BIM Facility Management

Facility management refers to the set of operations concerning the maintenance and management of all aspects of an existing building: from systems (electrical, hydraulic, mechanical) to greenery, from safety and surveillance systems to cleaning, from the conservation of the performance levels of the building components to the eventual disposal of the asset.

In practice, facility management is the process of design, implementation and control through which facilities (i.e. the buildings and services necessary to support and facilitate the company's activity) are identified and delivered to achieve and maintain certain performance levels able to meet the company's needs and create a high-quality work environment with optimized spending.

Facility management is based primarily on the collection, storage, generation, updating and sharing of documents relating to the history of the building (graphics, technical data sheets, user manuals, warranty documents, reports, projects, etc.).

Having a complete information framework of a building is therefore essential to ensure its correct management and maintenance over time.

There are processes and methods that facilitate knowledge of the building and facility management, such as Building Information Modeling (BIM).

6D BIM is a unique approach in which everything related to the structure management process is collected within a single building information model.

The sixth dimension of BIM combines the 3D model with all the relevant information necessary for the maintenance and management of the asset strongly simplifying all activities (ordinary and extraordinary) which need to be carried out throughout the entire life cycle of the built asset.

In fact, BIM model is the digital twin of the built asset, a faithful virtual representation where the information of every single element of the existing building is collected and accessible.

Therefore, it also becomes an important simulation and programming tool that can be used to better organize the maintenance of an asset.

This approach makes it possible to simplify ordinary activities (such as searching for information, surveying, drafting practices), to guarantee a more detailed knowledge of the consistency of the asset, to identify any problems making both the behaviour of the building and its income more efficient.

In short, the advantages of BIM do not end with design but there are numerous benefits even when managing an asset:

• better communication between stakeholders, avoiding misunderstandings and planning errors;
• more accurate and complete maintenance schedules thanks to the information contained in the BIM model;
• more reliable information for contractors;
• simplified maintenance process for contractors and subcontractors;
• more informed decisions and investments;
• cost-benefit analysis to increase savings and minimize expenses;
• centralised data and information regarding every useful aspect of the asset;
• optimisation of asset performance throughout its life cycle;
• process optimization (from the design phase through to demolition).

We could say that BIM is now an essential component for facility management processes because it supports and facilitates the entire decision-making phase and helps to optimize resources, collaboration and knowledge of the building throughout its life cycle.

In the process of managing an existing property, various stakeholders (technicians, contractors, owners, management companies, etc.) contribute who, in different capacities and skills, manage the data and information that come into play in the various maintenance operations.

Allowing the integration of such data, often from different sources, within platforms and applications for facility management is the task of the COBie (Construction Operations Building information exchange) standard.

In simple terms, the COBie is an .xml file format spreadsheet with a precise data structure which constitutes a standard to collect information that becomes part of the package delivered to the owner during the commissioning of the asset.

This makes it possible, first of all, to order and share the data relating to an artifact and its ancillary parts and to guarantee the client the completeness, compatibility and usability of the information necessary for the management of the building throughout its entire life.

The COBie data, thanks to their structured representation, are also fundamental for those who deal with the estimation of costs and for contractors, because they allow to vary the management of project data during the work in the simplest way possible: it is sufficient to modify the rows of the spreadsheet and the entire project is immediately revised.

COBie in .xml format can be obtained directly from the BIM authoring used, or through external applications that generate the file starting from the BIM model in IFC format.