Paul French, Head of Digital Construction at British Gypsum, discusses the vital role that manufacturer data plays in the construction industry, highlighting how it forms the foundation of The Golden Thread.
Compliance, accountability, and integrity have never been more important within the industry, so The Golden Thread acts as a single source of critical information to ensure the safety, performance, and quality of buildings.
Leveraging data effectively can lead to significant improvements in the construction process, from initial planning through to construction and beyond into the building’s life. It’s about making informed decisions, optimising resources, and ensuring that every step of the construction process is aligned with the project’s goals and requirements.
Here are key points that highlight the significance of manufacturer data:
- Development of Product Information Management (PIM) system: Establishing and maintaining a robust PIM system is essential to ensure data governance and control of data accuracy throughout the lifecycle of a product or system. This system acts as a central hub for managing and organising crucial product information.
- Flow of Data: Data originates from initial creation during performance testing, for example, fire or acoustic testing before it moves into the PIM system, and then forms the basis of marketing and technical collateral. This process is designed to be fully traceable and auditable, providing transparency and accountability.
- Challenges in data integrity: A significant challenge arises when this data transitions from the manufacturer’s control into the construction supply chain. Maintaining the integrity and accuracy of the data during this transfer is critical and requires careful protocols and monitoring.
- Competency in roles: Various roles within any organisation are instrumental in ensuring the effectiveness of the manufacturer data flow. This includes sales (business development, specification, reseller managers), technical service, product development, test centre, marketing as well as customer service and order processing roles. Each contributes to the successful management and dissemination of product information.
- CCPI verification: The organisation’s commitment to the Code for Construction Products Information (CCPI) scheme ensures that it provides clear, accurate, accessible, up-to-date, and unambiguous information. This verification process evaluates internal processes and governance approaches to guarantee compliance with industry standards and best practices.
By focusing on these key points, manufacturers in the construction industry can optimise their data flow processes, enhance data quality and integrity, and ultimately contribute to the overall safety and quality of construction projects.
It is vitally important to recognise the value of the data provided by a manufacturer – especially in the era of the Building Safety Act. Rightly, more focus is on the data being exchanged through a project’s life than ever before. From design to construction, into operation, and ultimately end of life, data plays a key role, and responsible manufacturers have a key role to play. British Gypsum is proud of its approach to data integrity demonstrated in our BIMLocker product. It is now entering a new era of building upon its strong data foundation by developing digital construction tools to help customers access and use this data to complement and enhance their workflow while aiding compliance with the Building Safety Act and complimenting the Golden Thread.
