Mike Trabold
For two decades, the AECO industry has become exceptionally good at generating data. Models are richer. Collaboration is more connected. Common data environments are more mature. Yet at project handover, something predictable happens: most of that data fails to serve the people who need it for the next 30 to 70 years.
Design intelligence rarely becomes operational intelligence. Autodesk’s newest solution for managing handover data – the Asset Information Connector (AIC) – is built to change that dynamic.
The Real Cost of Handover
In our blog series on the evolution of CDEs, we highlighted a staggering statistic: 96% of engineering and construction data goes unused. [1] Some of that loss is cultural. Some is contractual. But much of it is technical. Data gets trapped in files, lost between project phases, and re-entered manually into systems that were never designed to speak to each other losing its connection to the original data source.
Nowhere is this more visible than at a project’s handover phase. After years of coordinated design and construction, owners often receive deliverables that are technically complete but operationally unusable. Equipment attributes are inconsistently named or populated. Specifications are incomplete. Warranty and commissioning information is disconnected from the assets it describes. Operations teams spend months re-keying data into CMMS platforms. Errors multiply. Trust erodes.
Owners are no longer willing to accept long handover cycles and reams of disconnected data. In today’s digital project delivery world, structured information deliverables are becoming operational requirements, not aspirational goals.
Autodesk Datum provides the enterprise framework to define and govern those requirements: class libraries, validation, change tracking, and progressive assurance across the asset lifecycle. But governance alone is not enough. The missing piece has been creating the right data correctly at the source.
That is where AIC comes in.
What the Asset Information Connector Does
AIC sits between model authoring tools and enterprise asset information systems like Autodesk Datum. It enables project teams to register design objects as operational assets, map authoring tool properties to downstream data schemas, validate asset data against structured information requirements, and resolve gaps during design rather than at closeout.
Consider a mechanical engineer placing an air handling unit in Autodesk Revit. That object carries geometry, performance data, and specification properties. But the Owner’s facilities team needs that same asset described in a completely different way. The Owner’s schema needs to be one aligned with the data standards they’ve defined in Datum, their CMMS, and their organizational requirements. Today, that translation typically happens manually and very late in the project lifecycle.
With AIC, mapping relationships between source properties and target attributes in Datum are configured once. Information requirements, drawn from Datum’s class libraries and validation rules, define what is expected for each asset class. Validation runs in real time. Instead of discovering missing data six months after handover, teams address gaps while the model is still active.
AIC and Autodesk Datum: Closing the Data Loop
In our post on Autodesk Datum, we said the industry needs to focus on making the “I” in BIM more robust. Datum addresses this at the enterprise level, governing class structures, validation rules, standards, and lifecycle tracking. It’s the engine that keeps asset data structured, validated, and trusted.
AIC operationalizes those standards inside the authoring environment.
For Datum customers, information requirements flow directly into AIC, allowing designers to work against owner-defined standards without leaving their native tools. A Revit user interacts with AIC as a natural extension of their design workflow. They register assets, populate properties against Datum’s standards, and resolve validation flags as they go.
Datum defines what good asset data looks like. AIC ensures that good data gets created at the source. Together, they close the loop between information requirements and information delivery.
This architecture is further supported by the AEC Data Model, which enables granular, object-level data access across Autodesk platforms. AIC participates in that broader ecosystem, with Datum at its core, contributing to a shift from file-based deliverables toward structured, interoperable asset data.
Configuration Over Integration
AIC is intentionally designed as a configurable connector, not a hardcoded point-to-point integration. Real-world portfolios are messy and varied, and the information requirements, target schemas, and systems of record vary enormously across segments, geographies, and organizational maturity levels.
For Datum customers, class libraries and requirements flow directly into AIC. But requirements can also come from other sources: Excel-defined data standards, bespoke organizational schemas, or third-party data platforms. Property mappings can target Datum’s schema or any other downstream system. As tools and systems evolve, AIC adapts through configuration rather than redevelopment.
From Event-Based Handover to Continuous Asset Identity
Traditional handover treats asset data as a packaged deliverable compiled at project close out. AIC reframes handover as a continuous process that can begin as soon as an asset is created.
Assets are registered early in design, establishing a persistent identity. As the project progresses, design properties are validated against Datum’s information requirements. Construction and installation data accumulate against that same identity. By the time handover occurs, asset information is already structured, validated against Datum’s standards, and governed. It’s not assembled from scratch.
The result is a continuous digital thread that supports operations from day one. Re-keying is reduced. CMMS onboarding accelerates. Trust in asset information increases over the lifecycle. This is a fundamental shift in how the industry thinks about asset data. Asset data stops being a deliverable and starts being a living record.
What’s Ahead
AIC is currently available in beta to Datum customers with desktop support in Revit. Development is underway for Civil 3D and Plant 3D connectors, with cloud-based workflows expanding support for asset data that originates beyond traditional authoring tools.
Integration with Autodesk Datum continues to deepen, with tighter alignment to Datum’s class libraries, validation engines, and change tracking so that AIC operates as a true extension of the Datum ecosystem within the authoring environment. For teams earlier in their data maturity journey, AIC provides a structured on-ramp to Datum’s enterprise capabilities.
The Inflection Point
The AECO industry is moving from file-based collaboration to granular, object-level data management. Asset information can no longer be treated as a byproduct of design. It must be treated as a lifecycle asset in its own right. AIC accelerates that transition so asset data created during design arrives at handover validated, structured, and operationally ready.
Better operational outcomes begin with better asset information. And better asset information starts where the data is created.
[1] FMI Corporation, Big Data = Big Questions for the Engineering and Construction Industry, 2018. Available at: https://fmicorp.com/uploads/media/FMI_BigDataReport.pdf
