University of Alberta - Advanced Contract Award Notice / Notice of Proposed Procurement - Ucommons Digital Twin Project - Sensor data integration with Building's BIM model

The department of Computing Science submitted a request for BiMkit Software Solutions Inc. to complete sensor data integration with the Ucommons building information modeling (BIM). The goal of the project is to provide a data visualization, querying, and reasoning tool to help building managers better understand the state of the building in real time. The tool will build on the existing rules-based building reasoning engine, BIMkit, introducing three new functionalities that will be a vital step toward a smarter, more efficient building management system. BiMkit Software Solutions Inc. is the company of a Computing Science PhD graduate whose expertise is perfectly aligned with our needs. The owner’s PhD thesis covers thoroughly the most specialized elements of the work plan. Their software is exactly what is needed as a prototype component for doing the work have outlined in the CFI proposal. This request for a competitive bid exception is based on the justification that it is for the procurement of a prototype of a first good or service to be developed in the course of, and for a, particular contract for research, experiment, study or original development but not for any subsequent purchases. Because much of the work was completed as a part of the thesis, there will not be the delays and additional expense accrued with another supplier, as a result of the duplication of the work that would be required.