IFC and structured data: what if the true revolution of BIM were to rethink our working methods?

1. Historical methods have reached their limits

For decades, architecture, engineering and construction professionals have organised their processes around documents, Excel spreadsheets, drawings and information exchanges between stakeholders.

These methods have long met the needs of projects. But today they show evident limits in the face of the growing complexity of operations and the quantity of information available.

How many hours are still spent on:

Searching for information across different documents and software?

Manually extracting quantities from drawings or digital models?

Copying data into Excel spreadsheets to produce analyses?

Comparing several versions of the same project to identify changes?

Checking the consistency of areas, equipment, materials or classifications?

Rebuilding indicators at each new stage of a project?

These operations call on valuable technical skills, but much of this work is more about data manipulation than professional expertise.

The problem is no longer simply having the right information. It is continuing to spend human time on operations that digital tools can largely automate.

2. IFC: far more than a format for exchanging digital models

IFC (Industry Foundation Classes), an international open standard standardised as ISO 16739, is still too often regarded as a simple format for transferring a digital model between different software packages.

This view is reductive.

An IFC file can contain a structured representation of a building's objects, their characteristics, their properties, their quantities and their relationships.

A door is no longer simply a graphic element shown on a drawing. It becomes an identifiable digital object, to which information on dimensions, materials, technical performance, location or classification can be attached.

The same applies to walls, slabs, windows, technical equipment and many other building components.

This organisation opens up a fundamental prospect: project data can be queried, filtered, checked, enriched and exploited independently of the software used to produce the model.

Provided their quality and effective presence in the IFC file are ensured, this information becomes raw material directly exploitable by different trades.

3. The true transformation: moving from manual processing to intelligent data exploitation

The main challenge is not simply to speed up existing methods.

It is to question their relevance.

Why continue manually producing area schedules if the necessary information is already present in the digital objects?

Why re-enter quantities in a spreadsheet when they can be extracted and organised according to defined rules?

Why rebuild indicators at every new version of the project when reproducible processes can update these results?

Why ask engineers, architects or quantity surveyors to spend several hours organising figures rather than analysing their consequences?

Exploiting IFC data makes it possible to envisage a different organisation:

Old process: search for information → extract data → re-enter → organise → check → calculate → analyse.

New process: structure data → apply control and processing rules → automate extractions and calculations → analyse → decide.

The difference is considerable.

In the first model, human expertise often comes into play after a long phase of administrative and technical preparation.

In the second, it can be mobilised much more quickly for interpreting results and making decisions.

4. Giving building professionals back their intellectual time

This is probably one of the most important, yet least understood, benefits of the sector's digital transformation.

An architect's time should primarily be spent designing. An engineer's, solving technical problems. A quantity surveyor's, assessing and optimising costs. A BIM Manager's, ensuring the quality and consistency of information.

Not spending days reprocessing figures.

Structured IFC files make it possible to progressively shift the value of human work towards higher-contribution intellectual activities:

Optimising architectural and technical choices.

Analysing variants and their economic consequences.

Anticipating inconsistencies and risks.

Improving environmental performance.

Coordination between disciplines.

Supporting the client's decision-making.

Preparing for the building's operation and maintenance.

This is not about removing human involvement, but about repositioning it where it is genuinely indispensable.

Automation should handle repetitive processing. Human intelligence should focus on understanding, arbitration, creativity and decision-making.

5. Concrete applications for transforming professional processes

The structured exploitation of IFC can transform many day-to-day activities.

For architects

The information contained in the models can automatically feed area schedules, component inventories, material analyses or compliance checks against programme requirements.

The time saved can be reinvested in design, the study of variants and improving architectural quality.

For technical engineering firms

IFC data makes it possible to organise equipment by system, level, zone or technical characteristic, and to prepare automated checks on the information available.

Engineers can thus devote more time to installation performance and technical solutions.

