LDAC2021 - 9th Linked Data in Architecture and Construction Workshop (11 - 13 October 2021)

The LDAC workshop series provides a focused overview on technical and applied research on the usage of semantic web, linked data and web of data technologies for architecture and construction (design, engineering, construction, operation, etc.). The workshop aims at gathering researchers, industry stakeholders, and standardization bodies of the broader Linked Building Data (LBD) community. The aim of the workshop is to present current developments, coordinate efforts, gather stakeholders, and elaborate use cases.


This year's LDAC workshop will be collocated with the CIB W78 conference in Luxembourg. Most of the information on LDAC is available there as well: https://www.cibw78-ldac-2021.lu/.

KEYNOTES

The keynote of LDAC2021 takes place on Tuesday 12 October.

    Tuesday 12 October (9:00 - 10:00 CET)

  • From Data Platforms to Dataspaces: Enabling Data Ecosystems for Intelligent Systems
  • Ed Curry
  • Abstract: Digital transformation is driving a new wave of large-scale datafication in every aspect of our world. Today our society creates data ecosystems where data moves among actors within complex information supply chains that can form around an organization, community, sector, or smart environment. These ecosystems of data can be exploited to transform our world and present new challenges and opportunities in the design of intelligent systems. This talk presents my recent work on using the dataspace paradigm as a best-effort approach to data management within data ecosystems. The talk explores the theoretical foundations and principles of dataspaces and details a set of specialized best-effort techniques and models to enable loose administrative proximity and semantic integration of heterogeneous data sources. Finally, I share my perspectives on future dataspace research challenges, including multimedia data, data governance and the role of dataspaces to enable large-scale data sharing within Europe to power data-driven AI.

PLENARY SESSIONS

Plenary sessions include research papers, with the following presentations:

Monday 11 October (14:00 - 15:30 CET)

  • Ontology-based anamnesis and diagnosis of natural stone damage for retrofitting
  • Al-Hakam Hamdan, Peter Katranuschkov and Raimar Scherer
  • Abstract: During the inspection and assessment of existing buildings, a large portion of the recorded data is stored in documents or models that are not com-puter interpretable. Managing this data digitally is a complex process because the evaluation of the building components and the affecting structural damages in-volves a significant amount of manual tasks that can be error-prone and time consuming. Therefore, a knowledge-based approach has been developed, which utilizes web ontologies to store building and damage information in a semantic representation and processes them in an automated assessment via predefined rulesets. The concept is specified and applied for structures made of natural stone and is specifically tested and verified on the common case of a damaged façade. A newly developed software platform is presented, which provides functions for managing and evaluating a damage ontology as well as linking damage infor-mation with a geometry-based BIM model by utilizing an Information Container for linked Document Delivery (ICDD) according to ISO 21597-1 and adapting a general-purpose BIMification approach for retrofitting.
  • Full paper (PDF)
  • Conversion of legacy domain models into ontologies for infrastructure maintenance
  • Anne Göbels and Jakob Beetz
  • Abstract: This paper introduces an approach to automatically convert the German data model for documenting infrastructure inspections (ASB-ING) into a semantic ontology. Thus, an extensive data model is created that enables the representation of infrastructure and maintenance-related facts in Linked Data and is compatible with the German standards and guidelines. The national standard "ASB-ING" contains about 120 classes and 500 attributes to describe a bridge or tunnel and its damages. It is the basis for the relational database program "SIB-Bauwerke", in which most bridges in Germany are recorded over the last 20 years. By converting the ASB-ING model into an Ontology, compatibility with this extensive available data set is ensured, enabling a direct translation of the existing asset data into Linked Data models. Concurrently, it is possible to relate the classes of this national data model with classes of other national or international ontologies. By mapping the ASB-ING Ontology to ifcOWL, the formerly only tabular data can be linked to standardised geometry models without requiring additionally developed geometric representation. Interlinking the ASB-ING Ontology with other international and national infrastructure data models can improve asset information exchange of cross-border projects.
  • Full paper (PDF)
  • Queries on Semantic Building Digital Twins for Robot Navigation
  • Rens de Koning, Elena Torta, Pieter Pauwels, Bob Hendrikx and Marinus van de Molengraft
  • Abstract: Autonomous mobile robots are starting to be deployed in complex built environments where they need to navigate to complete the given tasks. In order to navigate, autonomous mobile robots often rely on environmental maps. In this paper, we explore a novel approach to automatically create topological and metric environmental maps from BIM data exported to a graph database. We define queries on the exported graph data-base which retrieve the data needed to create the maps automatically. We validate our approach by applying standard path planning algorithms such as A* on the generated maps showing that they are suitable for computing optimal paths. We regard this work as a first step to connect linked data methods to robotics algorithms and use-cases. The results show the feasibility and potential of exploiting the semantic richness of the data available from BIM.
  • Full paper (PDF)

