The Industrial & Commercial Energy Association (ICOM) has announced the completion of BIM Product Data Templates (PDTs) for five categories of commercial and industrial heating equipment.

The PDTs have just ended their public consultation period and the comments will be reviewed by CIBSE before they are approved as the industry standard. These are amongst the first product groups within the building services sector to be distributed for public consultation by CIBSE.

Product categories are air heaters, burners, gas and oil boilers, gas boosters and direct-fired storage water heaters. This means that engineers specifying these products are able to work with generic PDTs that are manufacturer-neutral.

These PDTs are standardised product group questionnaires, which manufacturers will then complete with their product information. The completed PDTs will then become Product Data Sheets (PDSs) containing digitalised information unique to each manufacturer’s product.

ICOM Director Ross Anderson said: 'ICOM has taken a pivotal coordination role in the development of PDTs for industrial and commercial heating products, acting as both an interface and a moderator between CIBSE and the ICOM membership. To achieve this, ICOM members have come together to share their knowledge and create industry-wide templates that will prove to be of significant benefit to the building services industry as a whole.'

ICOM members have already made significant progress with the creation of additional PDTs covering other categories of industrial and commercial heating products and these will be put out for public consultation soon.

For more information about the CIBSE PDTs visit: http://www.cibse.org/Knowledge/BIM-Building-Information-Modelling