ISO 19650 is the common process frame in which all BIM standards (IFC, BCF, IDS, openCDE) are embedded — whoever does not understand the frame cannot build a serious CDE.
The parts of the standard
| Part | Content | Status |
|---|---|---|
| ISO 19650-1 | Fundamental concepts, terms, principles | Final 2018, EN / SN adoptions active |
| ISO 19650-2 | Delivery phase (planning + construction) | Final 2018 |
| ISO 19650-3 | Operational phase | Final 2020 |
| ISO 19650-4 | Information exchange | Final 2022 |
| ISO 19650-5 | Security perspective (highly sensitive assets) | Final 2020 |
| ISO 19650-6 | Health and safety | 2024 |
National adoptions:
- DIN EN ISO 19650 (Germany) — direct EN adoption
- SN EN ISO 19650 (Switzerland) — Swiss adoption with KBOB orientation aid for Part 1
- ÖNORM EN ISO 19650 (Austria) — complemented by the ÖNORM A 6241 family
- UNI EN ISO 19650 (Italy) — complemented by the UNI 11337 family
- BS EN ISO 19650 (UK) — direct successor of the PAS 1192 series
The four container states
The core of the standard for every CDE: every information container (model, document, datasheet) lives at every moment in exactly one of four states.
The transition between states is not free. Every transition requires a release right. Whoever may write WIP is not automatically allowed to push to Shared. Whoever may push to Shared is not automatically allowed to push to Published.
Practical consequence for a CDE: state transitions are separate permissions, not implied by write rights.
The requirements hierarchy
ISO 19650-1 defines four levels of information requirements. They run from strategic (top) to operational (bottom):
| Acronym | Full form | Who writes it | What it is about |
|---|---|---|---|
| OIR | Organisational Information Requirements | Organisation / asset owner | What information the organisation needs across projects, beyond a single one |
| AIR | Asset Information Requirements | Asset manager / FM lead | What information is needed for the long-term operation of this asset |
| PIR | Project Information Requirements | Project owner / client | What information must be produced for project delivery |
| EIR | Exchange Information Requirements | Project / BIM manager on behalf of the client | What information is delivered, when, and to whom |
OIR and AIR are organisation- and asset-specific and can be reused across multiple projects. PIR and EIR are project-specific.
The answer hierarchy
Every requirements level is answered by an information set or a plan:
| Answer | For which requirement | What it is |
|---|---|---|
| OIM (Organisational Information Model) | OIR | Asset-spanning information collection of the organisation |
| AIM (Asset Information Model) | AIR | Asset-specific operations information model. After handover, the living model. |
| PIM (Project Information Model) | PIR | The project information model during planning and construction. Migrates into the AIM after completion. |
| BEP (BIM Execution Plan) / BAP | EIR | Plan for how the contractor implements the EIR requirements technically and organisationally |
Key roles
ISO 19650 defines a clear role model that is used contractually:
| Role | Meaning | Who fills it in practice |
|---|---|---|
| Appointing Party | Client, owner, asset owner. Defines the information requirements. | Public authority, municipality, owner, investor |
| Lead Appointed Party | Main contractor for the information delivery. Coordinates all sub-suppliers. | Lead designer, general contractor, lead office |
| Appointed Party | Specialist contractor. Delivers its share of the PIM and PIM data. | Architecture office, structural engineer, HVAC office, single specialists |
| Task Team Manager | Lead of a specialist team within an Appointed Party. | Project lead inside a single office |
| Information Manager | Responsible for the overall information strategy. | On behalf of the Appointing Party |
| Project Information Manager | Project-specific information coordination. | On behalf of the Lead Appointed Party — BIM coordinator |
| Task Information Manager | Discipline-specific information responsibility. | Inside the Appointed Party |
Mapping to Italian UNI 11337
| ISO 19650 | UNI 11337-7 |
|---|---|
| Appointing Party | Committente |
| Information Manager | BIM Manager (client side) |
| Project Information Manager | BIM Coordinator |
| Task Information Manager | BIM Specialist |
| CDE / ACDat administration | CDE Manager |
Substantively almost identical, terminologically different. For CH/IT projects: carry both terms in parallel in contracts and the wiki glossary.
Mapping to German terms
| ISO 19650 | German term (BIM Deutschland / VDI 2552) |
|---|---|
| Appointing Party | Auftraggeber / Bauherr / Informationsbesteller |
| Lead Appointed Party | Generalplaner / Hauptauftragnehmer |
| Appointed Party | Fachplaner / Nachauftragnehmer |
| Information Manager | BIM-Manager auf Auftraggeberseite |
| Project Information Manager | BIM-Koordinator |
| EIR | AIA — Auftraggeber-Informations-Anforderungen |
| BEP | BAP — BIM-Abwicklungsplan |
Mapping to signed events
In the BIM-CVP stack, ISO 19650 concepts land on the following structures:
# Container states as a tag ["iso19650-state", "WIP"] # or "Shared", "Published", "Archive" # Roles in the project event kind:30902 ["p", "<pubkey>", "<relay>", "<discipline>", "<authority>"] # Requirement levels as their own event kinds kind:30880 PIR Specification (client requirements) kind:30810 EIR / IDS Spec (technical delivery requirement) kind:30883 AIR Specification (operations requirements) # Answer models kind:30904 PIM / IFC file reference kind:30930 Document record (BEP/BAP plus all other docs) # State transitions as audit events kind:1171 Audit event with audit-field "iso19650-state"
Regional profiles
ISO 19650 is the international process frame. National and client-specific guidance should be treated as profile overlays, not as a replacement for the core state model, role model or event vocabulary.
Examples of useful regional material:
- KBOB contract annexes „Anwendung der Methode BIM“ — directly referenceable in contracts
- KBOB orientation aid SN EN ISO 19650 Part 1 — pragmatic introduction for public clients
- BIM-Abwicklungsmodell — sorted by SIA service phases, with examples
- LOIN basics and applications per SN EN 17412-1, newly published in early 2026
- AIM fundamentals + BIM2FM data field catalogue — the handover layer
- buildingSMART Switzerland glossary — terminological discipline
BIM-CVP uses the same technical event model everywhere. Regional profiles may add accepted document labels, procurement terminology, phase names, classification systems and client-specific exchange gates.
Typical mistakes
- State without governance — containers have state tags but no one decides who may push to Published when. Result: everything stays WIP or everything is immediately Published.
- EIR without IDS — requirements live in an EIR PDF but are never machine-checkable. Delivery quality not measurable.
- BAP / BEP too late — the BIM execution plan is written after project start. Agreements no longer negotiable.
- Role ≠ responsibility — the Information Manager has the title but no decision authority. Breaks the whole process.
- AIM not commissioned — the project ends at Published PIM. The owner gets no structured handover into the AIM. FM is then manual reconstruction.
Read on
- What is IDS? — the machine-checkable EIR layer
- What is IFC? — the data model that circulates in ISO 19650
- Kind mapping — standards-to-events overview