Monday 11 October (16:00 - 17:00 CET)

  • TUBES System Ontology: Digitalization of building service systems
  • Nicolas Pauen, Dominik Schlütter, Jérôme Frisch and Christoph van Treeck
  • Abstract: Building service systems are complex structures with varying relationships between different components. In the design, planning, construction, commissioning and operation of these systems, many stakeholders with different interests and information needs have to work together, which further increases the overall complexity. Building Information Modeling (BIM) was introduced to enhance the interoperability providing a machine-readable representation consisting of semantical, geometrical and alphanumerical information. Semantic web technologies enable further improvement of the interoperability by linking information on data level using a global unique identification key in a web-based decentralized data store. To contribute to these developments, a brief literature review covering representations of building service systems such as IfcOWL, BRICK, SAREF and a comparison of their scopes and core concepts is given. Based on these findings, recent developments regarding the TUBES system ontology (TSO) and their alignment to the Building Topology Ontology (BOT) are presented. TSO strives to represent interconnected building service systems and their exchange of energy, mass and data on different levels of granularity based on the general system theory. The ontology is validated using a real-life project.
  • Full paper (PDF)
  • Real-Time Building Performance Monitoring using Semantic Digital Twins
  • Alex Donkers, Dujuan Yang, Bauke de Vries and Nico Baken
  • Abstract: Higher building performance saves operational costs, helps sustaina-bility goals, and increases the comfort, satisfaction, productivity, and health of occupants. However, models simulating the occupants' perceived performance of indoor environments require highly heterogeneous input data. This paper aims to show how semantic web technologies can help to overcome problems deriving from this heterogeneity issue. Literature is studied to categorize the necessary input information for modeling occupants' perceived building performance. Two perspectives were consulted, namely the Indoor Environmental Quality approach and the Healing Environments approach. Based on the results, a core IEQ data model, integrating building topology, static properties, and dynamic properties, is proposed. We introduced a method to integrate this information by using the Building Performance Ontology (BOP). This method was tested by manually transforming the Open Smart Home (OSH) data to BOP vocabulary. Time-series data from various sensors were stored in InfluxDB and connected to the linked building data. A custom-built python tool was created to compute the thermal comfort of the OSH using the PMV/PPD method. The results indicate that a com-mon data structure for static and dynamic properties helps to integrate the heter-ogeneity input data. Furthermore, we showed that adding occupants' data or sys-tem information could improve thermal comfort through multiple reactive ap-proaches.
  • Full paper (PDF)

Tuesday 12 October (10:30 - 12:30 CET)

