In this edition of our interview series, we spoke with Dr. Darius Soßdorf, Managing Director of MiC 4.0, to explore the ongoing evolution of BIM4Machines and the push for vendor-neutral connectivity on the construction site. Providing an overview into current standardization efforts like ISO 15143 and MiC 4.0, he explains how the industry is working to intelligently filter process data, ensuring that digital twins remain highly performant rather than turning into bloated data graveyards. Additionally, the discussion clarifies why a continuous, bidirectional flow of information is universally beneficial, improving project documentation and work quality for civil engineering contractors regardless of their current degree of automation.
Which concrete ISO norm or which MiC 4.0 standard is currently missing the most, to finally make the cross-manufacturer plug-and-play connection of construction machines to the BIM model the industry standard?
ISO 15143 already offers the first foundations to be able to fulfill the desired requirements. MiC 4.0 has further specified this ISO norm and transferred it beyond earth-moving and road construction machines to all relevant construction machines on a construction site. With the current revision and the first process data following in the further course of this year, the desire for a standard that delivers reliable, comparable, and in content equivalent machine data, is fulfilled. Thus, there is no lack of a suitable norm; rather, this is now being extensively created in the logically following next step, but must also be consistently demanded by the machine user.
Feeding real-time production data back into the model is often a data graveyard – how do we ensure that only the control-relevant information flows back, without compromising the performance of the Digital Twin?
Here, it will depend on the suitable definition of the foundations within the framework of ISO 15143-5, the process data. MiC 4.0 is fully involved in this work, brings the wishes and requirements of the construction companies in directly and specifically, and will ensure that the bidirectional exchange, order to the construction machine and feedback of the results to the client, is realized in the desired manner and with the scope required for it.
Who bears the liability in the bidirectional data exchange if a faulty BIM file leads to incorrect control of the machine, and from what degree of automation does this data transfer pay off for the medium-sized civil engineering contractor?
Degree of automation alone is not the primary criterion for the digitization of the construction site. Order data for the job of the machine and the feedback of the performed work in scope and quality stand before the question of a uniform manufacturer-independent and cross-machine understanding of the data to be transmitted. Data to and from the machine always facilitate the work, permit a more accurate and sustainable documentation of the construction process and the quality of the performed work, and thus pay off always and at any time for every construction company. Liability questions are always a matter for the involved parties, a uniform data understanding or data format is unaffected by this.
CV of Dr. Darius Soßdorf: 1995 Doctorate in Chemistry, 1996 Training as an environmental technologist, 1997 Head of Micro-Preparative Analysis, ESWE Institute, Wiesbaden, 2000 Laboratory Manager, Industrial Cleaning Chemistry, Dieburg, 2002 VDMA Technology and Environment, 2015 VDMA Construction-Equipment and Plant Engineering, 2017 Managing Director of the Research Association for Construction-Equipment and Plant Engineering (FVB), 2019 Managing Director of MiC 4.0