The Built Environment’s Most Persistent Problem
Amodal’s CEO, Stuart Bell recently hosted a panel at Digital Construction Week to discuss why, despite better standards and improved digital maturity across the industry, the same persistent problems keep appearing at handover.
The answer, when you examine it carefully, is not technical. It is structural, cultural and commercial. And it starts long before anyone is talking about handover.
Joining him were Andrea Scrutton (BBV), Ishka Heart (SNG), Matt Warren (Lendlease) and Thomas Flannery (McLaren Construction), bringing perspectives from major programme contractors, asset ownership, development and tier-one construction delivery.
Handover is not a single moment.
The panel title “Stop Calling It Handover: Building Decision-Grade Asset Information from Day One”, was deliberately provocative. Not because handover does not matter, but because the word itself has become part of the problem. It implies a moment. A finish line.
In practice, the quality of information at handover is determined by hundreds of decisions made throughout design, procurement and construction. Most of these were made with no thought for how the information would be used once the building was occupied.
When handover fails, it rarely fails suddenly. It fails because operational information needs were not defined clearly at the outset, because those requirements were not translated into procurement decisions, because the supply chain was not enabled or incentivised to meet them, and because nobody checked information quality progressively as the project developed. By the time practical completion arrives, the problems are already baked in.
Improving handover is not primarily a Stage 6 problem. It is a Stage 1 problem. The decisions that determine whether operational teams inherit useful information or a pile of PDFs are made at the very beginning of a project, often before the design is fixed.
“All of our different stakeholders would define handover as something slightly different. And all of those different requirements need different information.” Ishka Heart, SNG
Clients often do not know what information they need.
Clients know they will need a handover pack. They may reference relevant standards. But the detailed understanding of which specific data points matter to which operational teams, in which format, at which stage, is rarely in place when design begins.
This is not simply a client capability problem. Operational teams in large, complex organisations are often geographically dispersed and functionally siloed. A housing provider, for example, may have development teams, sales teams, asset management teams, compliance teams and financial teams who all have legitimate but different information needs at completion. They arise at different points throughout the delivery programme.
The practical implication is that the industry needs a more collaborative model for defining information requirements. Contractors and consultants who have delivered multiple handovers have a depth of experience that most clients simply do not. Using that experience to help clients understand what they need is a shift that benefits every party in the process.
“The cost of IM should be borne in the capital structure. There’s a lot more education needed for clients to understand that this is a whole-life cost investment, not a secretarial and admin afterthought for information deliverables.” Matt Warren, Lendlease
Information quality vs costs savings
One of the persistent myths around information quality is that investing in it is a cost without a clear return. This is demonstrably wrong, but the argument needs to be made in terms that resonate with the people controlling the budget.
For developers and investors, the return on information investment is increasingly tangible. An asset with complete, structured, well-organised information is easier to sell, easier to manage and easier to invest in. It carries less liability, attracts fewer disputes and supports faster decisions. The due diligence process is simpler. Investors have greater confidence.
A simple analogy is when buying a used car with a full service history and a current MOT, it may costs more upfront than buying one without, but the confidence in the purchase is higher, and the resale value is better. The same logic applies to built assets. An information-rich building is a more manageable, more resilient asset than one that requires its new owners to reconstruct the record from scratch.
For housing providers and public sector asset owners, the stakes are different but the logic is the same. When maintenance teams do not know which components are under warranty, they send their own labour. When that labour voids a warranty, for instance on a roof or a lift, the cost falls on the client organisation. Sometimes it’s passed on to their clients – residents, tenants, service users who can least afford unexpected charges. Good information at handover is not an administrative nicety. It is a cost control mechanism, a compliance tool and, in some cases, a matter of resident welfare.
Information is increasingly a risk management issue
Historically, discussions around handover have focused on operational efficiency. Today, the conversation is broader.
The introduction of the Building Safety Act has elevated information from an operational concern to a governance and risk management requirement. Asset owners are now expected to demonstrate that they understand their buildings, can evidence key safety decisions, and can provide information that supports the safe occupation and management of assets throughout their lifecycle.
This changes the economics of information management. Poor information is no longer simply an inconvenience for facilities teams. It can result in increased regulatory scrutiny, slower decision-making, additional investigative costs and, in some circumstances, an inability to demonstrate compliance.
