CITA BIM Gathering 2015, November 12th -13th
Is there a place for Building Information Modelling (BIM)
within the Operate Phase of a Building?
1
1
Claire Penny
WW Industry Leader, IBM Analytics | Internet of Things | Enterprise Asset Management
E-mail: [email protected]
Abstract ̶ Building Information Modelling (BIM) is now commonplace within the design
and construction phase of a building lifecycle. However, it is less common within in the
operate phase, and yet, as we know, the operate phase is the longest and operationally the
most expensive phase of the lifecycle. This is set to change. The driver of this change will not
only be governmental change (and the mandate for the operate phase of a building to be
considered as outlined in BIM level 2), but will also come from building owner/operators
who require accurate and timely information about physical assets in order to effectively and
efficiently run and manage their buildings. So, given that BIM is extending to the operate
phase, will there be additional value for building owners and occupiers? Will it drive the
additional business value the company finance executives are demanding, or will it just be
another white elephant, coming at an unnecessary cost to companies? Does BIM provide the
process that will enable companies to embrace the Internet of Things (IoT) explosion?
Keywords ̶ Building Information Modelling
I EXTENDING BIM BEYOND THE
DESIGN AND BUILD PHASE
Building Information Modelling (BIM) has its roots
in
collaboration,
process
and
associated
technologies, which bring together all the
stakeholders of the design and construct phase, to
drive efficiency and reduce project costs.
In the 2014 McGraw Hill Construction [1] report on
the many advantages that BIM is driving from an
owner and supplier perspective in relation to design
and construction. The report illustrates a wide range
of benefits to all stakeholders from, simply, owners
feeling more confident with their construction
projects owing to 3D modelling (used throughout the
BIM process) providing them with a visual aid of the
end product, right through to, the more complex
advantage of accurate transfer of all data into a
centralised repository delivering a single version
truth with respect to the construction of the structure.
BIM process however is currently prone to end
directly after construction with only a few
foresighted companies, on both the owner and
supplier side, extending the BIM process across the
whole lifecycle of a structure, encompassing the
design, build and the operate (DBO) phases.
Why is the operate phase in the lifecycle neglected?
Historically, building owners have not asked for this
capability, construction companies do not provide
FM services, and FM companies do not build
buildings, so it has not been viewed as valuable by
any party. However, there is a clear and defined
requirement to provide whomever is going to
operate the building with accurate data to manage
and operate the building, in a timely manner post
construction. Currently, this handover event is
fraught with challenges and frustrations for all the
stakeholders involved and falls very short of
providing value. Inefficiency and problems are
born out in a variety of areas:
•
Requirement for hard copy O&M’s from
contractors is a lengthy and laborious
process
•
The transfer of hard copy documents to
operations is often incomplete
•
Storage of hard copy manuals (and
subsequent loss of contents over time)
•
Errors in the transfer of data from the
hard copy information to digital form
•
Duplication of data in multiple places
Technology that enables handover of this data to
become part of the BIM process is already
available, but the process of doing so is burdened
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CITA BIM Gathering 2015, November 12th -13th
with issues such as cultural, legal, ownership of data
and liability, which all hinder the collaborative
environment BIM sets out to achieve.
Change, however, is on its way. The little boy who
has his finger plugging the leak in the dam is about
to get very wet, because a tsunami of change will
drive a closer collaboration between the construction
and FM companies, seeing them work more closely
together, alongside building owners. A new breed of
hybrid Building Lifecycle Management companies
and technologies are starting to appear in the market,
which will assist to change the current culture.
The driver of this change will not only be
governmental change (and the mandate for the
operate phase of a building to be considered as
outlined in BIM level 2), but also from building
owner/operators who require accurate and timely
information about physical assets in order to
effectively and efficiently run and manage their
buildings. The building owners/operators need to be
able to influence decisions made regarding assets
early in the design and build phase of any capital
project so that they can ensure that the correct
equipment and materials are selected and purchased.
