On June 6, the Spanish Ministry of Transport and Sustainable Mobility was awarded at the Computing 2024 Awards, in the category of BIM for Innovation and Sustainability.

The main actors in the Spanish digital transformation scene, technology provider and user organizations, were present at this event to recognize the work of IT professionals and to highlight the most relevant projects on the current scene that have promoted the digitalization of organizations in Spain. 

Computing, an online magazine for the IT sector, has held, with this last one, 18 editions of these awards, in which more than 6,500 professionals have participated and more than 250 prizes have been delivered.

The award received by the Spanish Ministry of Transport and Sustainable Mobility, presidency of the Interministerial Commission for the Incorporation of the BIM Methodology in Public Procurement (CIBIM), is due to the boost given to the BIM Plan in public procurement, through the ambitious project to develop a Common Data Environment (CDE), as technological solution to support contracting authorities in the adoption of this Plan. A CDE is a system that allows the exchange of data and information to be managed in a structured way between all the agents involved in any of the phases of the life cycle of a built asset.

The Ministry of Transport and Sustainable Mobility is leading the development of a CDE platform adapted to the use cases of the National Public Administration. Its design and development have been conceived with an open and flexible vision that allows it to respond to the needs of different units of the National Public Administration, as proposed in the BIM Plan, led by this Ministry.

This CDE platform, developed in-house to guarantee information security conditions and in accordance with the National Security Framework, has been designed with a focus on interoperability and according to the principle of technological neutrality, being compatible with the main industry standards to guarantee the exchange of information. Another important characteristic of its architecture is that it follows the principle known as multiple tenancy to offer services with independent configurations to different public organizations and entities, optimizing technological resources.

The CDE platform organizes the functionalities by modules, among which the document management module stands out, with standard project templates and approval and access control tools; communications, with the creation and assignment of incidents, tasks and announcements; and the viewer, which is equipped with a set of specialized 3D model visualization tools with a differentiating point of the viewer, which is its optimization for linear construction projects (roads, railway lines, etc.), an unusual aspect. in commercial viewers, but very important in most projects within the scope of the Ministry of Transport and Sustainable Mobility.

Currently, the General Subdirectorate of Information Technologies and Digital Administration of the Ministry of Transport and Sustainable Mobility continues with the development of the Platform. In April, the first version of the CDE was released, and throughout this year, in accordance with the project roadmap, successive upgraded versions of the Platform will be released.

Important entities from the private sector and the public sector have also been awarded, in this new edition, whose objective has been to recognize those projects that have demonstrated excellence in areas ranging from mobile applications to cloud solutions, from process automation to cybersecurity or data analytics.

With this award, the effort of the Ministry of Transport and Sustainable Mobility, as presidency of the CIBIM, is valued for the implementation of BIM in public procurement to achieve the efficiency of public spending and the digitalization of the construction sector and its sustainability.

By the end of July, an article about the specifications of this particular CDE platform will be uploaded as a resource in this Community of Practice of BIM and Public Procurement.