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Issues in BIM for Facility Management from

Industry Practitioners' Perspectives

Conference Paper · June 2013

DOI: 10.1061/9780784413029.052

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Rui Liu Raja R A Issa

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Issues in BIM for Facility Management from Industry Practitioners’

Perspectives

R. Liu1 and R. R. A. Issa2

1
Construction Science and Management Program, College of Architecture, 501
W.César E. Chávez Blvd, San Antonio, TX -78207; PH (210) 458-3054; email:
[email protected]
2
Rinker School of Building Construction, University of Florida, PO Box 115703,
Gainesville, FL, USA 32611-5703; PH (352) 273-1152; email:
[email protected]

ABSTRACT

As Building Information Modeling (BIM) becomes widely adopted by the

construction industry, it holds undeveloped possibilities for supporting Facility
Management (FM). Some FM information systems on the market claim to address the
needs of FM managers. However, are the functionalities provided by the current
BIM-based FM software companies those actually required by FM Professionals?
What data is required by FM professionals in the operation and maintenance (OM)
phases of facilities? The aim of this paper is to clarify the needs of FM professionals
for maintenance purposes and to investigate potential areas that can use BIM
technology to satisfy such data requirements. A survey was conducted to collect
perspectives from industry practitioners for the data requirements for FM in the
design and construction phases. The survey results indicated that maintainability
considerations should be taken into consideration during the facility design phase.
The results address the areas perceived by practitioners that need maintainability
consideration in the design phase.

Keywords: Building Information Modeling, Facility Management, Data

Requirements

INTRODUCTION

The AEC industry has raised a good deal of interest surrounding the use of
BIM for facility management. The opportunities for leveraging BIM for facility
operations are compelling, but the utilization of BIM in facility management is
lagging behind BIM implementation in the design and construction phases (Akcamete
et al. 2010). With the development of BIM, knowledge sharing between facility
management and design professionals has become a more realistic possibility. BIM
technology is being used in the design and construction phases. However, there is a

411

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 412 COMPUTING IN CIVIL ENGINEERING

need to expand BIM beyond the design and construction stages and to consider using
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BIM for the life cycle of construction projects.

A study by the US National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST)
showed that the annual costs associated with inadequate interoperability among
software systems was $15.8 billion (Gallaher et al. 2004). Two thirds of this cost was
incurred as a result of ongoing facility operation and maintenance activities (Shen et
al. 2010). The problem is because information at different stages needs to be
collected repeatedly. With the technology of BIM, it should be possible to collect
information once and use it for the whole project life cycle.
In summary, there is a knowledge and technology gap between design and
facility management professionals. The first step for design for management (D4M)
is to find out the data requirements of facility maintenance activities. To maximize
the benefit of the BIM information database o, the first step is to figure out the data
requirement of different parties through the life cycle of the building project. What
are the requirements of facility management so that the new technology can bring the
right information to the right party at the right time?

LITERATURE REVIEW

The operation phase constitutes approximately 60% of the total lifecycle cost of
a facility. The main activities during operations are related to maintenance and repair
(M&R). Reactive maintenance and repairs bring excessive expenses. However, the
nature of most maintenance work tends to be non-routine and reactive (Mobley et al.
2008). Reactive maintenance and repairs are not efficient, since they cost three to
four times more than the planned maintenance for the same repair (Sullivan et al.
2010, Mobley et al. 2008). So it is reasonable to support more planned maintenance
work instead of just reacting to failures. Sullivan et al. (2010) recommended among
others prioritizing the components in a facility, recording root causes of failures and
analyzing equipment failure modes in order to capture reliable information. A reliable
maintenance database containing historical information of M&R work is necessary
for planned maintenance decisions. Since significant unnecessary expenses occur in
current practice, there are ample opportunities for major savings in the operation
phase and computerized tools are needed for the improvement of operation and
maintenance activities (Akcamete et al. 2010).
Facility managers’ involvement in the design phase can be helpful for D4M
purpose, but in reality, the facility management team may not yet have been set up
during design phase. Thus acquiring the facility management team’s general
knowledge, such as the data requirements of facility management from the BIM
database, which does not require the physical presence of the facility management
staff, can be a solution to this problem.

THE SURVEY RESULT

The survey was distributed using a variety of methods: (1) through the Stevens
Construction Institute’s newsletter, (2) through LinkedIn groups related to FM
including: Facility Managers Building Owners Network, Building Owners and

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 COMPUTING IN CIVIL ENGINEERING 413

Managers Association International (BOMA), and Integrated Facility Management

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(IFM), and (3) through an email list, collected by the author, combined with COAA
Owners from Higher education, K-12, government and some organizations. It was
also distributed to the Florida State University System (SUS) facility management
departments. Through March 7, 2012, only 12 complete responses had been received.
With the help of the buildingSmart Alliance, the survey was distributed again on
March 24, 2012, and through April 13, 2012, there were 693 visits, 22 partial
responses and 38 complete responses. Since it is not possible to determine the exact
number of people who received the survey link because people who got it had the
ability to forward it to anyone they thought appropriate, the response rate can only be
calculated based on the number of visits and the number of complete and partial
responses. The response rate was (38+22)/693=8.66%, while the effective response
rate was 38/693=5.48%. As it is with high possibility that some respondents have
received the survey many times because they are in more than one groups that
received the survey but they only submit one complete or partial survey, they may
visit the survey site many times, as a result, the number of people got the survey
should be less than the number of visits. Even we cannot calculate the accurate
survey response rate, it should be better than 5.48%. In addition, this survey is still
ongoing, this study is still receiving responses.

Part I: Demographic Distribution

Figure 1 shows the distribution of the survey respondents. Architects

constituted the largest proportion (8, 21.1%), followed by construction managers and
facility managers (5, 13.2%), consultant companies (4, 10.53%), higher education
managers (3, 7.9%), owners (3, 7.9%), general contractors (2, 5.3%), design builders
(2, 5.3%), two software developers and employees from four other organizations
including one laboratory, one specialty subcontractor, one attorney and one research
institute.

Figure 1. Respondents’ organization Figure 2. Respondents' role in company

Different roles in the same company may have different perspectives and ideas.
Figure 2 shows the distribution of the respondents by role in their companies. Upper
managers constituted 14 out of the 38 (36.8%) respondents, followed by eight project
managers and project engineers (21.1%), five facility managers (13.2%) and five

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 414 COMPUTING IN CIVIL ENGINEERING

architects (13.2%). Management level respondents constituted two-thirds of all the

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responses. Even when the survey was specifically distributed to maintenance related
staff and MEP engineers, none of them answered the survey. The reasons behind this
may be: first, maintenance staff themselves are not familiar with BIM, so after they
read the instructions accompanying the survey, they were not able to respond.
Secondly, they may not have had convenient access to the computer or web as
management level respondents have.
As shown in Figure 3, the respondents’ BIM experience ranged from “no
experience” to “expert.” Among the 38 respondents, only nine (23.7 %) considered
themselves as experts, and five (13.2 %) defined themselves as advanced BIM users.
Ten (26.3 %) of them described themselves as intermediate users. Nine (23.7 %)
respondents classified their BIM experience level as beginners and five (13.2 %) of
the respondents had no experience with BIM projects.

Figure 3. Respondents' personal BIM experience level

40% 12
35.3%
Valid Percentage of

35%
30%
Resposes

7 7
25% 20.6% 20.6%
20%
15% 3 3
8.8% 8.8%
10% 1 1
0 2.9% 0 0 0 2.9%
5%
0% 0% 0% 0%
0%
0 0.1 0.2 0.3 0.4 0.5 0.6 0.7 0.8 0.9 1
Valid BIM Project Proportion
Figure 4. BIM project proportion

In order to determine their objective involvement in BIM projects from the

responses, the proportion of BIM projects among new projects in the past 12 months
was calculated from the respondents’ answers about their number of new projects and
the projects that used BIM. As shown in Figure 4, among the 34 effective responses,

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 COMPUTING IN CIVIL ENGINEERING 415

seven respondents (20.6 %) had no BIM project for the last year. Seven of them
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(20.6 %) had less than 10% of their projects that utilized BIM. There were 12 (35.3 %)
respondents who utilized BIM in all their new projects. From Figure 4, the BIM
utilization of these companies is polarized. The company either uses BIM for all their
projects or uses BIM for a very limited proportion of their new projects.

Part II: Perceptions of Data Requirements for BIM-Assisted Facility

Management

In the respondents perspectives, the manufactures and/or suppliers did not

provide adequate information in regards to maintenance activities in the operation
phase. Five out of 31 (16.1%) respondents experienced adequate information, 23
(74.2%) respondents indicated that they received some information from
manufactures while four respondents’ indicated that they received no information at
all from manufacturers.
For the 25 respondents with BIM model in use, two of them responded that the
model carried enough information for facility Operation and Maintenance, three
indicated that there was no information needed for OM in the BIM model, and all
info for OM were manually input. Nine respondents indicated that their BIM models
had part of information needed for OM and manual input was still required. Eleven
respondents indicated even if they required a BIM model built and required for
design and construction, the model was not yet used for the FM phase or that they
had difficulty doing so.
Ten out of 24 (43.5%) effective responses showed that the existing work order
systems did not provide enough information enough to complete the requested work;
fourteen (53.8%) responses indicated that their existing work order system had
enough information for requested work. Figure 5 shows the responses to the
questions about what specific information is needed in work orders for equipment
repair.
Besides the above attributes needed for equipment repair, respondents also
listed that connectivity and affected spaces for the out-of-service equipment,
geospatial link from the element to the model, date of installation and warranty
information, and repair history should be available for equipment repair work.

What work order information is needed if equipment requires

repair?
100.0% 77.8% 74.1% 70.4% 70.4% 66.7%
80.0% 59.3%
60.0%
40.0% 29.6%
20.0%
0.0%

Figure 5. Information needed for work order

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 416 COMPUTING IN CIVIL ENGINEERING

In addition, questions were asked about information that is needed for O & M
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but that is always hard to locate. Based on the respondents’ answers the information
for facility operation and maintenance that is typically hard to locate includes:
• Equipment operating parameters and spare parts
• MEP information, specifications and warranty
• Electrical panel information
• Make, model, and O&M manuals
• Security and HVAC details
• Work order history information
• Up-to-date as-built plans
As shown in Figure 6, there were only three (9.4%) respondents who
indicated no involvement of FM personnel in both design and construction phases,
eight (25.0%) responses indicated FM involvement in the design phase, five (15.6%)
respondents experience FM involvement in construction phase, and 16 (50.0%) out of
32 responses had FM personnel involved in both the design and construction phases.

Figure 6. FM personnel involvement in design and construction phases

DISCUSSION OF SURVEY RESULTS

The survey results indicated that industry practitioners believed that

maintainability issues should be considered in the design and construction phases and
they put forward the efforts to make it happen. As shown in Figure 6, 29 of the 32
respondents had considered maintainability in the design and/or construction phases
and half of the respondents indicated FM personnel involvement in both the design
and construction phases. However, only 16.1% of respondents expressed that they
had adequate information from the manufacturer for the operation phase. Moreover,
10 out of 24 (43.5%) of the respondents expressed that they did not have enough
information for the requested work orders and some information that is required for
OM but hard to locate from existing documents. These results indicate that even if
FM personnel got involved in the earlier phases, the existing business process and

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 COMPUTING IN CIVIL ENGINEERING 417

practices cannot provide a channel for the requirement data to be delivered effectively
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from design and construction phases to OM phase. Better practices and technologies
are needed to carry such information with the understanding of FM’s needs. As BIM
can serve as a database, it is capable to help smooth the information delivery process
if the FM’s data needs can be clarified.
In addition, the survey had no responses from civil engineers, structural
engineers, structural designers and fabricators, MEP subcontractors, MEP
manufacturers and MEP suppliers, although there were such companies in the pool.
The absence of these organizations can be meaningful. First of all, these groups may
not have opportunities to get involved in BIM or facility management and perhaps
they are not interested or familiar with the topic studied. Secondly, cooperation in the
AECO industry is still segmented and different stakeholders are working in their own
areas without sharing technology and information with others. Moreover, as the
survey has BIM in its title, people with an interest in BIM were more inclined to
answer it than those who did not have knowledge of BIM or no interest in BIM.
Finally, the response rate of this survey is relatively low especially from facility
management practitioners even the survey link has been distributed to several facility
management groups. The reason for the low response from FM may because the lack
of knowledge of Building Information Modeling of our FM people. When FM got the
survey, they do not understand the BIM in the title and avoid answering these
questions. If this is the reason behind the low response rate, it proves the gap of BIM
implementation between the design, construction and FM. In addition, for the
expansion of BIM from earlier phases to FM phase, it requires the efforts not only
from FM but also all other segments of the AECO industry, the survey is getting
attention from all industry practitioners but not only FM group.

CONCLUSIONS AND FUTURE RESEARCH

BIM technology has been used effectively in the design and construction
phases. There is a need to expand BIM beyond the design and construction phases
and to consider using BIM for facility management such as in maintenance activities.
However, the research on BIM use for facility management is lagging behind the
study of BIM in design and construction phases. BIM is not merely a 3D model. A
real building information model should hold information for different stakeholders at
different phases of the facility’s life cycle. The need for information that can be
inserted, extracted, updated, or modified, is apparent in all phases of the facility
O&M. Since BIM can used as a database for information exchange among
construction stakeholders, it is necessary to investigate what information is needed
for different parties and how they need the information to be presented. Technology
development without understanding the requirements of the end user’s need will not
contribute to improving business processes. This study is designed to investigate the
data requirements of FM personnel in order to optimize the BIM benefits for owners
and facility managers.
This study is a first effort in bridging the gaps between the design, construction
and facility management phases in the AECO industry. The survey results indicate
that there are a lot of other issues such as vandalism, commissioning, auditing, and

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 418 COMPUTING IN CIVIL ENGINEERING

lack of guidelines for owners, legal problems, which need further study and which are
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important for realizing the cooperation and sharing of information among different
parties of AECO projects. These problems are not covered in this study but are
definitely worth addressing in the future research.

REFERENCES

Akcamete, A., Akinci, B., and Garrett, J. H. (2010). "Potential utilization of building
information models for planning maintenance activities." Proceedings of the
International Conference on Computing in Civil and Building Engineering W.
Tizani(Editor), June 30-July 2, Nottingham, UK,Nottingham University Press,
151-157.
Gallaher, M. P., O'Connor, A. C., Dettbarn, J. L., and Gilday, L. T. (2004). "Cost
Analysis of Inadequate Interoperability in the U.S. Capital Facilities
Industry." NIST GCR 04-867 National Institute of Standards and Technology,
Gaithersburg, Maryland.
Mobley, R. K., Higgins, L. R., and Wikoff, D. J. (2008). Maintenance Engineering
Handbook, McGraw-Hill, New York.
Shen, W., Hao, Q., Mak, H., Neelamkavil, J., Xie, H., Dickinson, J., Thomas, R.,
Pardasani, A., and Xue, H. (2010). "Systems integration and collaboration in
architecture, engineering, construction, and facilities management: A review."
Advanced Engineering Informatics, 24(2), 196-207.
Sullivan, G., Pugh, R., Melendez, A. P., and Hunt, W. D. (2010). "Operations &
Maintenance Best Practices: A Guide to Achieving Operational Efficiency."
U.S. Department of Energy: Federal Energy Management Program,
Wachington, D.C.
Zhang, S., Teizer, J., Lee, J.-K., Eastman, C. M., and Venugopal, M. (2012).
"Building information modeling (BIM) and safety: Automatic safety checking
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doi:10.1016/j.autcon.2012.05.006

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