Towards Smart Building Maintenance: Leveraging Multi-Source Data and Digital Twins with Ecological Momentary Assessment

Abstract

Complaint management, fault detection and diagnosis (FDD) are critical for building performance and occupants' well-being. Facility management addresses these services with work order logs containing occupant complaints and FDD identifying system faults. This thesis enhances these aspects using existing and new data sources.The first section maximizes existing data (Chapters 2 and 3). Text analytics (Chapter 2) is used to create benchmarks for maintenance performance evaluation and transforms data into visual insights. Additionally, facility management-enabled building information models (FM-BIMs) (Chapter 3) integrate maintenance logs with BIM, enhancing decisionmaking through contextual data exchange. A case study is presented to demonstrate the effectiveness of this methodology.The second section employs novel data collection methods and their application in digital twins (Chapters 4 and 5). Cozie smartwatch app representing micro-ecological assessment gathers occupants' thermal comfort and air quality feedback. This data source is integrated with building system sensor data. FDD rulesets utilize this data for fault detection, validated by occupants' accurate feedback. Surveys revealed that occupants seldom report discomfort unless the temperature deviates by 3°C. This approach reduces reporting thresholds, enhancing issue reporting by 29%.Chapter 5 introduces a digital twin framework for maintenance, integrating diverse building system data and real-time insights. Occupant feedback collection methods are diversified through online surveys and a smartwatch app, enhancing indoor quality assessment. The framework supports two tiers of analysis and user interfaces for facility management, demonstrated via a prototype that leverages existing infrastructure. This iii methodology allows facility management agents to develop digital-twin-enabled workflows bringing multiple real-time data streams together to make more informed decisions.In conclusion, this thesis advances complaint management, FDD, and other maintenance practices by innovating existing and new data sources. The proposed methodologies, from text analytics to digital twin frameworks, empower facility management to enhance building performance and occupant satisfaction proactively. iv PrefaceThis integrated thesis consists of five journal papers, four published and one under review.The articles included in this thesis are as follow: