After a 3 month period of international review, the COBie Guide has just been published on the buildingSMART alliance website.  The COBie Guide can be considered the “commentary” to the COBie information standard “code”.  The Guide provides enforceable quality standards for the delivery of COBie data. To obtain a copy click COBie_Guide_-.

This version of the COBie Guide will be submitted for United States National BIM Standard balloting in the next round.  The Guide is organized to allow the specification of regional and client customization. As a result, it is hoped, that this document can be applied to accelerate the already rapid use of COBie world-wide. – Bill East, US Army October 9. 2012 – via FMOC

The quality standards identified in this Guide will be built into the bimserver.org COBie checking routines to provide anyone using COBie a free quality control tool.

The COBie Guide: a commentary to the NBIMS-US COBie standard
by Dr. Bill East, PhD, PE, F.ASCE1, Mariangelica Carrasquillo-Mangual 2
EXECUTIVE SUMMARY
The Construction-Operations Building information exchange (COBie) format is the international standard for the exchange of information about managed facility assets. COBie does not add new requirements to contracts; it simply changes the format of existing deliverables from paper documents and proprietary formats, to an open, international standard format.
While COBie provides the format for the exchange of required asset information, it does not provide details on what information is to be provided when, and by whom. This Guide provides best-practice guidelines for these requirements. This Guide can be considered the “commentary” that accompanies the COBie format specification. To use this guide, customizations reflecting regional practices, specialized project types, and client’s requirements should be documented in Appendix A. The correct application of the COBie Guide may then be reference directly in appropriate specifications.
As of 2012 over twenty commercial software products support COBie. These products cover the entire facility life-cycle from planning, design, construction, commissioning to operations, maintenance, and space management. Software implementers will find the information in Appendix B helpful for low-level mapping of required properties.

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