  • A Linked Building Data Approach to Site Planning and Managing Temporary Construction Items
  • Alexander Schlachter
  • Abstract: Building Information Modeling (BIM) has brought great benefits to the construction industry by gathering all information in a project and making it available to the involved stakeholders. However, BIM has predominantly generated value in the design phase of a project, while the potential benefits in the construction phase have been disregarded for many years and are now gaining importance. Trending advancements try to utilize existing BIM data, e.g by linking a digital building model with planning efforts of the construction project and create new knowledge to improve construction. In this paper, we are interested in exploring how semantic models and Linked Building Data (LBD) can support value creation in the construction phase. The presented use case tries to answer the question how the planning of Temporary Construction Items (TCIs) can be improved by semantically describing and classifying TCIs in an ontology that allows to utilize TCI information with BIM data. TCIs only experience little attention in the current planning of construction projects but have a critical impact on the outcome of a project. Thus, the creation of an ontology in this field shall lead to a better and more automated consideration of TCIs in construction planning. Here, we follow the recommendation of the W3C - LBD community group to extend or develop new ontologies and propose the TCI ontology as the main contribution. We first introduce the TCI ontology and its relation to other ontologies. Then we demonstrate the value of the ontology by answering competency questions and finally provide a proof of concept of planning TCIs by utilizing the new ontology. The proposal of the TCI ontology is accompanied by a second ontology for Location-Based Scheduling (LBS) to consider the time dimension of planning. The main focus, however, lies on the development and presentation of the TCI ontology whereas the LBS ontology will be further developed in future research.
  • Full paper (PDF)
  • Data Patterns for the Organisation of Federated Linked Building Data
  • Jeroen Werbrouck, Pieter Pauwels, Jakob Beetz and Erik Mannens
  • Abstract: Few industries are as fragmented as the building sector: during the life cycle of an asset, countless stakeholders are involved, ranging from direct stakeholders such as the architect, the owner and the facility manager towards indirect data providers like governments or geospatial institutions. This `federated' reality contrasts with the concept of a `centralised' cloud server; a `Common Data Environment' (CDE). In this paper, we propose a basic infrastructure for a `federated CDE', using domain-agnostic Web specifications for (access-controlled) data federation. This infrastructure is illustrated via a proof-of-concept implementation, based on the open-source Community Solid Server.
  • Full paper (PDF)
  • BPMN-related Ontology for Modeling the Construction Information Delivery of Linked Building Data
  • Philipp Hagedorn and Markus König
  • Abstract: The information delivery in BIM-based construction projects regarding predefined exchange requirements is crucial for the quality of information. Information modeling using Linked Building Data receives increasing attention as it may overcome current interoperability issues. Hence, this information needs to satisfy requirements defined in business processes in an Information Delivery Manual. This paper examines the compatibility of business process modeling and Linked Building Data. Considering recent research progresses, the Information Delivery Processes ontology is developed and evaluated in two demonstration cases for converting XML-based business processes to RDF-based ontology data and performing requirements validation for the attached data sets. These use cases show the feasibility of the application of the developed approach for modeling information deliveries for Linked Building Data.
  • Full paper (PDF)
  • Ontological approach for LOD-sensitive BIM-data management
  • Janakiram Karlapudi, Prathap Valluru and Karsten Menzel
  • Abstract: The construction industry is a collaborative environment with the in-volvement of multiple disciplines and activities throughout the Building Lifecy-cle Stages. The collaboration requires the iterative and coordinated exchange of information for significant improvement of the building design, construction and management. The successful representation of these information refine-ments enables the identification of the required level of detail (LOD) for data sharing parameters between the multiple disciplines. Since the last decade, LOD is a promising approach for efficient representation of semantically rich BIM data in different levels. Despite the improvement, there is a lack of effi-cient implementation in building lifecycle functionalities, because of their fun-damental heterogeneity, versatility and adaptability. The proposed approach en-ables the representation of LOD-sensitive BIM data through the formal defini-tion of ontologies. The paper validates this approach based on the concept of competency questions and their respective SPARQL queries. With the demon-stration and validation, the paper provides the conceptual proof for the practical application of the developed approach. The proposed solution can also be easily adaptable and applicable to the present BIM process since the representation of BIM data in different ontologies (BOT, ifcOWL, etc.) are within reach.
  • Full paper (PDF)