For construction quantity surveyors

The extraction and classification of quantities can feed measurement and estimating processes, provided suitable data and reliable calculation rules are available.

The quantity surveyor can then focus on price relevance, variance analysis, economic risks and optimisation scenarios.

For BIM coordinators and BIM Managers

IFC files become tools for controlling information, verifying requirements, standardising properties and preparing deliverables.

Repetitive checks can be automated, strengthening data quality management and coordination among stakeholders.

For clients and facility operators

Structured data can feed dashboards, asset inventories, performance indicators or technical and property management tools.

The digital model is no longer limited to a representation of the building: it becomes a source of information that can be used throughout its life cycle.

6. From the digital model to data-driven management

One of the major changes consists in no longer regarding the digital model as the final outcome of the BIM process.

The model is also a source of data.

Once the information has been extracted, checked and organised, it can feed analysis and visualisation solutions such as Microsoft Power BI, databases or professional applications.

Information from several models can then be consolidated to produce indicators on:

Areas and quantities.

Types of works.

Equipment and their characteristics.

Breakdowns by building, floor or zone.

Changes between different versions.

The completeness and compliance of the information.

This approach paves the way for genuine data-driven project management.

The interest is no longer simply knowing how many objects are present in a model, but understanding what this information reveals and how it can contribute to decisions.

7. The tools exist. It is now the processes that need transforming.

Technology is no longer necessarily the main obstacle.

Solutions specialising in IFC data processing, such as Simplebim, make it possible in particular to filter, restructure, enrich, check and transform the information contained in digital models.

These capabilities make it easier to prepare consistent data that other applications can use.

But having effective software is not enough.

Automating a poor working method does not fundamentally transform an organisation. It simply allows its limitations to be reproduced more quickly.

The real approach consists in reconsidering existing processes:

Why is this information produced? Who needs it? In what form? At what point? Does it need to be re-entered? Can it be checked automatically? Can it serve several purposes?

These questions must come before the choice of tools.

They also involve defining clear data requirements, naming conventions, classifications, control rules and responsibilities.

An IFC file is not automatically a reliable and complete database. Its value depends on the quality of the information produced and the relevance of its structuring.

Transforming processes therefore requires tools, a methodology and an evolution of professional practices, all at once.

8. The true return on investment of BIM: time regained

The profitability of a BIM approach should not be measured solely in terms of time saved on modelling or document production.

It should also take into account the intellectual time freed up for professionals.

Let us take a simple example.

An employee who spends eight hours a week extracting, comparing and organising data represents around 350 hours of work a year, on the basis of 44 weeks.

If a structured organisation halves this processing time, 175 hours can be reallocated to higher value-added activities.

Across a team of ten employees, this potentially represents 1,750 hours a year.

These figures are illustrative, and the actual gains depend on the processes, tools and data quality involved. But they show the economic importance of the subject.

The benefit is not limited to cost reduction.

It is also reflected in better availability of experts, enhanced analytical capacity, greater responsiveness and, potentially, better-quality decisions.

Conclusion: let us stop processing figures and start exploiting information

The construction sector must now take a new step in its digital transformation.

For a long time, the goal was to produce digital models and facilitate exchanges between software packages.

Now, the challenge is to make full use of the information they contain.

Historical methods based on manual extractions, successive re-entries and the proliferation of independent spreadsheets are no longer suited to all current needs. When data already exists in a structured and reliable form, continuing to reprocess it manually should become the exception rather than the rule.

The IFC revolution is therefore not only technological. It is organisational, economic and intellectual.

It invites companies to rethink their methods, redefine their processes and evolve the division of tasks between digital tools and professionals.

The goal is not to produce ever more data.

It is to produce the right data, make it exploitable and turn it into useful decisions.

Because the true value of a building professional does not lie in the time spent manipulating figures, but in their ability to understand a project, solve its problems and imagine better solutions.

And what if the main benefit of BIM were, ultimately, to give professionals back the time to reflect on their projects?