July 2013
NBS was named the winner of two categories at the 2013 Construction News Awards in front of more than 1,000 key figures within the construction industry.
At the prestigious awards ceremony, held at the Grosvenor House Hotel in London, NBS was awarded the Digital Built Britain Award in recognition of its ground-breaking specification tool NBS Create and the BIM Initiative of the Year Award for the NBS National BIM Library.
Backed by the UK BIM Task Group in association with the Department for Business, Innovation and Skills, the Cabinet Office and the Construction Industry Council, the Digital Built Britain Award was presented for the first time at this year’s ceremony in support of growth and competitiveness for the UK construction industry.
The category is open to any UK initiative, which employs the innovative use of data to enhance the lifecycle value of a building or infrastructure asset during its design, construction or use. To win the award, NBS beat off stiff competition from a shortlist including Amtech Group, Mott MacDonald and SAP.
Commenting on NBS Create, the judges said: “Our winner here demonstrated excellent use of structured data via intuitive user interface and associated apps. Its solution was developed in-house and has great potential for industry growth.”
The largest and most intelligent construction specification tool available in the world, NBS Create has revolutionised the way project data is created, maintained and shared in the construction industry and supported the widespread adoption and optimum use of BIM (Building Information Modelling).
By enabling an entire project team to work on a single, integrated specification, or to combine separate systems or parts of the specification into a single published document, NBS Create has made life much easier for design and construction teams.
The BIM Initiative of the Year Award, which was also introduced for the first time at this year’s ceremony, was contested by organisations and project teams that have used BIM to transform their businesses and their performance in 2012.
NBS was joined on the shortlist by a host of leading clients, architects, contractors and developers such as Balfour Beatty, Crossrail, Great Portland Estates, Laing O’Rourke, Mace, Ryder Architecture and Skanska UK.
The judges said: “The winner here stood out to the judges as one to become the industry standard location for reliable quality controlled information.
“This winning entrant has shown real leadership in helping to drive UK BIM adoption and consistently make BIM accessible across the supply chain.”
Launched in 2012, the NBS National BIM Library has established itself as the primary source of standard and proprietary BIM objects, providing construction professionals with free access to well-structured BIM objects that will aid them in their adoption of BIM processes.
By publishing property definitions for all systems and products, the NBS National BIM Library has established a common approach to quality standards across the construction industry, with a view to encouraging consistency and collaboration.
The initiative has now been rolled out to great industry acclaim and been recognised by the UK Government’s BIM Task Group as a resource to be utilised by the construction industry and also by international governments looking to progress their adoption of BIM.
The Awards evening was the culmination of a rigorous judging process including Dragon's Den-style live interviews to a jury of esteemed clients, contractors, consultants, institutes and government departments.
To win one award would have been amazing but winning both of the BIM-related Awards is an absolute testament to the hard work and expertise within the business. The Digital Built Britain Award is a real victory as Digital Built Britain is the headline under which the Government Construction strategy will be delivered. To be the inaugural winner of this award demonstrates that NBS is playing its part in achieving that strategy.
In addition winning the BIM Initiative award shows that the content rich, highly structured product data in the NBS National BIM Library will help both manufacturers and specifiers deliver the BIM outcomes that the government is demonstrating they need to achieve.
Richard Waterhouse, Chief Executive of RIBA Enterprises Ltd
