BUILDING RESEARCH INSTITUE

Building Trust
Leading-edge technologies such as IC tags and cell phones can play animportant role increasing the sophistication of construction-related
data management. Japan’s Building Research Institute proposes asystem based on the theory.

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period of time between the time a building is built and the time it is demolished. The information in question
amounts to a tremendous volume: thedata on the construction of a single
building, if bound into printed volumes,
would take several dozen volumes, each
10 cm (4 inches) thick. In many instances, the data on the construction ofa building is administered by a limited
number of parties who are directly involved with the design and constructionof the building, while the documentation containing this information is disposed of when the designated period formaintaining such materials has elapsed.
Even documents that are kept in perpetuity end up being put away in the backof warehouses, complicating efforts tofind any given document with the passage of time. This situation makes it
difficult to obtain desired information
when that information is needed.
Functions of BIM and IC tags in managing
Owners andbuilding information data
administrators ofbuildings may alsochange over time
Date for construction materials
if a given building
deliveryis used over an
Inspection Report of deliveredmaterials
extended period,
Inspection Datesay, a century. It is
Inspection Report ofconstruction, etc.
crucial for new
owners and administrators ofbuildings to know
beforehand how
the building was
Linking objects in
Link objects inbuilt, and what its
3-D CAD to
3-D CAD tobuilding
structural history
actual building
construction datais, if they are tocomponents or
and make it easy
location in theuse that building
to managebuildings.
buildingwith peace ofconstruction data.
mind over a long
period themselves,and conduct appropriate mainte-e live in a time whenpeople demand reliability from industriallymanufactured goods,
from automobiles to household appliances. And construction is no exception
in this regard. Crucial to ensuring reliability in buildings is assembling aframework wherein information concerning the quality of building construction, including but not limited to thequality of the materials and workmanship that goes into a given building, isprovided to owners and occupiers ofbuildings alike, such that these parties
will be able to purchase and use buildings with peace of mind.
Most of the information on building, such as the materials and methods
used in construction, as well as the inspection procedures involved, is available in a specified location for a given

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nance as well. As mentioned, however,there is a tremendous amount of information concerning building construction, requiring a tremendous amount oftime and effort to find any particular desired information contained therein.
BIM: A Revolutionary Technologyfor Managing Information of
Buildings

A technology that records all manner ofinformation relating to buildings, suchas blueprints, construction, maintenance,and management, is proliferating in thearchitecture and construction sectors.
This technology, known as Building
Information Modeling, or BIM, represents a break with the past: it relates andrecords information concerning the construction, maintenance, and managementof buildings with constituent materials
and places for buildings that are depictedwith 3-D CAD (hereinafter “objects”),
allowing ease of display of any required
information with just a click on the materials, places, or other objects depictedin the 3-D CAD environment. The figure
denotes the BIM concept. BIM provides
functions that relate a wide range ofinformation on construction, such as
standards for building materials, construction inspection findings, andmaintenance and management histories,
to the various objects included in the3-D CAD environment. Utilizing thesefunctions requires a time-consuming
effort to link each individual object toeach piece of construction information,
however. If each individual component
and place in a construction site had its
own ID code, and if that ID code wereidentical to that of a corresponding component or place in the 3-D CAD environment, it would be possible to automatically assign building information
generated at a construction site to each
respective corresponding component,
place, or other object with the 3-D CAD
environment. Assigning, and recording
on computers, an ID code of a component A to information on an inspection
conducted on the component A upon delivery at a construction site, for example,
would facilitate the automatic linkage ofsuch delivery inspection information
with the object that represents the component A within the 3-D CAD environ-Photo 1. IC tags, East Japan Railways’ Suica card, and an
Aichi World Expo Admission ticket:
Upper left, back side of IC tag, memory unit and antenna;
lower left, East Japan Railways’ Suica Card; upper right:
bar code; lower right: Aichi World Expo Admission ticket

ment. The question then becomes, how
to assign ID codes to components andplaces in the real world? One answer isIC tags.
IC Tags: An Electronic Medium for
Assigning ID Codes to Things andPlaces

An IC tag is a medium that is capableof recording text strings electronically.
As depicted in Photo 1, the basic structure of an IC tag consists of a memory
device, which stores text strings, andan antenna unit, which wirelesslytransmits the text strings stored in thememory device so that they can beread by receivers. The memory device
in an IC tag contains both read-only
and rewritable regions, with fixed ID
codes assigned to each respective IC

