Exploring Facility Management (7D) with BIM Considering Quality and Performance Assessment Models

Purpose: To explore the evolution of Facility Management (FM) in the Building Information Modelling (BIM) process. The research aimed to establish Critical Success Factors (CSF) which help deliver successful BIM projects, and to present these in a ‘FM-BIM Mobilisation Framework’. Background: Inefficiencies, poor collaboration and a focus on short-term costs in the construction industry, combined with a lack of innovation and digital competency when ordering projects, have resulted in a failure to deliver assets which have sustainable outcomes over their whole-life. Methodology: A mixed methods concurrent convergent design, incorporating side-by-side narrative text analysis was adopted to merge qualitative/quantitative findings. Critical Success Themes (CST) from literature were then used to establish CSF through; 19 interviews with FM/BIM experts, and a questionnaire to gauge FM industry awareness of BIM (using UK and international inputs). The final merged CSF were incorporated into a framework. This was validated using a two-stage process with a focus group using some of the same FM/BIM experts. Key findings: 10 CSF Main-Themes (MT), with a 100 Sub-Themes (ST) were identified covering important digital skills, knowledge and competences people require to contribute to the BIM process. Clients and Facility Mangers (FMs) must engage early if the full benefits of BIM are to be realised in the operational phase. They must clearly define their information requirements to align with business processes, and collaborate with the delivery team to ensure information is captured/transferred into the relevant management systems. Originality/value: The comprehensive end-to-end framework combines FM and BIM CSF into one online interactive tool which provides a wealth of useful knowledge, sources, benefits and practical examples. Although based on the UK BIM Framework, the alignment with ‘ISO 19650’ ensures it will also benefit an international audience. Keywords: Facility Management (FM), Building Information Modelling (BIM), ‘FM-BIM Mobilisation Framework’, digitalisation, information requirements.

PurposeThis paper aims to describe how building information model (BIM) and big data can be combined in the same interface for providing new value to stakeholders, such as the property owner and user, as well as property service and workplace service companies. The research presents a new concept, which shows how the BIM can be exploited efficiently during maintenance.Design/methodology/approachInitially, existing facility management (FM) processes were investigated to find out how to digitize them and identify bottlenecks. Second, BIM’s data content was explored to identify the information that could be used to streamline FM processes. Third, the potential of the active data measured in the building was evaluated. Finally, research was undertaken to find out how constantly fluctuating information can be combined with BIM objects and what kind of added value that combination could offer. The literature review was used to support the primary contribution. In addition, the research problems were described and the basics of the research were obtained by interviews. The author has interviewed 27 professionals from several stakeholders.FindingsThe first finding is that the BIM can serve as a platform for building use, various services and management when it has been adequately generated during the planning and construction phases and enriched before being commissioned. The other essential finding is the theory of conditions data model (CDM), which is a technical environment that combines active data with BIM. The most important advantages of BIM in FM are as follows: • Building owner attains better user satisfaction, acquires better quality and smarter services, saves energy, ensures better indoor conditions and improves building profitability. • Service providers can develop and offer new services, speed up operations, save resources and generate more profits. • The occupant gets a better user experience, faster and higher quality services and better indoor conditions.Research limitations/implicationsThe CDM enables to generate for the real estate and construction (RE&C) sector a novel BIM-based ecosystem with standard rules, instead of every individual operator developing his/her own unique solution for BIM use in FM. This will have an impact on the entire RE&C sector’s operating methods and will have significant financial implications in the near future. Application of this research is limited to office buildings where indoor condition measuring is undertaken continuously and where the knowledge of the use cases of spaces is available. In addition, the proper BIM in the Industry Foundation Classes format must exist. The evaluation of the validity of big data is not discussed in this article. Visualization of data and content of user interfaces will be the topic of another article by the author. This article does not deal with intricate technical details, but crucial issues are defined.Originality/valueThe article presents a unique method for BIM use in FM. The theory of CDM (how to combine active data with BIM) is completely new and a similar solution has not been presented earlier. The theory of the presented method will be the crucial key for BIM use and will lead worldwide commissioning. Currently, the theory is under test in the practical pilot project. The results of the project will be published in the next article.

