Supporting Facility Management Processes through End-Users' Integration and Coordinated BIM-GIS Technologies

The integration of facility management and building information modelling (BIM) is an innovative and critical undertaking process to support facility maintenance and management. Even though recent research has proposed various methods and performed an increasing number of case studies, there are still issues of communication processes to be addressed. This paper presents a theoretical framework for digital systems integration of virtual models and smart technologies. Based on the comprehensive analysis of existing technologies for indoor localization, a new workflow is defined and designed, and it is utilized in a practical case study to test the model performance. In the new workflow, a facility management supporting platform is proposed and characterized, featuring indoor positioning systems to allow end users to send geo-referenced reports to central virtual models. In addition, system requirements, information technology (IT) architecture and application procedures are presented. Results show that the integration of end users in the maintenance processes through smart and easy tools can overcome the existing limits of barcode systems and building management systems for failure localization. The proposed framework offers several advantages. First, it allows the identification of every element of an asset including wide physical building elements (walls, floors, etc.) without requiring a prior mapping. Second, the entire cycle of maintenance activities is managed through a unique integrated system including the territorial dimension. Third, data are collected in a standard structure for future uses. Furthermore, the integration of the process in a centralized BIM-GIS (geographical information system) information management system admit a scalable representation of the information supporting facility management processes in terms of assets and supply chain management and monitoring from a spatial perspective

The building information modelling trajectory in facilities management: A review

There is a paucity of literature that examines building information modelling (BIM) for asset management within the architecture, engineering, construction and owner-operated (AECO) sector. This paper therefore presents a thorough review of published literature on the latest research and standards development that impact upon BIM and its application in facilities management (FM) during the operations and maintenance (O&M) phase of building usage. The purpose is to generate new ideas and provide polemic clarity geared to intellectually challenge readers from across a range of academic and industrial disciplines. The findings reveal that significant challenges facing the FM sector include the need for: greater consideration of long-term strategic aspirations; amelioration of data integration/interoperability issues; augmented knowledge management; enhanced performance measurement; and enriched training and competence development for facilities managers to better deal with the amorphous range of services covered by FM. Future work is also proposed in several key areas and includes: case studies to observe and report upon current practice and development; and supplementary research related to concepts of knowledge capture in relation to FM and the growing use of BIM for asset management

Ability of BIM to satisfy CAFM information requirements

Facilities Management (FM) and Building Information Modelling (BIM) are contemporary day concepts that have modernised the way built environment behave. In modern day, FM concepts are moving towards to sustainable FM (SFM). Incidentally, Facilities Managers (FMs) become responsible for assuring the sustainability of facilities of the business. Modern day buildings are increasingly sophisticated and the need for information to operate and maintain them in sustainable manner is vital. Currently FMs rely on the information of the facility retrieved from conventional Computer Aided FM (CAFM). However, FM professionals face challenges from existing information inefficiencies resulting in unnecessary costs, productivity, efficiency and effectiveness losses where these leads to failure of SFM. Considering its favourable features, BIM had been identified as promising solution to effectively reach SFM goals. BIM conceptually has been developed to overcome the inefficiencies in conventional building information systems and recording methods. Combined data would enable the art of making any building more intelligent and sustainable. Significant efforts were found which had focused on getting the benefit of BIM for FM. However, there was no certain answer to “how far could BIM satisfy the information needs of CAFM?’’ This paper proposes a methodology to theoretically answer this question, which had been proposed for the next step of the study being conducted in Sri Lanka