What is the EIR?
The EIR (Exchange Information Requirements) — in ISO 19650 terms; formerly "Employer's Information Requirements" in the UK, and the German "AIA" — is the document the client (appointing party) uses to state its information order to the project. It becomes part of the tender and is the template the delivery team answers with the BEP.
Without a clear EIR, designers deliver "by feel" — sometimes too much, sometimes too little. Both cost money: too much information bloats models and fees, too little leads to change requests in operation. A good EIR makes information demand orderable and verifiable.
What goes in?
- Information purpose & use cases — what the information serves (e.g. quantity take-off, clash detection, FM handover).
- Organisational requirements — roles, responsibilities, CDE usage, communication.
- Commercial requirements — information delivery milestones tied to contract/payment gates.
- Technical requirements — formats (IFC, openBIM), coordinate system, naming convention, classification (Uniclass / OmniClass).
- Level of Information Need (LOIN) — geometric and alphanumerical detail per element/phase.
- Delivery & acceptance criteria — when a delivery counts as met.
Common mistakes
- A generic copy-paste EIR with no project context — delivery teams won't take it seriously.
- Excessive requirements without LOIN logic → expensive, needless data depth.
- No measurable delivery milestones → disputes over "done or not".
- Formats/naming undefined → incompatible models in the CDE.
Generate it instead of editing a template
In the generator you answer structured questions on purpose, use cases, formats and detail. Out comes a consistent, ISO 19650-compliant EIR as DOCX/PDF. The defined detail flows directly into the LOIN and is available to the delivery team for the BEP.