PurposeAdoption of building information modelling (BIM) in facilities management (FM) provides an information platform to store and exchange asset data. Quantity Surveyors, with cost management expertise, are increasingly involved in FM roles in the operation phase. However, no study has been conducted on how BIM may assist Quantity Surveyors when contracted in FM roles. This study aims to identify the potential benefits and challenges of using BIM by Quantity Surveyors in FM roles.Design/methodology/approachInterviews were conducted with eight professionals from an international built and natural asset design and management company and its FM business partner in Australia.FindingsLack of complete and accurate data was the main issue faced by Quantity Surveyors in FM. The benefits of BIM in FM were digitizing and storing asset information and developing a cost database that would be useful for Quantity Surveyors, whereas challenges included keeping model data up to date, cost, industry resistance to change and contractors' lack of model use.Originality/valueThis study contributes to revealing the niche adoption of BIM by Quantity Surveyors in FM and identifying the issues faced by Quantity Surveyors in FM roles using BIM. It contributes to the knowledge of BIM adoption in post-construction. Findings will be useful to develop strategies for adopting BIM in FM and supporting Quantity Surveyors' roles in FM.

The management of complex information flow can be a crucial aspect of Facility Management (FM). Because of the increasing complexity of the present-day building projects, FM activities, for example, maintaining a building facility or a system, normally involve enormous human multitasking across different knowledge domains. Lessons learned from the present successful FM instances manifest that the FM teams are increasingly interested in applying more viable technologies to achieve the effective management of massive information. Building Information Modelling (BIM) technology is one of the promising approaches, as it forms a platform for the users to manage the information of a facility and leverages virtual digital representations as a reliable basis for decisions during its life-cycle. Nevertheless, the fully immersive environments produced by BIM still lack the capability of mapping a virtual world into a real world, or vice versa. Augmented Reality (AR) is emerging as an advanced visualization which is possible to bridge the gap. It enables the demonstration of BIM context into the real world, and is envisaged to effectively improve the way of how information is displayed. Meanwhile, the virtuality-to-reality changeover from BIM to AR is conductive to a better understanding of information about a facility from the human perception perspective. The objective of the study is to explore that the merging of AR with BIM is a way for improving the information search and management in FM applications. This chapter firstly brief what is FM and how it is generally implemented. Followed by the state-of-the-art review of BIM/AR aided FM research, the chapter then proposes the viability of integrating BIM and AR and demonstrates its efficacy of processing complex onsite information based on four BIM+AR case studies. Finally, the chapter discusses the technological transferability issues in terms of deploying more and more BIM+AR scenarios in the prospective FM process.

PurposeThe purpose of this paper is to develop a hybrid conceptual model for building information modelling (BIM) adoption in facilities management (FM) through the integration of the technology task fit (TTF) and the unified theory of acceptance and use of technology (UTAUT) theories. The study also aims to identify the influence factors of BIM adoption and usage in FM and identify gaps in the existing literature and to provide a holistic picture of recent research in technology acceptance and adoption in the construction industry and FM sector.Design/methodology/approachThe research methodology was to first review the literature to determine how users come to accept new technologies and what leads to adoption of BIM in the construction industry and in FM and to identify gaps as the starting point for developing a conceptual framework for greater adoption of BIM in FM. Using the results from the literature review, the conceptual framework for BIM adoption in FM has been formulated.FindingsThe resulting model of the current research is expected to improve our understanding of the acceptance and adoption of BIM by FM.Research limitations/implicationsThe research hypotheses need to be tested for validation. Future works includes survey and experts’ interviews for model validation.Originality/valueThis paper fulfils an identified need to study how FM come to accept and adopt BIM through the integration of TTF and UTAUT.

