Innovative IFC Classification in BIM Models Ready to be Converted Into Digital Twins

The integration of Building Information Modeling (BIM) and Digital Twin (DT) represents a concrete advancement in the design procedure and management of buildings, infrastructures, and their technical systems. These new design and management procedures are proven to be performance optimizers and cost reducing assets, enhancing sustainability of the whole design and management procedures. Although both BIM and Digital Twins represent real assets through digital models, they address different requirements across distinct phases of the asset lifecycle. These models are traditionally designed independently and, in many ways, result in the repetition of work already performed. This paper addresses the lack of a procedure to convert the BIM model into a fully operational Digital Twin. The proposed procedure extends the IFC standard to create a BIM model that integrates all required communication parameters, enabling its direct conversion into Digital Twin. The developed approach was successfully applied to two real-world assets, enabling BIM model conversion into Digital Twins with minimal effort and without 3D remodeling. This paper is an extended version of a paper presented at I&CPS 2025 Montreal.