For owners of higher-risk buildings, the challenge is particularly acute. Information gaps created during design and construction may not become apparent until years later when maintenance, refurbishment or safety interventions are required.
The industry’s challenge is therefore not simply producing information for handover. It is creating trusted evidence that remains usable, understandable and accessible throughout the life of the asset.
“Do we make most value out of those early PCSA stages? … How often do you actually talk about handover during these stages? There is probably a conversational point that doesn’t really come up all that often…” Thomas Flannery, McLaren Construction
Procurement: the starting point for good information management
Even where clients have defined their information requirements clearly, and where contractors understand what is needed, the point at which those requirements most commonly get lost is procurement. Specifically: the point at which work packages are let to subcontractors, and the information delivery obligations are either not communicated or not enforced in the search for cost savings.
On most construction projects, the commercial management function and the information management function operate with limited coordination. Commercial managers are focused on programme, cost and risk. They are appointing subcontractors under pressure, working within a cost plan, and making decisions quickly. If the information requirements buried in the EIRs are not clearly translated into what the supply chain is expected to deliver, they simply do not make it through the procurement process.
Information requirements need to be treated as a commercial obligation, not a technical appendix. They need to appear in tender documents, monitored during delivery and be enforced at completion. The organisations making real progress in this area are the ones that have elevated information management to sit alongside programme and cost as a core project management discipline.
“Yes, we can all use different systems, but the output needs to be the same. So that whoever we’re handing this data to, they can receive data from all their projects in all the same structure. Then we can learn lessons better across all the projects with standardised data coming from multiple sources.” Andrea Scrutton, BBV
Standardisation isn’t where you may think
One of the more practical insights from experienced practitioners is the distinction between standardising the systems used to produce and manage information, and standardising the information that gets handed over. The former is difficult, probably impossible and arguably unnecessary. The latter is both achievable and essential.
Large organisations delivering multiple projects simultaneously will inevitably work with different CDEs, different design tools and different subcontractors using different platforms. That is the reality of the construction industry, and no standard is going to change it in the near term. What can change is what comes out of those systems: the structure, naming conventions, metadata standards and format of the information that is ultimately handed to the client.
This is where asset owners and operators have the most direct influence. If they define clearly, early and contractually what the output needs to look like, then the supply chain has a clear target to work towards, regardless of which systems they use to get there. The problem is that most asset owners do not have that level of specificity in their requirements. And most do not discover the gaps until they try to load the handover data into their asset management systems and find it does not map.
A practical example of how this breaks down: properties built by different contractors across the same portfolio arrive with component names that do not match the naming conventions in the client’s FM system. Every asset has to be manually translated before it can be managed. At scale, across hundreds or thousands of units, that translation cost is enormous and entirely avoidable if the naming requirements had been specified at the outset.
The industry has become very good at moving documents
One observation that emerged repeatedly throughout the discussion was that the industry has spent the last decade improving document management, but far less time improving information management.
Most projects can now demonstrate sophisticated workflows, common data environments, approvals processes and document control procedures. Yet many asset owners still receive information that is difficult to interrogate, difficult to integrate and difficult to use operationally.
The distinction matters.
Documents tell us what happened. Data allows us to make decisions.
The future challenge for the built environment is not how to move more files between organisations. It is how to ensure that critical information is structured consistently enough to be reused throughout planning, delivery, operation and renewal.
This is particularly important for owners managing large portfolios, campuses and infrastructure networks where value is derived not from a single asset, but from the ability to compare performance, risk and investment needs across hundreds of assets simultaneously.
Progressive assurance is the missing discipline
If there is one process change that would have the greatest impact on information quality at handover, it is introducing progressive assurance: checking information quality at agreed milestones throughout design and construction, rather than reviewing it at practical completion.
We do not build a structure and then check it for defects at the end. We inspect at milestones, identify issues while they can still be corrected, and build confidence progressively over the course of the project. Information quality deserves exactly the same treatment.
The reason it does not get that treatment is partly cultural and partly commercial. On a construction site, the physical build takes priority. When resources are stretched, the digital asset competes for attention with the physical one and usually loses. There is also a procurement dimension: subcontractors and suppliers who have completed their physical scope and moved on are hard to re-engage for information corrections. The leverage disappears at practical completion.
