Joining the IM dots to unite the built environment

The construction sector generates vast amounts of data, but over over 95% goes unused. This leads to inefficiencies, increased costs,safety risks, and missed opportunities for innovation. We work in a sector where only 23% of organisations believe their data is ready for advance analytics, where asset-intensive industries use only 27% of their data in decision-making, and where poor data adds £2.5bn to the cost of UK infrastructure projects.

Such statistics are a reflection of an industry that is still struggling with the essentials of information management. It is over a decade since the ‘BIM Level 2’ mandate came into force in the UK, despite UK government encouragement through the TIP Roadmap to 2030 and the Construction Playbook. The Information Management Initiative (IMI), launched in November 2024 by nima and the Construction Leadership Council, is a
national programme designed to transform how the UK built environment sector manages information. The IMI builds on the UK’s leadership in BIM and aims to embed structured, secure, and interoperable data practices across the lifecycle of built and natural assets.

The IMI – helping organisations to help themselves

The IMI is intended to help businesses deliver quality, trusted data to support better whole life outcomes. Organisations sign up to the IMI and pledge to:

• ​​Recognise that information is a crucial business asset that will benefit the organisation
• ​​Understand that shared information foundations are vital for the advancement of the entire sector​

We have been developing resources to help organisations onboard to the IMI, and then – having gained a clear understanding of the IMI’s over-arching principles – to develop their own IM Roadmap using the IMI’s Maturity and Benefits Framework. Crucially, the IMI recognises that every organisation is different, on its own information management journey, ​with its own information perspectives​.

Armed with an understanding of the organisation’s objectives, its people can then develop, prepare and issue their own organisational-level IM mandate. Delivering the vision then involves: an organisation-wide roll-out, targeted training, regular monitoring, evaluation and reporting, external certification, and continuous improvement. At each step in the process – from onboarding to implementation of their IM mandate – they will be able to draw upon resources developed through three IMI organisational projects.

The IMI – helping industry to connect

In addition, the IMI is also developing technical projects to provide a standard information approach.

Huge sums are wasted across initiatives, working groups and industry projects every day because they are all trying to solve the same problems​. Without holistic coordination and constraints, the work doesn’t join up and we create more and more silos. The IMI offers a once-in-a-generation opportunity to solve these problems once, solve them well, and make sure they fit into a bigger picture. We cannot operate in isolation when dealing with information​. The IMI connects the information, connects the organisations, and connects into and with other initiatives.​

To realise this, eight IMI technical projects are under way. They combine to form a standardised information approach – the foundations the sector needs to share information effectively and for us to remain in control of our own future.

We will go through each of the organisational and technical projects, plus some of the other groups we are working with, in more detail at DCW.