What is BS 5606 - Guidance for design and construction about?
BS 5606 gives guidance on and provides examples of principles that relate to the accuracy and tolerance in design and construction activity for the built environment. BS 5606 is intended to be a practical guide to assist designers and constructors in determining and managing the risks associated with accuracy and tolerance and taking steps to control them appropriately, which, if unmanaged, can be very significant to cost, time and quality.
BS 5606 is designed to support the creation and implementation of a project strategy for accuracy and tolerance and provide practical implementation guidance throughout the life cycle and is supported and support other important standards and processes. BS 5606 is intended to be applied to buildings and infrastructure works in design and construction.
Who is BS 5606 - Guidance for design and construction for?
BS EN BS 5606 on guidance for design and construction is useful for:
- Site investigators
- Dimensional measurement teams
- Architectural designing teams
- Structural designing teams
- Manufacturers and suppliers of measuring instruments
- Manufacturers and suppliers of construction systems parts
- Construction teams
- Maintenance teams
Why should you use BS 5606 - Guidance for design and construction?
With the advancement in technologies, the importance of off-site construction is ever-growing. The fundamental objective of BS 5606 is to provide awareness and advice on ways to avoid problems of inaccuracy or fit arising on-site. The need for such advice on any particular project varies, depending on the character of the project and the materials and methods of construction. BS 5606 is designed to be relevant to all types of construction including the most sophisticated ones. Those concerned with an individual project can judge the extent to which each section is relevant to their needs.
BS 5606 assists users in avoiding or resolving problems of inaccuracy or fit by assessing the dimensional needs of a design regarding tolerances, and then designing and specifying appropriately. BS 5606 also helps users with assessing the likely achievement of tolerances in construction specified for a particular project and giving guidance on strategies to verify capabilities and mitigate challenges. BS 5606 helps in providing for monitoring and controlling work during construction to check that it is in accordance with specified dimensional tolerance and accuracy for surveys. BS 5606 guides users in aiding the digital design and engineering (on- and off-site) including the application of BIM for the built environment. BS 5606 assists in understanding the importance of the accuracy of surveys undertaken pre, during and post-construction works to measure existing features and as-built with the ability to support and verify the achievement of design tolerances and fit.
What’s changed since the last update?
BS 5606:2022 supersedes BS 5606:1990. BS 5606:2022 includes some technical changes with respect to BS 5606:1990. These include:
- The examples of issues in Section 2 have been updated
- Section 3 and Section 4 have been updated to include technology and process changes
- A clear distinction has been made between the use of accuracy and tolerance as independently definable and required characteristics
- Clarifications and caveats have been added to the BRE industry performance assessment tables from the 1970s and 1980s (in Annex C), including the importance of not relying on these for an assessment of current practice, i.e. tables of industry performance in relation to manufacturer and assembly and construction tolerances from the 1970s and 1980s have not been updated, but are retained for historical reference for empirical site/manufacturing performance in that period. The assumptions around dimensional variability in the industry’s current practice (on- or off-site) need to be assessed without reliance on the legacy tables included in this document for historical examples and context