Progressive assurance changes this dynamic. When information quality is checked at milestones, the gap between the information that exists and the information that is needed can be identified and closed in real time rather than in the final scramble before handover.
“You retain consistency by engaging people from a core belief perspective. Acknowledging that systems and approaches will always change and they have to be on the journey.” Matt Warren, Lendlease
Assets need information strategies, not just handover packs
For organisations managing large, complex or long-lived assets, the handover pack problem is compounded by a deeper challenge: information continuity across time. A masterplan delivered over twenty years will involve different people, different standards, different platforms and different client teams at completion than it did at inception. The information produced in phase one may be structured, formatted and named in ways that bear little resemblance to what phase four requires.
Technology is not the answer to this problem, at least not primarily. Systems change. Platforms are replaced. Organisations merge or are restructure. The organisations that maintain information continuity across long timescales do so because the people within them genuinely understand why that continuity matters.
This points to a broader principle. Digital maturity in asset management is not primarily a technology capability. It is an organisational one. It is built through culture, through consistent governance across a portfolio, and through leadership that understands the long-term value of information quality as a strategic asset.
Thinking beyond the asset itself
One of the most interesting themes raised during the panel was the growing recognition that information can support outcomes far beyond the physical asset.
Historically, handover has focused on enabling operation and maintenance. Increasingly, organisations are asking broader questions.
- How can information support resident wellbeing?
- How can it improve accessibility?
- How can it help demonstrate social value?
- How can it contribute to carbon reduction, resilience and sustainability objectives?
- How can it support more effective public services?
These questions require a different mindset.
If information requirements are only defined around technical asset operation, then opportunities to create wider value are missed. If information requirements are developed around organisational outcomes, then the resulting data can support a much broader range of decisions.
This represents a significant shift in thinking. Buildings are no longer simply physical assets. They are increasingly viewed as platforms that generate data capable of improving outcomes for organisations, communities and society.
7 key things the industry needs to do differently
The challenges described above are well understood, at least in principle. What is less consistent is the willingness to address them systematically rather than project by project. Meaningful progress requires a shift at multiple levels:
- Information requirements defined by asset and operational teams from project inception, not inherited from contract templates
- Early investment in setting up systems and having the right conversations before the pressure to start building takes over
- Information delivery obligations embedded in procurement decisions, and enforced commercially
- Progressive assurance of information quality at agreed milestones throughout design and construction
- Standardised output requirements such as naming conventions, asset identifiers, data structure being specified contractually by asset owners
- A planned transition from Project Information Model to Asset Information Model, resourced and managed rather than assumed
- Independent, accessible guidance to help clients understand what good information looks like for their type and scale of project
The skills challenge nobody talks about
Technology was discussed surprisingly little during the session.
That is not because technology is unimportant. It is because most organisations already possess the tools needed to improve information outcomes.
The greater challenge is capability.
Across the industry there remains a shortage of people who understand both project delivery and operational asset management. Too often, information management is viewed as either a technical discipline or an administrative function, when in reality it sits at the intersection of commercial, operational, digital and project delivery activities.
The projects achieving the best outcomes are typically those where information managers, commercial teams, project managers and operational stakeholders are working together from the outset.
Improving handover therefore requires investment not only in systems, but in people, skills and organisational understanding.
The finish line is not the answer
We often use the phrase across the built environment “start with the end in mind”. When it comes to asset information, that means understanding the decisions that will need to be made throughout the operational life of an asset and then working backwards.
Not from practical completion.
Not from handover.
From operation.
The FM team responding to a fault. The building safety manager demonstrating compliance. The asset manager planning investment. The sustainability lead reporting performance. The resident seeking reassurance. The executive team making portfolio decisions. Each depends on information that originates during design and construction.
That is why handover should not be viewed as an event. It is the culmination of an information strategy that begins on day one and matures throughout the life of the project.
The industry has spent many years asking how to improve handover. Perhaps the better question is how to ensure that every information decision made during delivery contributes to better operational outcomes.
If we can answer that question consistently, handover largely takes care of itself.
Many thanks to our DCW panelists:
Andrea Scrutton, Information Management Systems Manager, Balfour Beatty VINCI (BBV)
Ishka Heart, Head of Digital Building Information, Sovereign Network Group (SNG)
Matt Warren, Head of Digital – Europe, Lendlease
Thomas Flannery, Head of Digital Information Management, McLaren Construction
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