Tuesday 12 October (14:00 - 16:00 CET)

  • Interoperability between BIM and GIS through open data standards: An overview of current literature
  • Eyosias Guyo, Timo Hartmann and Lucian Ungureanu
  • Abstract: Building information modeling (BIM) allows representation of de-tailed information regarding building elements while geographic information system (GIS) allows representation of spatial information about buildings and their surroundings. Overlapping these domains will combine their individual fea-tures and provide support to important activities such as building emergency re-sponse, construction site safety, construction supply chain management, and sus-tainable urban design. Interoperability through open data standards is one method of connecting software tools from BIM and GIS domains. However, no single open data standard available today can support all information from the two do-mains. As a result, many researchers have been working to overlap or connect different open data standards to enhance interoperability. An overview of these studies will help identify the different approaches used and determine the ap-proach with the most potential to enhance interoperability. This paper adopted a strong definition of interoperability using information technology (IT) based standard documents. Based on this definition, previous approaches towards im-proving interoperability between BIM and GIS applications through open data standards were studied. The result shows previous approaches have implemented data conversion, data integration, and linked data approaches. Between these methods, linked data emerged as having the most potential to connect open data standards and expand interoperability between BIM and GIS applications be-cause it allows information exchange without editing the original data. The paper also identifies the main challenges in implementing linked data technologies for interoperability and provides directions for future research.
  • Full paper (PDF)
  • Dynamic BIM model conversion as inference-based ontology alignment
  • Pierre Bourreau and Jyrki Oraskari
  • Abstract: The AEC sector is known to be highly fragmented, different experts requiring different information. Current BIM collaborative practices can be described as static as they are based on file exchange, mainly using IFC files. Instead, in an ideal level 3 BIM platform, different stakeholders could work together on a single centralized building model, using different domain-specific vocabularies, and updating the model synchronously. We propose an approach based on semantic rule reasoning to dynamically convert information in different vocabularies. While existing alignments only cover class conversions, we develop inference rules that handle conversion of relations in a dynamic and transparent way, being executed by a reasoner. The approach is implemented and tested on converting models from ifcOWL to BIM4Ren, a BOT-based ontology. The scalability of the implementation is discussed as well as its limitation.
  • Full paper (PDF)
  • bcfOWL: A BIM collaboration ontology
  • Oliver Schulz, Jyrki Oraskari and Jakob Beetz
  • Abstract: The BIM Collaboration Format (BCF) is a buildingSMART standard used to exchange issues in a digital model between heterogeneous software applications and planners. Although the BCF issues are spatially located in a model and provide links to building elements, the format is only loosely connected to the actual BIM model. While the format is well suited for its original use case, it lacks the flexibility to retrieve information from the BCF in conjunction with the BIM model. In this paper, we introduce the BIM Collaboration Format Ontology (bcfOWL), which translates the format to the Semantic Web and harnesses the expressive richness of OWL. We present the structure of the ontology and highlight the differences with existing implementations of BCF. Using example queries, we show how extended relationships between a BIM model and BCF information are enabled by bcfOWL. We show that by transferring BCF to Linked Data, the format's applicability is enhanced without losing compatibility with existing implementations and workflows. In doing so, the ontology aims to integrate into the Linked Building Data environment and facilitates access to synergies between heterogeneous building data.
  • Full paper (PDF)
  • An evaluation of the strict semantics of owl:sameAs in the field of BIM GIS Integration
  • Fritz Beck, Jimmy Abualdenien and André Borrmann
  • Abstract: Linking heterogeneous information models from the domains Building In-formation Modelling (BIM) and Geospatial Information Systems (GIS) enables syner-getic effects between these domains. A common approach to define links between cor-responding objects are identity relation like owl:sameAs from the Web Ontology Lan-guage (OWL). Identity relations suggests that everything stated about one entity hold for the corresponding entity (i.e., they share all of their properties). However, this kind of semantics is too strict for linking objects from heterogeneous information models. This paper shows the issue of the strict semantics of identity relations for linking build-ing elements of heterogeneous information models like Industry Foundation Classes (IFC) and CityGML. In more detail, related literature about heterogeneities and links between IFC and CityGML are reviewed. Afterwards, the issue caused by the strict semantics of identity links for linking IFC and CityGML models is illustrated and al-ternative approaches to identity links are discussed. As a result, identity links are prone to be misleading for linking building elements represented in Industry Foundation Clas-ses (IFC) and CityGML models. However, alternative linking approaches have the short coming that they generally rely on the correct interpretation of the user.
  • Full paper (PDF)

