varying practices in managing data, resulting in the loss or degradation of critical safety information. The Hackitt report, following the Grenfell Tower fire, recommended the need for digital workflows using Building Information Modelling (BIM) to achieve a ‘golden thread of information’. However, there is a lack of BIM enabled framework for FSE practices that allows for capturing a ‘golden thread of information’ through fully integrated data sharing. This paper outlines a conceptual openBIM-based digital workflow framework for FSE. Work on developing this framework is underway, which includes an international collaboration project, under the administration of openBIM standards organisation buildingSMART International (bSI), to define and check the data requirements for FSE. The framework will lead to enhanced openBIM-based digital workflows and include recommended guidelines on how to manage and collate information for FSE projects involving BIM.