From CE marking to construction 4.0

This post is a translation of the article Del marcado CE digital a la construcción 4.0 publised in the magazine of the Spanish Association for Standardisation (UNE).

European harmonised standards provide a common language, specifying the testing and conformity assessment methods for the performance characteristics included in the CE marking and in the Declaration of Performance (DoP).

Users (designers, construction companies, public administrations, building or infrastructure managers, etc.) use this information for projects or procurement specifications.

The implementation of the CE marking has improved the competitiveness of the industry, reducing the technical barriers to market construction products in Europe.

However, product performance communication, based on paper or pdf, has become obsolete with the incorporation of new technologies in the design, construction and management of real estate and infrastructure assets, p.e. with BIM or the implementation of industry 4.0 concepts in manufacturing.

The Committee on the Internal Market and Consumer Protection of the European Parliament reflected this need in the Report 2020/2028(INI):

The European Parliament (…) Believes that digital solutions such as a ‘Smart DoP’ could be used to allow economic operators to quickly assess and compare requirements for construction works with the information provided in the DoP.

Digital Declaration of Performance

Manufacturers usually provide the DoP on their website, in pdf format, with the limitations derived from the difficulty of extracting structured information from these files.

As an alternative, there are options such as IFC, defined in the standard EN ISO 16739-1, widely used in the construction sector. However, the industry, due to the complexity to transfer CE marking related information using this format, decided to seek for other options.

The European Committee for Standardization (CEN) published, in July 2018, the document CWA 17316, which develops the concept of Smart CE marking (or Smart DoP) using XML to transfer the construction products performance data.

Based in that framework, the Spanish Association for Standardisation (UNE) published the standard UNE 41316 Digital declaration of performance for construction products (smart CE marking). This is an industry-led development that adopts the CWA 17316, with several improvements arising from learning during these two years.

The standard covers the declaration of performance in spanish or how to use XML attributes without affecting the integrity of the format. Some topics are explained in more detail, like the management of interdependent properties (usually presented as a table in paper-DoP), or the use of unique identifiers (GUID) to facilitate software interpretation and interoperability.

The structure must be developed for each specific harmonised standard. In other words, a particular XML format is required for each harmonized product standard. To facilitate development within the standardisation technical committees, Annex B provides guidelines for the definition of the XML structure.

Annex C contains one of the main contributions of the Spanish standard: the definition of a scheme for additional characteristics not included in the CE marking, such as product colour or a link to CAD files. Since it is necessary, for regulatory reasons, to differentiate the mandated information from other data, it is structured in two tags:

<DeclarationOfPerformance>: mandatory information


<AdditionalInformation>: additional information

Relevant data required by clients or applicable regulations can be included with this additional information, but it will be more difficult to standardize, especially at the European level.

It is not considered feasible for a manufacturer to generate a structure for a particular property, but it should be agreed in a product TC.

The standard UNE 41316 contains several examples of additional information, p.e. the data contained in the Environmental Product Declarations (EPD).

In addition, Annex C includes criteria for the digital signature of the file, although it was not been considered feasible to define a unique system to sign the XML.

Structure of the Smart CE

Applications

This format allows, with a minimum cost, to transfer the regulatory information to BIM or calculation software.

Some direct applications can be:

• Web portals: search based on parameters such as product type, harmonised standard, performance characteristic, etc.
• Market surveillance: check of files against vs. legal specifications. For example, public authorities can generate a file with the regulatory requirements in Spain for a product and compare it with all the products used in their works, requested in Smart CE format.
• Quality control of manufacturers or reception on site: p.e. a concrete manufacturer can develop an app that automatically downloads the information of the materials (cement, aggregates and additives) in the reception control, accessing the data through a QR code on the delivery accompanying documents, and compares the data with the liming values in the specifications, indicating whether it pass or fail the check and the cause of non-conformity.
• Automatic translation of DoPs to other languages.
• Supply of the information via apps, simplified and with several languages available, for example, to be used in do-it-yourself centers.
• Building log book and facility management: The XML files are significantly lighter than the pdf, which facilitates their storage, and also allows for smart searches.

It's just the beginning

The standard UNE 41316 provides criteria and requirements for a format to be developed for each harmonized standard. To be properly applied, product TCs should develop the particular XML structures. Thus, we still have an important task ahead to harmonise the Smart CE.

The spanish standardization SC in charge of BIM, CTN 41/SC 13, knew that this harmonization should be carried out at a European level. However, it was considered crucial to have a Spanish standard, to support a leading role of national industry in the digitalization of construction product information, either via the relevant CEN/TC or developing the format in a national TC and, once published, proposing the format in the product European product TC.

This standard is, therefore, a step forward on the path of industry digitization, and the beginning of a necessary standardization to transfer the construction products information with a simple, open, European, and computer-readable format.

Author: Aitor ARAGóN. Responsible for sustainability in construction and BIM. Spanish Association for standardisation (UNE).

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