The MIH for construction trade associations
Your manufacturer members need to meet the growing demand for their construction product information. The problem is you don’t feel equipped to offer them guidance.
The construction industry desperately needs digitised product information. Without it, the right people don’t have access to the right information in the right format. Without it, everyday requests for data sharing are harder to meet.
- Supplying environmental product declarations (EPDs).
- Populating product selection platforms.
- Meeting cross-border requirements to sell into Europe.
- Forthcoming requirements for Digital Product Passports (DPPs).
Your members all face the challenge of making their information available in a consistent, structured and reusable way, and in a cost-effective manner. This challenge exists across multiple platforms, customers and regulatory requirements.
What if you could not only access that advice, but also play an active role in its creation and development?
What if you could support your members, regardless of their maturity when it comes to structured data and product information management?
What if you could provide that support at no extra cost, while also remaining completely impartial?
The gateway has been designed specifically in the knowledge that the members of your trade association are at very different stages of maturity.
Some manufacturers have invested heavily in product information management, structured data, BIM content and digital workflows. Others, particularly SMEs, are still managing product information across spreadsheets, documents and disconnected systems.
Even organisations with mature product information systems can face significant challenges sharing information efficiently across multiple channels. Wherever your members are on their digital journey, The MIH provides a practical route towards greater standardisation and interoperability over time.
The MIH is run by manufacturers, for manufacturers. Thanks to our collective approach, anybody can work with us. As part of building a community across Europe, we welcome trade association members who want to support their manufacturer members on their digital journey.
Benefits
Not for profit organisation
Our values are aligned with yours. You do not have to recommend a commercial platform, and can remain impartial.
Technical resource
Our technical support and training is available to your members at no extra cost.
Single point of access for manufacturer information
The MIH portal simplifies the process of sharing construction product information, and delivers value for your members.
Respects manufacturers’ data ownership
Manufacturers retain control of which information attributes may be accessed and by whom.
Not for profit organisation
Our values are aligned with yours. You do not have to recommend a commercial platform, and can remain impartial.
Technical resource
Our technical support and training is available to your members at no extra cost.
Single point of access for manufacturer information
The MIH portal simplifies the process of sharing construction product information, and delivers value for your members.
Respects manufacturers’ data ownership
Manufacturers retain control of which information attributes may be accessed and by whom.
How it works
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Step 1
Attend a Welcome Forum to learn more about The MIH and ask questions.
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Step 2
Join The MIH, be part of its development and have confidence to start conversations among your association membership.
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Step 3
Receive support on your digital journey and provide value to your members by helping them on their own journeys.
How The MIH supports you and your members
Information about construction products needs to be accurate, secure and up to date. Currently, there is no joined up approach to addressing issues with data credibility, security, and interoperability between multiple systems.
That includes keeping information up to date, making it accessible and managing version control.
The MIH is not a platform for comparing products. Solutions already exist in the market. The MIH is not seeking to disrupt that, replace those platforms, or put you in the position of recommending a commercial solution to your members.
Instead, The MIH will make it simpler and more cost effective for those platforms to be accurate and useful.
In turn, that makes it easier for manufacturers to be accountable and responsible for their data, because The MIH will link directly to their product information management (PIM) system or their choice of data pool. That allows The MIH to solve problems related to:
- traceability and the golden thread;
- access to testing and certification evidence;
- accuracy of product marketing;
- verifiable carbon data, and more.
Longer-term, the ambition is to connect with third-party certification schemes and other information providers related to construction product compliance, such as testing, verification and certification bodies, and assessment bodies such as the Code for Construction Product Information. Your members will therefore be better able to interact with these providers and bodies where they choose to do so.
Join the Manufacturer’s Information Hub and you have the opportunity to be part of our three committees, influencing The MIH and shaping the development of its portal.
“Poor quality data and lack of transparency and openness is always something that dogs the industry.
Anything that brings people together to solve that I’m all I’m all for.
We are building a new digital marketplace for industrialised construction, and as part of that we’ll be expecting suppliers to provide much more structured data. We’re looking forward to using The MIH and its work to forward our ambitions.
Ron Lang – Regional Manager, AtkinsRealis, Technical Director, Industrialising and Digitalising Construction Challenge
FAQs
Pressures on manufacturers to provide structured, digitised product information are increasing, from EU regulations (CPR/ESPR/EPR etc) and their subsequent tools (EU Digital Product Passports for example), and from national requirements, such as the UK’s Building Safety Regulator (BSR) and National Regulator for Construction Products (NRCP) national data space initiatives across Europe. Meeting these requirements individually is massively time consuming and the risk of error is huge.
The Manufacturers’ Information Hub is a not for profit, manufacturer-owned organisation. We are building a gateway to enable manufacturers to share the product information they choose with any of a myriad of digital systems they choose, via a single connection that they control.
The MIH portal will make it possible for users of manufacturers’ product information to know they are accessing governed information at source (from the manufacturer). It will also enable manufacturers to achieve that certainty in their clients in a cost-efficient and reliable way.
Membership of The MIH is free of charge for qualifying manufacturers. During development The MIH will be funded by government and European funding streams. This will enable it to sustain its independent status and enable manufacturers to get involved at no cost to them. Our long-term aim is to operate as a self-funding, not-for-profit organisation, supported through modest licence fees from participating manufacturers and certain information users.
Membership is open to construction product manufacturers and their trade associations who operate in the CEN area (where European Standards apply). Further details of membership qualification are being finalised, and we’d welcome your input.