Asset information which is integrated into the BIM
process early in the project cycle ensures that at
project handover the building owners/operators can
hit the ground running in terms of commissioning,
asset operations and maintenance. Financial savings
are gained from removing the need to manually
input hard copy information from the As-Built
drawings into the asset management system. Case
studies and client stories, such as the two highlighted
below in Tables 1 & 2, have illustrated that accurate
digital data contained within the model drive
operational savings. These savings are achieved by
providing immediate access to the maintenance
information of each asset within the structure. Each
asset can be visualised in 3D from within the BIM
model and information including, but not limited to,
geospatial location, warranty, and maintenance
history, O&M which can all be immediately
accessed through a mobile device or desktop
computer. This provides the facilities maintenance
teams with the flexibility to deliver corrective action
without first returning to the plantroom
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Table 1.
Case Study – Japanese
Construction Company [2]
Business Challenge
Using a real construction project, virtual Handover
(digital building information will transfer to FM
system, before the completion of construction)
was to be shown.
The construction company also had to develop a
BIM FM integration, which included all the
multiple BIM models which would be used in the
construction project.
They finally had to calculate owner’s quantitative
benefit.
Solution Overview
Establish the BIM (Building Information
Modeling) for constructing building by using all
the technologies currently in use such as Revit, etc
and integrate into Maximo. Before the completion
of construction, construction information (BIM
Data) will be handed over to FM system (Maximo
and the clients own FM system)
Developed Japanese version of the integration
module for BIM and Maximo and tried to
standardize the data exchange between BIM and
FM with COBie sheet.
Define quantitative benefit using their knowledge,
experience and public quantitative information
regarding LCC (Life Cycle Cost).
Benefits Realised
It was concluded by all stakeholders that virtual
hand over is possible using BIM
Also it was concluded that this approach reduces
maintenance (incl. repair/exchange) cost by
approximately 20% (*1)
(*1) In case the total floor : 4,300 square metre and the total
maintenance/repair cost is $51M.
CITA BIM Gathering 2015, November 12th -13th
Table 2. Client Story – Maine General [3]
Maine General had deployed IBM Maximo Asset
Management software throughout its hospital
network more than two years prior to the
construction of its new medical center. “Our asset
management application wasn’t going to change,
and we saw tremendous value in bringing the robust
building-asset data developed in the BIM tool during
the design and construction phases into Maximo for
the building operations phase,” says Troidl.
As construction manager, Troidl is also responsible
for managing the renovation of existing Maine
General facilities, and he sees the integration of the
BIM and Maximo solutions as having a role to play
in those projects moving forward, particularly
because the Maximo software-based asset tracking
technology and the BIM viewer itself are cloudbased. This means that the company can model or
update new additions or renovations in its Maximo
asset management system.
“We recently renovated a building from the 1950s
and created a 3-D BIM model for the project,
including architectural, electrical and the HVAC
system,” he says. “So, rather than getting the
proverbial truckload of drawings from the contractor
detailing each part in the HVAC system, we were
able to bring all that information electronically
through the BIM system and further leverage BIM
by bringing that asset data into Maximo.”
“We finished the front-end data loading from the
construction model to the Maximo application on the
owner’s side before we even moved in,” he says.
“That process was automated through the BIM
integration framework, so right there we estimate we
saved about 600 hours of manual data entry time and
who knows how many square feet of document
storage space in the new building, valued at
hundreds of dollars per square foot.” Additionally,
based on multiple national studies, Troidl estimates
that the company could save as much as
USD225,000 annually through automation.
“In healthcare, everything is changing all the time,
so we’ll always be working on a construction or
renovation project,” says Troidl. “This BIM
integration framework will remain vital to managing
the construction and asset management processes at
MaineGeneral Health.”
Beyond the maintenance and construction teams,
CFO’s are also looking for new ways to drive
down the costs of their real estate portfolios. In an
electronic survey conducted during the second
quarter of 2014, a joint IBM and CFO Research
study[4] gathered responses from 150 senior
executives on how their companies manage their
corporate real estate functions, and the value they
find from that.
The survey highlighted that, in order to act
strategically, finance executives are looking to
technology as a catalyst for change. To right-size
or freeze the footprint of their real estate portfolio,
many are gaining visibility and data-driven insight
into occupancy, operational costs and facility
usage. To achieve this level of visibility, they are
looking to move Corporate Real Estate (CRE)
away from personal productivity tools, enterprise
resource planning (ERP) and in-house solutions to
rely upon real-estate-specific software suites.