The usage of Building Information Modelling (BIM) in the Facility Management (FM) sector will significantly speed up the design and construction phases. However, most facility managers continue to use the traditional paper-based approach to manage facility maintenance and operations, which includes designs and spreadsheets. The goal of this research is to pinpoint the factors that affect BIM's acceptability in the FM sector. Six factors, including organisational culture, individual competency, perceived usability, perceived ease of use, individual intention, and organisational aim in the context of facilities management services, were found. Prior to that, it is necessary to determine whether the theory supporting the adoption of BIM in facility management is valid and reliable. This study used an abductive methodology that blends qualitative and quantitative techniques. 30 respondents completed a set of questionnaires as part of the study's pilot test. Based on the findings of the pilot study, it can be demonstrated that the high degree of Cronbach's Alpha values is accepted, demonstrating the validity and reliability of the theory supporting the adoption of BIM in facility management and its high degree of internal consistency. This study demonstrates that there are important factors that affect how well BIM is received in the facilities management sector. All the six factors have a significant impact indicating that the theory underlying the adoption of BIM in facility management is valid and reliable and has a high degree of internal consistency.

BIM assisted Building Automation System information exchange using BACnet and IFC

Abstract: Assessing the quality of information in building information models (BIM) at the time of project handover is critical for owners. Lack of quality information in delivered BIMs can cause significant issues in using BIM for facility management purposes, potentially limiting or preventing their use in building operations. Our studies of numerous BIM projects and deliverables have found that most BIMs created for design and construction today contain significant quality issues including inaccurate, incomplete, or unnecessary information. To make these models useful for building operations requires significant adjustment to the models, which can be very time-consuming and costly. This paper describes different types of quality issues identified through numerous case studies of BIM projects and categorizes them according to different model perspectives (entity, model, and user level) and relevant facility management perspectives (assets, MEP systems, and spaces). We identify the different characteristics of each type of quality issue and then systematically analyze relevant literature in the AEC and computer science domains to put these issues in context. This analysis highlights the ambiguity in characterizing information quality issues in a BIM and demonstrates the need for a comprehensive and consistent formalization of BIM quality.

Purpose The recent research trend of building information modelling (BIM) involves interoperability and issues pertaining to the design, construction, operations, and maintenance phases of a building. However, few researchers are concerned with problems encountered in the last two phases of the building life cycle. Since BIM has been widely used in the design and construction phases, further expanding the BIM data stream to the post-construction phase can not only establish a consistent, shared database for information exchange between the phases but assist in current facility management applications. This research reconceptualises BIM with object-oriented thoughts to a space-based representation, and tries to construct an interface between BIM and existing facility management software. Method Model-driven architecture (MDA) is one of the modern software design approaches. With its foundation – meta-object facility (MOF) – and model transformation, MDA provides an ideal solution for easily maintaining the interoperability. In this research, a MOF of a building is constructed by imitating the MDA approach, encapsulating BIM data and providing an interface for external facility management software. This MOF of a building is designed with spatial interference due to the maintenance and repair work is usually based on the space. Results & Discussion A conceptual demonstration of disaster mitigation is conducted to test the feasibility of using MDA to encapsulate BIM data for extended applications. Furthermore, the expected results are reconstructing maintenance records to a space-based database for a better software design and a solution for interoperability.