INDUSTRY TRACK

The Industry Track on Wednesday 13 October has the following presentations:

Wednesday 13 October (10:45 - 12:30 CET)

  • Simplifying the delivery of ICDD containers based on the ISO-21597
  • Manos Argyris (Amberg Group)
  • Abstract: What we ‘re looking for in this proposal is a way to simplify the delivery of ICDD containers, following the ISO-21597. Considering the great value of delivering AECO projects based on open standards in a future-proof way, ICDD containers prove to be an important tool towards this direction. However, to raise the level of adoption of such initiatives, there is a lot of space for making the process more accessible to a wider range of users. Our contribution is targeting the end-to-end procedure of producing the ICDD container in a painless way for non-experts through a simple web-based interface, together with an API for developers.

    More specifically our approach is split into three main steps: 1) After the user specifies the directory with all the (local) project files, a Python script produces the ISO-defined file structure, while parsing all the available metadata from the files. 2) Then, the user adjusts the parsed information and fills up the rest, while defining links between the files. 3) The information, which is initially registered as an associative array, is processed and transformed into an RDF graph.

    The interface is designed in a way that guarantees the appropriate usage of the ontology’s entities and relations, as well as the proper literal data types without the explicit definition by the user. Additionally, SHACL will be used in the final processing step to verify the compliance to the ISO ontology. The whole directory, having been suitably configured, is zipped into the ICDD format.

    Furthermore, the backend code can be exposed through a standalone API, which accepts a properly formatted JSON file and produces the “index” and “linkset” RDF files. The API is considered especially useful for projects involving a big amount of files with repetitive link patterns, where batch data processing is more feasible than manual configuration. This option can also be considered as additional to step “2”, through the injection of the extracted link information to the interface.

    Finally, we are looking closely at approaches that aim to combine the ISO-21597 with broader data linking projects like openCDE etc. We would also like to open the discussion on how additional synergies with more low-level ontologies like BOT or BRICK can be achieved.
  • Enabling Multi-scale Energy Modelling through a Linked-Data Approach
  • James O'Donnell, Tobias Maile (University College Dublin)
  • Abstract: This presentation describes the use of linked data approaches to permit queries across large, diverse information sources to allow reasoning about complex questions at multiple geographic scales. The developed methodology leverages a central spine model that provides a common hierarchical context; various heterogeneous external information sources can be associated with these contexts, creating a homogeneous data network that can be queried using federated SPARQL queries. These distributed sources are, in themselves, registered in a central catalogue in order to facilitate data discovery; the actual data, however, remains under the control of their source organisations. In this way a large, extensible, interconnected network of distributed data describing a built environment can be constructed; this network can be queried centrally to provide customised views of subsets of the data.