As they adapt the real estate portfolio to a new
business environment and shifting demand for
resources, they are also looking for new sets of
capabilities to emerge beyond “traditional” process
management capabilities. These include analytics
and decision support capabilities such as
forecasting, modelling and project management,
underpinned by an increasing availability,
frequency and accuracy of CRE data.
This represents a clear opportunity for BIM to
extend into the operate phase of a structure’s
lifecycle. In order to drive success for building
owner and occupiers through BIM, what really
needs to happen is for construction companies and
corporate real estate executives to adopt a
completely different way of doing business. They
need to collaborate. Instead of the construction
company supplying a building, they need to
provide a service to the owner/occupier, and, in
addition to supplying the requirements and budget
at the start of the Design phase, the CRE
executives/owners/managers need a mechanism to
feed back during the operate phase. They need the
capability to inform architects that their building
designs are working, or not, as the case may be.
Data must be digital from the start of the process
and constantly enhanced and updated as the
building lifecycle progresses, enabling a clear view
of the total lifecycle costs. In turn, this will then
drive efficiency and cost savings along with
additional potential review streams across the
supply chain.
Companies delivering the build phase may be able
to extend their services into the operate phase and
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CITA BIM Gathering 2015, November 12th -13th
deliver housing and space management where a
customer will specify their requirements (and the
requirements will be not only the design and build of
the building), but more like ‘the specification of
space’, that can be configured in any number of
ways, and managed effectively in tune with users
requirements throughout the buildings total lifecycle.
Simply put managing data will become just as
important as managing people, materials and
equipment. If the right person with the right
equipment and the right material is at the right place
at the right time, but has the wrong data, the result
could be expensive and the risk failure increased.
II CONCLUSION
BIM provides the process that will enable
companies to embrace the Internet of Things (IoT)
explosion, where a network of physical objects or
"things" embedded with electronics, software,
sensors and connectivity enable the achievement
greater value and service by exchanging data with
the manufacturer, operator and/or other connected
devices. FM companies are again uniquely placed
to take full advantage and to drive the
advancement of the IoT – but it requires strategic
commitment, a willingness to embrace the new and
leadership bravery.
Every journey starts with a single step and that
single step is extending BIM into the operate
phase. There is definitely a place for BIM in
operate phase of a building.
Begin with the end in mind – Steven Covey
There is a perception within the market that
extending BIM process across the entire lifecycle is
costly and is often raised as an issue, which in turns
is one the biggest barriers to adoption of BIM in FM.
It is particularly prevalent in FM companies, even
though the facility manager is uniquely positioned to
be able to view the structure as the product of the
entire design and build process[5]. These companies
are representative of those stakeholders who are
resistant or not receptive to change, and do not yet
consider the full lifecycle costs of a structure. They
are not considering TOTEX (Total Expense), even
though the operate phase of a structure represents
around 80% of the total life cycle cost of that
structure.
By taking a step back, and starting to think about
what information (data) is required to efficiently and
effectively operate the structure, operators should
understand that the vast majority of information and
data regarding the operation and maintenance of the
structure is generated at the design and build phase.
So, it makes perfect sense for operators of buildings
to become immersed in the project at the initial life
cycle phase. Early engagement can help to clarify
and ensure that requirements such as accessibility,
health & safety, environmental and asset
performance are fully considered and adhered to.
The importance of this should not be over looked by
FM companies. Operations teams should view BIM
as their regeneration lifeblood. BIM will enable
accessibility and interoperability of many data
sources, which will stimulate innovation into a
commoditised industry. The next generation of FM
providers will be tech savvy and by embracing BIM
companies will be able to attract and retain young,
new talent.
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REFERENCES
[1] Jones, S.A & Bernstein, H. M (2014) McGraw
Hill Construction Smart Market Report. The Business Value of BIM for Owners. 60 pp www. Construction.com
[2]Press
release;
http://www06.ibm.com/jp/press/2013/09/1702.html
[3] Maine General Find ref
[4] CFO study Find ref
[5] McAuley, B, Hore, A.V and West, R. (2013)
Establishing Key Performance Indicators to measure the benefit of introducing the Facilities Manager at an early stage in the Building Information
Modelling Process, Proceedings of the CITA BIM
Gathering, Dublin Ireland 14th – 15th November,
pp 61-69il.