BIMlink | TU Delft officially takes use of cloud platform BIMlink

Last year, Dutch university TU Delft chose BIMlink as the online building file for the management of real estate data of all university buildings and accommodation. The structuring and adding of data into BIMlink was carried out under the leadership of Brink in collaboration with a team of data specialists from the TU Delft. “We are pleased to see the job completed,” says information manager Tim van den Berg of the department Campus and Real Estate & Facility Management. “We are now working live with BIMlink in the platform.”

Festive delivery of BIMlink

The commissioning of BIMlink was festively heralded on Monday 3 July with a special meeting for the TU employees who will be using BIMlink. While enjoying a cup of coffee and a special BIMlink tompouce, they were introduced to the implementation team and supplier BIMlink. John Landers, Business Office Campus and Real Estate Manager at TU Delft, congratulated the team and thanked everyone for the achieved milestone. BIMlink managing director Roy van der Velden then gave a brief explanation of the BIMlink real estate file, which is now available to TU Delft.

One data platform for property management

The use of BIMlink will greatly simplify the building management of the oldest and largest Technical University in the Netherlands. The TU Delft campus is approximately 160 hectares, of which approximately a third of the area (540,000 m2) consists of buildings for the more than 27,000 students and 6,500 employees. All this information is contained in more than 32,500 documents and (renewed) work processes. During the onboarding, the accounts of the users and teams were added to BIMlink so they can access, use and edit this data in the live environment of BIMlink.

BIMlink offers TU Delft, among other things, a Document Management System (DMS) for the management of existing and future buildings and uses the latest technologies. With the powerful innovative platform, TU Delft continuously has an overview of all technical building information. The use of BIMlink initially focused on the management phase. TU Delft is investigating the possibilities of using BIMlink during the construction of new construction projects.

Implementation and setup

The development and management of TU Delft’s real estate is a responsibility of the Campus Real Estate & Facility Management (CREFM) directorate, which takes care of area development, new construction and renovations, building management and maintenance, and the energy supply on the campus. CREFM’s mission is to create an environment where students, scientists and employees can grow to the maximum.

Information manager Tim van den Berg, who has been working at TU Delft for eight years, was involved in the tender for a new future-proof digital real estate file and the implementation of BIMlink. Together with the team, he performed various checks of the former database and transfer of data to the new database. “The existing structure of the data has been verified, with an emphasis on finding existing data,” he says. “We looked at existing and new workflows and processes to ensure that people will work directly in the system and can find their data.”

BIMlink live at TU Delft

In the past six months, TU Delft employees have been trained in the use of BIMlink. “The best thing about BIMlink is the findability of the data,” says Tim. “All the data of all assets is available and with version management you can look back at the older versions. The ability to find specific documentation in various ways with filters on metadata is also a big advantage. Most documents have been created in a traditional 2D environment, but we have the ambition to work with 3D BIM and to set up the processes for this.”