Streamlined management of the built environment: the district and the building logbook as risk prevention tools

Management of information related to the real properties is a key topic both in private and public sector. In the Italian context, can be spotted an overall lack of organisation of the information concerning the real estate assets, from the building scale, to the neighbourhood, until the city and the territory. Moreover, management of the urban environment is characterised by the presence of different players asking for common needs in management and use of data. This research aims at proposing the Building Logbook and the District Logbook as tools for collection, organisation and management of information, in a perspective of streamlined real estate management process. Moreover, the Logbooks can be conceived as tools for risk management. They should be exploited especially in technical management phase of assets, as well as in the verification of compliance with laws, authorisations and licenses, since these issues often bear to disputes between public and private players. Often disputes concern that areas where the competences and responsibilities among different players are not clear (connections to system, property boundaries, licenses, occupation of public land etc.). In this situations, information management assumes a key role, since it could be a powerful mean to clarify responsibilities among players. Therefore, the scope of the research concerns the investigation on the relationships and related information flows among stakeholders in the real estate field. Altogether, it can be stated that the logbooks can streamline processes in the use phase of assets, despite they could be intended as rigid control tools. Through this paper these issues will deepened and clarified. The paper concludes with some considerations concerning the possible integration of the Logbooks in a digital environment, following the BIM approach

Dynamic Facility Condition Index calculation for asset management

Aim of this research is to investigate the possibility of dynamically computing the Facility Condition Index (FCI) using a database of maintenance operations and costs of fabric and services components. This would lead to an instrument able to support decision making during asset and portfolio management because FCI is widely considered a good indicator for monitoring assets and portfolios conditions; so being able to efficiently calculate and update it is fundamental for a proper asset management. There are many ways to benchmark assets condition, but most of them are qualitative and lead to ratings in percentage, that need to be further elaborated to be connected to annual OM&R costs. The FCI can be considered an economic rating, based on money paid for maintenance, repair and replacement performed over the current asset value. The objective is to make an appraisal of the maintenance costs in a dynamic way, so to be able to examine multiple scenarios and make forecasts; the facility value comes from market appraisals with some coefficient applied, if need be. This calculation procedure, together with a maintenance operations and costs database developed by the authors (either forecasted or real costs), can be used by asset managers to support decisions about maintenance and repair actions to be undertaken. This paper shows preliminary results of this research, with the help of a case study. Further correlations should be investigated, even if this calculation procedure leads to an effective management. The calculation procedure and the database organization are an original work of the authors, as well as the case study used to show the results. In addition to this, connections among the indicators provided and BIM (Building Information Modelling) models are analyzed

The maintenance paradox

This research will spot main features of servitization in real estate, placing main emphasis to current and future development of the trend. In manufacturing the servitization process has already been studied since the late 1980’s, whereas in real estate is a phenomenon not yet been clearly defined yet. Despite being a market characterised by low speed innovation, currently some changings in management of the built environment can be noticed: with new business models and financing structures, a shifting from a product-oriented market to a service-oriented one can be spotted. Therefore, through this research will be investigated the servitization process, with regard to maintenance management, no longer conceived as an optional non-core activity, after the transaction of the asset, but as part of the services included in the purchasing of the building and its facilities. Accordingly, the building is conceived more and more as a complex tangible and intangible entity, not only characterised by its production and location value, but also by its capability to offer provide users with a wide array of services to users. Thus, after a phase featured by the willingness to acquire legitimacy in the building process by the maintenance operators, we are witnessing to the maintenance paradox: the servitization of business model in real estate, leading to performing “the maintenance without maintenance”. The paper concludes with some considerations on future developments of the research and trends in the real estate marke

Digital transition in facility management. BIM, CMMS and diagnostic maintenance

Managing a building’s life cycle is a fundamental part of designing sustainable constructions and implementing efficient management strategies. The research described in this paper is inserted within this context, with the objective of integrating the facility management phase within this virtuous process. The purpose of the study is to develop a user-friendly and cost-effective strategy that can be used to create a digital twin, based on CMMS, on which to integrate real-time data in order to optimise the use and maintenance phases, moving towards a predictive system. The strategy was developed through two case studies. The first was linked to the procedure to build the digital twin on the CMMS database, and the second was to define the indicators necessary to collect data in real-time, a function underpinning diagnostic maintenance

Guías propias de BIM para la gestión de portfolio

BIM is blooming in many Countries but in most of them it is unclear how its adoption can be governed and by whom. The BIM-market is increasing every day, with plenty of training courses and software, but there still is a great lack of guidelines and procedures to take clients (owners and users) through the risky path of BIM adoption. This paper aims to show main results of a case study research carried out by the authors for a public Italian client: development of guidelines, procedures, BIM objects and templates to be used for managing an asset portfolio. The proprietary guidelines developed are meant to solve problems related to e.g. missing and not updated data, loss of subcontractors’ control and inaccurate quantity take-offs. Starting from a clear definition of roles and activities to be done, the research focused on the steps to be taken to write some comprehensive guidelines that deal with new construction, existing buildings and maintenance. The results of the research will guide the public client in his transition from traditional to BIM-based procedures. Examples are provided in this paper aim at exemplifying the use of the proprietary guidelines; the case study presented in this paper is the RAI (Italian public broadcaster) settlement of Bologna, composed by a set of four buildings used for several activities.BIM se está desarrollando en muchos países, pero en su mayoría no es claro cómo y quién debería gestionar su adaptación. El mercado de BIM crece cada día, con un número significativo de cursos de formación y software disponibles, pero aún hace falta definir directrices y procedimientos que permitan orientar a clientes (propietarios e usuarios) a través del complejo proceso de adopción de BIM. Este trabajo pretende mostrar los principales resultados de una investigación realizada por los autores en un caso de estudio para un cliente público italiano que comprende: elaboración de guías, procedimientos, objetos BIM y plantillas para la gestión de una cartera de activos. Las directrices desarrolladas están destinadas a resolver problemas como, por ejemplo, datos faltantes o desactualizados, pérdida de control por parte de los subcontratistas y calculo inexacto de cantidades. Partiendo de una clara definición de los roles y las actividades a realizar, la investigación se concentró en los pasos a seguir para redactar directrices comprensibles dedicadas a construcciones nuevas, edificaciones existentes y al mantenimiento de las mismas. Los resultados de la investigación guiarán al cliente público en su transición desde procedimientos tradicionales a procedimientos basados en BIM. En este documento, se proveen ejemplos con la intención de ejemplificar el uso de directrices específicas, el caso de estudio presentado en este artículo es el asentamiento de la RAI (Emisora pública italiana) en Bologna (Italia), compuesto por el conjunto de cuatro edificaciones utilizados para diferentes propósitos

A rating system for building resilience

Measuring and rating resilience of assets is a key enabler for asset and portfolio management. This paper presents a resilience rating system for buildings by utilising a Building Information Modelling approach. The assessment is carried out through a calculation following the Analytical Hierarchy Process. This methodology can be applied to different types of buildings, without a loss of precision or reliability. This resilience rating forms an integral part of more comprehensive array of Key Performance Indicators frameworks for asset and portfolio management, and therefore can significantly influence strategic investment choices for designers, engineers and building owners