Six roles, one target feature each. Starting points for a working group, not finished designs.
Across all six, the pattern is the same. The step that pays back fastest is rarely a better tool inside one firm. It is a cleaner gate between two. That is why the standard is defined at the interface and not at the tool.
Six roles
Today, with a shared record, and the proof
Owners
Today: Bear most of the loss and receive the record last. With a shared record: Requirements written once as checkable rules at the start of design. Every model, submittal and handover is tested against them, and the owner holds one record across every release, so nothing is re-keyed at handover. Proof: Requirements met at handover without manual re-entry, and change orders traced back to the requirement they changed.
General contractors
Today: Live at the handoff where everything upstream lands at once. With a shared record: Questions answered from the record before they are written, and design changes delivered to the field as verified changes, with the decision and its authority attached. Proof: Request-for-information cycle time in hours, not days, and fewer requests per million dollars of work.
Architects
Today: Write the specification that every product decision depends on. With a shared record: Each specification section linked to the open product classes that satisfy it, so a submitted product is checked against the specification automatically. Proof: First-pass submittal approval rates, and fewer substitution requests.
Engineers
Today: Carry the coordination load inside the model. With a shared record: Every model issue checked against the information requirements, and every coordination issue closed against the shared record rather than inside one tool. Proof: Clashes and missing information caught at issue, not discovered on site.
Specialty contractors and fabricators
Today: Turn the design into physical parts, and are the first to pay when the data is wrong. With a shared record: Product data that arrives already classified, and shop drawings, model and product class kept in one record from order to installation. Proof: Fewer wrong-product orders, and less re-fabrication from late changes.
Operators
Today: Inherit the building and, today, a binder. With a shared record: The asset record delivered as live data at handover, and operating data fed back to the next design. Proof: Time to a usable asset record after handover, and how often design decisions on the next project cite operating data from the last.