BIM (Building Information Modeling) is a new radically different emerging approach to design, construction and facilities management. BIM promises to better facilitate the building development, construction and building operation. In this thesis the domain of small architectural practices is considered and how BIM can be implemented to address the problems both of operational and product efficiency and effectiveness.
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\nResearch has indicated that guidance on how small architectural practices should implement BIM is lacking (Jung et al 2010). This lack of guidance is one of the reasons why small architectural practices are disinclined to adopt BIM. There is a growing need for more knowledge on how BIM technology and processes can be and should be adopted and what happens when BIM technologies and processes are implemented and used in the practice of architecture.
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\nThe aim of this thesis is to develop a BIM implementation strategy framework for small architectural practices.
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\nTo identify of the problems and issues of BIM implementation in a small architectural practice, a two years of case study using action research was undertaken. This involved instigating, participating and observing the implementation of BIM within a small architectural practice. Both the internal and external benefits to the architectural practice were considered. The findings of this BIM implementation research were then recorded and reviewed providing a structured approach to BIM implementation. From this process of review and reflection a revised improved framework and suggested methods for BIM adoption was developed and documented. At each stage of the BIM implementation recommendations are made.
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\nThe research was undertaken as part of a Knowledge Transfer Partnership between the University of Salford, John McCall Architects (a small architectural practice) and the researcher and author of this thesis. Though being actively involved in the BIM implementation it was possible to understand the issues and document the actions that were taken as part of the BIM adoption. The major limitation of this research is the focus on a single company as the source of evidence and research.
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\nThis enhanced BIM implementation framework and the suggested working methods represents the primary contribution to knowledge made by this thesis. This framework should be of value to other small architectural practices embarking on BIM implementation.

The purpose of this paper is to discover the current methods that facility managers use to manage and track assets and identify a set of attributes for Building Information Modelling (BIM) that can improve the efficiency of the current facility management (FM) practice. A survey of over 100 facility management professionals addressed demographics such as industry sector, number of buildings managed, and use of industry standards or internally developed guidelines for data management. This information is correlated with their current asset management strategies to identify minimum sets of attributes that may be used for an FM-specific BIM. In addition, the survey asked the FM professionals their opinion on the importance of specific asset attributes and data management information that could be included in a BIM for FM. The findings of this paper indicate that there is a consensus on basic information (asset type, unique identification, manufacturer, model number, serial number) needed for asset management, and that there is no generally accepted system on how this is done in current practice. FM professionals and software providers may use the information in this paper to establish baseline sets of data to include in BIM during the design phase of projects. This paper provides insight and data as to the current practice of asset management by facility managers. Understanding the actual needs of the FM industry will assist in future research to implement BIM for FM.

Interoperability in building information modeling for AECO/FM industry

Purpose The oil and gas industry form the main resource of economy in Iraq and constructing any project in such sectors requires a huge amount of expenses due to the unique requirements that oil and gas facilities required in such projects. Therefore, adopting an appropriate technological approach such as building information modeling (BIM) which is unfortunately not adopted yet in Iraq is essential to successfully deliver these projects. Thus, this paper aimed to introduce BIM to Iraq through Basra Oil Company (BOC) which is one of the biggest public oil and gas companies in Iraq. Design/methodology/approach The related literature of journals articles, conference proceedings and published reports have been reviewed. As a result, firstly: a hypothesis has been derived that is “If Basra Oil Company (BOC) adopts and applies BIM approach instead of the 2D approach currently used to manage its projects, the company can overcome several constraints in managing its projects that associated with such 2D traditional approach”; secondly: homogenous, consistence and reliable web-based questionnaire has been designed as its Cronbach’s alpha equal to 0.897 and 0.711 for BIM benefits and barriers, respectively. This questionnaire distributed to the BOC related professionals to test such hypothesis by investigating their readiness and accepting of BIM approach and to rank BIM barriers based on five-point Likert scale. Findings Based on the analysis using IBM SPSS Statistics 26 of 115 responses, almost 50% of the respondents had experience 11–15 years, while 22.6% had experience more than 15 years in oil and gas industry construction projects. Those participants were from diverse engineering majors that are: 4.3% Architectural Engineers, 31.3% Civil Engineers, 20% Mechanical Engineers, 22.6% Electrical Engineers and 21.7% from other engineering majors. The respondents’ departments demography was 16.5% of design department, 12.2% of construction department, 20.9% of Project Management Department, 12.2% of Maintenance department, 4.3% of HSE Department, 13% of Production Department and 20.9% of “Other Department.” The study resulted in 1: accepting BIM approach to be an alternative of current 2D-traditional approach used by the company to manage and construct its projects, since mean of collected data is (4.4332), Kruskal–Wallis H test significance values were 0.398 and 0.372; and ANOVA test significance values were 0.433 and 0.599 among Engineering Majors groups and Company’s Department groups, respectively. 2: Disclosed and sequenced BIM barriers in the company based on their criticality. 3: verifying reliably how BIM attributes are important to oil and gas construction projects in Iraq, 4: the company top management and company policies are the most critical potential factors to hinder or adopt and implement BIM in the company, 5: while cost is not seen a critical barrier to implement BIM in the oil and gas sector. Research limitations/implications The limitation of this study is the excluding of decision makers of BOC, thus more profound future studies need to be conducted where top management and decision makers are involved, particularly the present study demonstrated that support of company top management is the most critical factor which can help the company to adopt (BIM). Originality/value The study concludes that BIM approach is valuable for managing projects in oil and gas sector in Iraq and identify the originality in output by using the research method. This noble study provides a leverage for enhanced research to adopt and implement building information modeling (BIM) in Iraq as the study originally demonstrates benefits and identifies the critical barriers in BIM implementation to push the boundaries toward adopt Digitalization and reduce CO2 emission in Iraqi oil and gas sector. The study can be used as evidence and platform to encourage professionals and practitioners to present more sophisticated tools of BIM in the oil and gas industry, especially for facility and operation management. These findings achieved via oil and gas experts, and it is first time to achieve such findings from a case study in Iraqi oil and gas sector.