    The utility of the architecture is demonstrated by establishing a data network to support Ireland's Economic and Social Research Institute (ESRI) analysts to investigate the impact of various decarbonisation scenarios on the Irish transmission grid. An instance of the Dynamic District Information Model (DDIM) server was used for this analysis. Large datasets were necessary to support this investigation, including details of 220 transmission nodes, c.16,500 small areas and approximately 2 million residential buildings. A series of residential energy archetypes were developed, including as-is and energy consumption per residence archetype for numerous scenarios, including the adoption of heat pumps and electric vehicles. It was found that the DDIM approach enabled integration of large scale and heterogeneous datasets, finer grained data analysis, and improved the accuracy of the analysis.
  • Ontology-based Building Energy System Commissioning and Monitoring
  • Hervé Pruvost (Fraunhofer IIS EAS)
  • Abstract: "Ontology-based Building Energy System Commissioning and Monitoring": Commissioning and operating building energy systems necessitates much configuration and testing work of the building monitoring and automation system. Generally suppliers and installers use singular proprietary software systems and customized monitoring databases. Once setup and in operation, there is also no guarantee that the building is energy-efficient and most of time building users themselves act as energy wasting factors due to their wrong usage of the building energy system. As a response, the presented work aims at developing an expert system that shall ease the transition between design and operation as well as provide live recommendations for a continuous commissioning of the building energy system. For that purpose, it relies on Building Information Modeling (BIM) and Semantic Web technologies. The presented approach tries then to bring a complementary added value to classical building automation and control systems (BACS) by the means of semantic modeling and knowledge reuse for semantic analysis and characterization of the building energy system and its operational conditions. For that purpose, it implements a knowledge base of energy conservation measures and potential operating errors that prescribe energy-efficiency actions and handlings to building users or a facility managers. The system consumes for a part building data gathered during its operation through a monitoring system. For another part, it relies on metadata contained in initial BIM-compliant building design models.

    The resulting software application might be used in the future as an add-on to existing building management systems (BMS). Modern BMS are able to handle a huge amount of data that are analyzed for supervising, controlling and benchmarking buildings. BMS data are mainly gained through sensors and meters that provide information about e.g. the operational state of technical equipment, indoor temperature or energy consumption. Because of its highly time-dependent nature, this kind of information can be categorized as dynamic data about a building in contrast to static data which represent the building and its technical systems as they are i.e. as built physical entities. This latter kind of information encompasses data about the energy system components, their technical characteristics and their layout in the building. Even if numerous dynamic data are produced during building operation there is no much use of building static information created during its design. In view of that, the proposed methodology aims at closing this informational gaps between building design and operation by making reuse of initial design models serialized in IFC. The intrinsic relationships between dynamic and static data are then represented into some ontologies and analyzed by means of logical reasoning. In existing BMS those relationships are semantically poor and only contained partially in the backend data model of the BMS, like a relational database in most cases. The proposed semantic building information model is then used for interpreting building energy system behaviors and identifying best energy conservation measures. More specifically, an energy system ontology together with a risk ontology are introduced to support reuse of knowledge for optimized building operation.

Wednesday 13 October (13:45 - 15:15 CET)

  • Integration of Geotechnical Investigation and Quality Control processes in the BIM methodology for Infrastructures
  • Gloria Calleja-Rodríguez (CEMOSA)
  • Abstract: In AECO industry (Architecture, Engineering, Construction and Operation), BIM methodology is consolidated as the most efficient way to design, build, operate, maintain and demolish infrastructures by i) achieving the digital representation of the infrastructure including geometric and non-geometric information, ii) allowing for a more efficient collaborative work among the different stakeholders and disciplines, and iii) covering all the phases in the infrastructure life cycle (from the planning and design up to the demolition). However, some disciplines are not properly integrated within the workflows of BIM methodology. Therefore, the related information is not properly integrated in the As-Built BIM model of the infrastructure and it is not shared among stakeholders following BIM standards. This is the case of the Geotechnical Investigation and Quality Control activities accomplish during the planning, design and construction processes of the infrastructure life cycle. This is the challenged tackled by the R&I project ICONYC developed by the Engineering Company CEMOSA, funded by the Spanish Government, and presented here.

