A buildingSMART method, published as ISO 29481, for describing who exchanges which information with whom, when and why, before anyone decides how it is encoded.
An Information Delivery Manual (IDM) describes one information exchange in a project process in plain terms: which parties are involved, what triggers the exchange, what information is handed over and what the receiver does with it. The method is published as ISO 29481 and is maintained by buildingSMART International. An IDM says nothing yet about file formats; it is the business view that later becomes a technical one (an MVD or an IDS).
Few project teams write a full IDM. The idea is used more often than the document: an information requirement that names the exchange, the parties, the milestone and the purpose is an IDM in miniature. Industry groups and software vendors write complete IDMs for common exchanges (structural analysis, energy, handover) so that the same requirement can be reused across projects.
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