How Facility Management can use Building Information Modelling (BIM) to improve the decision making process

Abstract

Building Information Modelling (BIM) is changing the way the construction industry works and whilst designers and constructors are already rapidly implementing BIM in their practices, its potential use for facilities management is still not clearly identified and existing case studies show only a marginal use. The research presented in this paper aims to identify the opportunities and barriers related to the integration of BIM and Facility Management (FM) knowledge. It investigates how FM and BIM can add value to and improve the transition process from construction to operation by capturing and making better use of relevant FM information. A focus group workshop approach was used with a group of subject matter experts (SME) from across the building whole life process. The workshop was the first step of a three-year project aimed at understanding how BIM can support sustainable FM decisions. BIM offers FM an opportunity as a process tool to enable a more informed decision-making process. The paper summarizes the theoretical applications of BIM to FM and presents the outcomes of the workshop. FM can use BIM as a unique source of data that needs to be transformed into usable information for day-by-day activities. The creation of BIM standards is necessary to enable data exchange with other software. Cultural and behavioural aspects, as well as soft services, should be integrated within the BIM model.