The most common problem facility managers face is information accessibility. While BIM has been posited as a potential solution to increase the quality and availability of asset information to support facilities management (FM), few studies have captured the challenging aspects of developing and delivering this information within the context of real-world projects with owner-defined information requirements. Based on three longitudinal ethnographic case studies that included a set of comprehensive and formal information requirements within the supply contracts, this research contributes to a better understanding of the BIM-enabled asset information delivery process and its challenges by (1) characterizing the process in eight main activities with examples, and (2) mapping the challenges of using BIM for FM that have been identified in the literature and establishing connections between them. The results demonstrate that even with the early involvement of owners through the development of information requirements, several challenges still prevent owners from taking full advantage of BIM. There is still a limited understanding of how BIM can effectively support existing FM activities and how it impacts current design and construction processes in practice, which compromises the definition of clear and efficient information requirements. In that sense, the support provided by industry standards and guidelines remains limited. The contextualized understanding of the proposed BIM-enabled asset information delivery process and its challenges will help owners and facility managers with the decision-making process regarding the development of their information requirements, preventing inefficiencies and unrealistic expectations.
The promise of Building Information Modeling (BIM) for Facilities Management (FM) is based upon building information models as reliable sources of information for decisions during a facility’s life cycle, from the planning to end of life. However, the premise of BIM as an enabler for the delivery of reliable information for FM has numerous challenges. Previous studies have shown that the quality of information provided through current design practices with BIM is inadequate for FM. These information quality (IQ) issues are mostly related to incomplete, inaccurate, inconsistent, and unintelligible facility information that ultimately reduce the usefulness of BIM-based information for FM purposes. In order to support BIM-enabled delivery of useful asset information for FM, certain IQ criteria must be met. Based on three ethnographic case studies, including the analysis of more than two thousand documented BIM for FM-related compliance issues, this research identifies ten key IQ criteria in design BIMs that must be considered to reliably support BIM use for FM, correlates these IQ criteria with key IQ dimensions identified in the literature to reflect their frequency of occurrence, and identifies sources of IQ issues in BIM for FM within design practice. A mixed-method approach for data collection from the case studies is adopted, including document analysis, semi-structured interviews, meeting observation, and a survey. The data collected are analyzed through an iterative coding process, in which the themes emerged are refined and tested as part of a grounded theory approach. This study contributes to the development of the theoretical concept of IQ in BIM for FM that is grounded in data from actual projects with stringent BIM requirements for FM and thorough compliance processes. As a practical contribution, the findings in this study should enable owners and designers to develop a more optimized asset information delivery process, increasing the value of the information in design BIMs for operations with minimal impact on current modeling practices.
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