Uniclass 2015 - a universal classification system for the construction industry

July 2015

As part of a 2014/2015 Innovate UK project, NBS has delivered a universal classification system for the construction industry – Uniclass 2015.

Uniclass 2015 is a pan-industry development, involving much industry consultation and engagement, created with the needs of construction professionals and over 5,500 NBS specification customers in mind.

• Find out more about Uniclass 2015
• Read Knowledge articles about Classification
• Download the classification tables (via the NBS BIM Toolkit)

Uniclass 2015 is an evolution of Uniclass 2, which has been available in draft version since 2011, and while based on the same founding principles of BIM integration, Uniclass 2015 has been further developed in the last 3 years, taking into account feedback received from the industry on Uniclass 2 drafts.

With Uniclass 2015 we have developed a system compliant with ISO 12006-2 that is mapped to NRM1 and supports mapping to other classification systems in the future.

The main changes include:

• The removal of the work results table
  This has the advantage of having a simple classification for each object from its respective class table. In the Uniclass 2 proposals, an object (e.g. clay brick) would have a classification from the work results table and the products table: in Uniclass 2015, it has a classification from a single table.
• A consolidation of items to create more space for infrastructure objects
  Having a single unified classification system for both buildings and infrastructure is fundamental to the principles behind Uniclass.
• A consolidation of items to group similar items together
  An example of this would be a single classification area for detectors (rather than detectors for fire alarm systems and detectors for other uses being held in different areas).
• A return to a more familiar construction industry language for classification titles
  An example of this could be the use of the word “taps” in place of “water supply fittings”.

For an explanation of the background and reasoning behind this approach, see the classification article  on the NBS BIM Toolkit.

What’s next?

NBS specification products are based on either CAWS or Uniclass 2 classification systems. For those professionals who are NBS specification product users, please continue to work as normal and develop specification and office master content as your projects require.

As at June 2015, NBS are exploring options for implementing Uniclass 2015 within NBS products. We will be doing all we can to ensure NBS customers have the best possible experience.

If you are interested in helping to guide the implementation of Uniclass 2015 into NBS products, please let us know by registering your interest in our NBS Beta Test Programme.