    Geotechnical Investigation and Quality Control are core activities for CEMOSA. In the ICONYC project, CEMOSA has developed a methodology to integrate such processes within the BIM workflow allowing for the digital transformation of these activities. This presentation will describe the i) Geotechnical Investigation and Quality Control processes workflows; ii) the mobile apps for field data gathering (geotechnical drilling, surveys, inspections and samples) developed in SAP Fiori; iii) the apps for the information analysis (tests, incidences, communications, geotechnical layers, etc) developed on SAP ERP; iv) the apps for the generation of the Geotechnical Investigation and Quality Control BIM models developed by means of APIs from XBIM and Revit and, v) the Common Data Environment (CDE) which allows the sharing of site information (including documents, BIM models, CAD drawings, inspection, surveys, samples, incidences…) and management information (tasks, milestones, communications, stakeholders…) among all the participants. The CDE has been developed based on SAP Fiori, Autodesk BIM360 and Autodesk Forge.

    In addition, it will be described the Data Model to store on SAP ERP the information related to the Quality Control (batch, inspections, surveys, check points, samples, tests, incidences, communications, etc.) and the Geotechnical Investigations (drillings, samples, tests, geotechnical layers, etc) as well as the mapping of said Data Model with the IFC classes schema and the definition of the property sets to store the relevant quality control and geotechnical information.

    The integration of Geotechnical Investigation and Quality Control processes into the BIM methodology produce a more accurate As-Build BIM Model, including the actual characteristics of the infrastructure executed and allowing for a better traceability of the control processes carried out and, consequently, a greater guarantee on the debugging of responsibilities in possible future infrastructure ‘s pathologies as well as a reduction in the possible mistakes in the integration of geotechnical parameters and, therefore, achieving a more optimised foundation designs. All of this reverts in a better collaboration among all stakeholders in a more cost-effective way.
  • Why Asset Data Must Be FAIR: The SIDO Case
  • Jan Voskuil (Taxonic)
  • Abstract: Managing infrastructure assets — street furniture, buildings, escalators, landing guidance systems, toilet doors — requires data that are findable, accessible, interoperable, and reusable: FAIR data. Making this happen is a huge challenge. But succeed and you get much more value from your assets. By optimizing the planning of maintenance work, Dutch rail infrastructure company ProRail managed to cut maintenance cost by 10%. Data can yield enormous value but making them FAIR takes effort. In this presentation, we report some of the results of a small-scale proof of concept called SIDO and will demonstrate the core functionality of the solution we created. It shows that projects to make data FAIR can be small in scope and still yield immediate benefits. Thus, the FAIR data challenge can be met in a stepwise manner.

    The SIDO-case is about sharing data between parties that do work under ground. Better methods of sharing data make it possible to better coordinate planning. The result is that a street needs to be closed for digging only once, while multiple parties execute their maintenance work on their separate underground assets. The Ministry of Infrastructure and Water Management took the initiative for the project and funded it, and it was executed with Evides, the water company of the Rotterdam region, and other parties that own underground assets in the same area. Together with CGI, we at Taxonic realized a solution based on free open-source components, delivering a prototype of a SIDO-cooperation space based on FAIR data.

    Data science techniques are promising, but creating FAIR data already starts yielding benefits even when more modest goals are pursued. FAIR data can lead to significant improvements in essential, basic primary processes where data science plays no role (yet). To introduce FAIR data in an organisation, small incremental steps can be taken, each with a solid business case.

    This is what the SIDO-case is about. Utility companies must be able to gain access to their equipment under ground. These works need to be coordinated to minimize cost and traffic disruption. There is a great potential for cooperation, and of course efforts are made to make this happen — in the past and present. But cooperation is easier said than done. Data about underground assets are sensitive and not to be shared irresponsibly.

    We created a FAIR data solution to support this. The essential ingredient of the solution is a semantic data model in RDF, including some OWL and SHACL. When asset owners publish data about planned works conforming to this semantic model, other asset owners can instantly see with whom they might cooperate when planning their works. We will relate the SIDO case to other real-world developments in the asset management domain where RDF-based solutions play a central role. Also, we will demo the functionality of the SIDO solution.