Mapped against the twelve steps, most of the production system already exists as an open standard. Three rows are the work.
Left to right: the step, what the open-standards community already ships, what the step asks of it, and where it stands. Status is the steward’s reading in October 2026; corrections are invited through the working group.
The standards map
Step by step
1 Requirement
IDS (Information Delivery Specification) 1.0, buildingSMART, June 2024: machine-checkable information requirements. Asks: Owner requirements as IDS, with product class and cost on the same key. Status: In production, open.
2 Model · 3 Test
IFC (ISO 16739-1); IDS validation; bSDD (buildingSMART Data Dictionary). Asks: Test on every issue, not at milestones. Status: In production, open.
4 Coordinate
BCF (BIM Collaboration Format), issue exchange between tools, begun 2009; BCF 4.0 in work. Asks: Issues closed against the shared record, not inside one tool. Status: In production, open.
5 Issue for construction
ISO 19650 information delivery milestones. Asks: A release gate that carries model, requirement and product key together. Status: Missing as a shared gate.
6 Plan · 7 Build
ETIM (the open product classification model) classes with geometry, published through bSDD in 2025; advanced work packaging. Asks: Specification section joined to product class, openly. Status: Missing: the specification-to-class crosswalk.
8 Verify · 9 Capture
Field capture with evidence; decision records with authority. Asks: Verification and decision bound to place, in one record. Status: Partial, vendor-specific today.
10 Handover
COBie (Construction Operations Building information exchange); IFC as the asset information model. Asks: Handover as data, checked against the requirement from step 1. Status: In production, open; rarely demanded.
11 Run · 12 Learn
Open building-operations semantics; IoT interoperability work at buildingSMART. Asks: Operating data keyed to the same places and fed back as rules. Status: Missing as a loop.
The three gaps
Those three are the work
A shared release gate
A release gate that carries model, requirement and product key together across the firms it joins (step 5).
The specification-to-product crosswalk
A published join from a specification section to the product classes that satisfy it (steps 6 and 7). The first crosswalk the standard asks for; priced at the exit, it would re-create the border it removes.
The operate-to-design loop
Operating data keyed to the same places and fed back to the next requirement as checkable rules (steps 11 and 12).
A production standard cannot price its own interfaces. Keys and schemas are free; data in and data out cost no more than cloud cost; what is priced is the work done on the record: checking, comparing, predicting.