BIM has transformed design workflows, but a critical gap remains: the disconnect between BIM product models and manufacturers’ real-time product data.
This session explores how this lack of integration between BIM, manufacturer catalogues and production systems leads to poor design choices, manual estimating and limited visibility across the supply chain.
This session, which is held on day three of ARBS at 10am, explains what needs to change to unlock smarter, data-driven construction.
The seminar will be presented by Glenn Drew, the co-founder of Connected Built. It was established in 2024 with co-founder Matthew Sheales.
Together they have both been involved in BIM-MEPaus since inception. They saw a major gap that was limiting the potential of BIM across the Built Supply Chain right up to Smart Cities and Digital Twins.
In 2018, Drew founded the Smart Cities Innovators Roundtable and established a working group to unpack the limitations and challenges of the asset data eco-system.
What he found was that the Digital Twin was not a BIM Model per se. It was the sum of all asset data across all systems that hold that data and commercial relationships in play with respect to an owned entity.
Having re-defined the notion of a Digital Twin, Drew and Sheales established Connected Built to harness technologies that Connect the Dots across the built industry and asset eco-systems ensuring future connected Light Cities are realised.
Connected Built has focused on leading the connectivity through MEP products and services, one of the most complex domains.
Drew and Sheales have worked with AMCA and other industry bodies to collaborate and steer this vision into reality.
In 2025, Drew worked with his team at Connected Built to develop a standard that sets the DNA for the BIM Product Model including the necessary linkages to connect a BIM Building Model back to manufacturer product SKU's.
This heralds a major shift and evolution of industry supply chain and procurement workflows and led to BIM2Procure.
The shift to BIM2Procure workflows has been touted as a game changer for not only productivity but reduced design risk and greater transparency for asset life-cycle modelling and to achieve ESG objectives.
Connected Built delivers its services to the Australia, New Zealand and Pacific Islands.