tag stored in theread-only regions.
These ID codes
are ideal for use inassigning ID
codes for use indistinguishingparticular thingsand places, owingto the fact thatthey cannot easilybe overwritten.
IC tags are being used in a wide
range of sectors. IC tags are used in card
keys that allow entrance to apartments
and office buildings, for example. Inthese instances, the IC tag assigns an ID
code to a key, which in this case is athing, and a room, which in this case is aplace. Pass cards now in common use on
Japanese railways, such as the Suica(Photo 1), are IC cards too. The admission tickets to the Aichi World Expo,
which took place in Nagoya in 2005
(Photo 1), also incorporated IC tags. In
all of these cases, the IC tag assigns anID code to an admission pass or ticket,
which is a thing to be so identified.
Aside from IC tags, bar codes arealso in widespread use as a means to assign ID codes to things; bar codes are
assigned to practically all industrial
products (Photo 1). Airlines operating

domestic flights in Japan currently facilitate boarding without checking in at
airports simply by downloading andprinting out two-dimensional bar codesfrom the airlines’ web pages. A machinereads the two-dimensional bar code andthereby determines whether the bearer isentitled to board the flight.
The biggest difference between IC
tags and bar codes is that IC tags wirelessly transmit text strings to be read byreceivers, whereas bar codes encode text
strings into images, again, to be read byreceivers. This difference is highly significant in the harsh and demanding environments of construction sites. For instance, products are frequently left
stacked one on top of another whenbeing checked on delivery at construction sites, such as per Photo 2. If these
items were marked with bar codes, itwould be necessary to ensure that thesematerials were loaded and stacked insuch a way as to allow these images tobe seen, whereas if they were taggedwith IC tags, they could be stacked withcomparatively greater ease, as it would
be possible to read the tags so long as
the broadcast signals could be picked
up. Another advantage of IC tags isthat they give off signals that can beused when conducting construction inspections or other processes in awkward or hazardous conditions,such as shown in
Photo 2 . Unlike
bar codes, IC tags
can be used without having to inspect an imagestraight on, even if
they are in hardto-reach places.
Operating efficiency at construction sites is significantly improved.
as a result.

Photo 2. Advantages of using IC tags at construction sites:
Left, inspecting joins; right, verification of delivered components
17BUILDING RESEARCH INSTITUE
Cell
Phone

IC TagIC TagReaderPortable DataDevice

Photo 3. Left, inspecting the members of a building framework; right, inspecting the condition ofbolted joints of a steel structure. Both of these inspections use IC tags. The IC tags are used to display
information required for various inspections on portable devices. Center, cell phone with an IC tag
reader attached.

RoofConstruction Area A

Construction Area B

Fifth Floor
Fourth Floor
Third Floor

IC tagSecond Floor
First Floor

Photo 4: Left, using a portable data device to carry out an inspection of an arrangement of areinforced concrete framework; right, IC tags are installed on to a floor and area whereinconstruction is carried out. The IC tags thus installed are used to display information requiredfor various inspections on portable data devices.

Building Research Institute Proposesa SystemJapan’s Building Research Institute proposes a method of utilizing advancedtechnologies, such as IC tags and cellphones, in managing building information. The Institute’s proposal is as follows: regulations mandate that specified
inspections be performed at construction
sites as each stage of the construction ofa building is completed. IC tags would
be used in order that these inspections
are carried out both accurately and efficiently. As the IC tags described in thisarticle may be used to identify thingsand places, placing IC tags in appropriate places at appropriate stages of theconstruction of the building allows those
IC tags to assist in ascertaining the information that the necessary inspections
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are intended to obtain, because these ICtags will identify the stages and areas ofthe construction. Assigning and storing
the ID codes from IC tags with the inspection reports will also allow easy
identification by computer of the inspection data that is associated with given
components and places.
Photo 3 depicts using the proposedsystem to verify the assembly of abuilding’s steel frame construction. AnIC tag is attached to each and every
join of the components that constitute abuilding, and the construction inspection concerning these joins is carriedout using these selfsame IC tags. The
ID codes of the IC tags attached to thejoins are appended to the construction
inspection report, which is saved oncomputers, thereby allowing instantaneous searches of inspection data on

particular joins.
Photo 4 d e picts a verificationof a reinforced
concrete structure
being carried out
using the proposed system. An
IC tag is readiedand installed atthe construction
site for each specified item to beinspected in eachspecified place inthe building. The
ID codes of the IC
tags that denotethe specified items
to be inspected in
the specified places in the building
are appended tothe construction
inspection report,
which is savedon computers,
thereby allowing
instantaneous
searches of inspection data
concerning thespecified items
to be inspectedin the specified
places thereof.

Further Developments

Unlike industrially manufactured products, buildings are built one at a time.
And it is true that the very fact that thesebuildings are built one at a time on acustom-made basis complicates efforts
to adopt new technologies, such as ICtags. At the same time, there is a significant push to use advanced technologies
such as the aforementioned BIM to
manage information pertaining to buildings in a more sophisticated manner. It
is possible that there will be greater
adoption of advanced technical devices
such as IC tags in the architecture andconstruction sectors in times to come,through the combination of advances in
portable information devices such as theiPad and new technologies in architecture and construction such as BIM.