Building information modeling (BIM) technologies use precise geometry and relevant data to enhance and improve the maintenance performance of facilities integrated with 3D object-oriented computer aided design (CAD). Although most owners agree on the potential benefits of integrating BIM technologies with facility management (FM), they must overcome many problems to plan and develop effective BIM execution plans for FM implementation. This study proposes and develops a BIM execution plan for BIM model management for FM during the pre-operation phase. Through the application of the proposed BIM execution plan, BIM can be effectively implemented during the operation and maintenance phases. In order to verify the proposed methodology and demonstrate its effectiveness in practice, the BIM execution plan is then applied in a selected case study of a building project in Taiwan. The combined results demonstrate that the proposed BIM execution plan is an effective approach for operation and maintenance management. The advantage of the proposed BIM execution plan lies not only in improving the efficiency of maintenance management work when integrated with BIM technologies, but also in maximizing the value and benefits of BIM to support maintenance management. Finally, limitations, difficulties, and suggestions are summarized for further development of the BIM execution plan for BIM model management during the pre-operation phase.

PurposeThis paper aims to describe the development and testing of an employer’s information requirements (EIR) template and guidance document designed to meet client and facility management (FM) needs in the building information modelling (BIM) process.Design/methodology/approachA qualitative design approach was used and triangulation of methods which included a focus group with the British Institute of Facilities Management (BIFM), semi-structured interviews with the case study Glasgow Life Burrell Renaissance Project who trialled the EIR and peer-reviews and interviews with BIM/CAFM experts from the BIM Academy and FM180.FindingsSpecific guidance to help clients and facility managers prepare key BIM documents like the EIR are needed. They are aware of industry BIM standards and guidance but often not in detail. The Glasgow Life case study illustrated the EIR as a useful collaboration-tool to bring together stakeholders in early planning stages to understand client information needs.Social implicationsAssets and buildings account for most of the energy and material use in society. A well-structured EIR will help ensure the right information is available to enable optimisation of running costs and utility-use over their whole life, thus contributing to long-term sustainability.Originality/valueThis paper provides a new EIR template and guidance document ideal for practitioners in industry as a practical starting point to plan the client information requirements for BIM projects. It can be downloaded at www.bifm.org.uk/bifm/knowledge.