Facility management in BIM

…so maybe BIM in the Facility Management?

Property management creates constant challenges for the manager. Its task is to constantly optimize the operational cost of the facility. And there is much to optimize, because the cost of operation can reach up to 80% of the total cost of life of the object. So why not look for solutions that would make our work easier? BIM certainly belongs to one of them. His idea is to shift the investment costs to the design stage, with the task of relieving the stage of execution and operation. It allows you to simulate the functioning of a building already at the design stage, reducing facility management costs before building the facility.

How to connect BIM to FM?

The main goals of facility management is to ensure its continuity, appropriate maintenance and optimization of maintenance costs. To improve these processes, we try to manage the available information as efficiently as possible. Why not take advantage of the benefits of bim and not use the model created during the design and construction of the object. It provides a fantastic base for documentation of the building and its components, which are further enriched by graphic representation. This increases management efficiency and bim depreciation, giving the investor another argument to implement it.

What are the benefits?

Course, every new solution should be followed by a justification for its use. Fortunately, finding arguments in this case is not a big problem:

• Lower costs associated with implementing FM – by using the BIM model created during design and construction, the fm industry loses much less time preparing the base for facility management, in addition, thanks to the ability to simulate the operation of the facility, we are able to predict on which aspects we should focus first
• Model – we gain continuous access to the current model , which contains information about the physical object
• Conducting simulations – facilitates effective management, through ongoing cost analysis and the ability to simulate changes or modernizations and their impact on costs
• Facilitation of modernization processes – you can supervise the maintenance or repair work carried out
• Reducing the costs of modernization – reduces the cost modernization works due to access to technical information due to direct access to them from the model level
• Reduction of expenditure related to inventories – with scrupulousness not maintained model, we gain an inventory base, which can be reduced only to checking its correctness
• Object history transparency – bim is an additional advantage for potential investors who gain insight into the history and condition of the object
• FM work monitoring – remote access to the updated BIM model allows you to monitor efficiency work of the facility administration.
• Facilities for tenants – potential tenants are able, thanks to the model, to quickly design the required premises and, at the same time, avoid unforeseen installation collisions.

Are there any disadvantages?

Introduction of BIM to the facility administration can be said to be a natural extension of the model’s functioning. However, what if we would like to implement it for an existing building? Of course, this is possible, but requires a detailed inventory, including industry and model making, which significantly increases the cost of the project. A properly functioning model also puts some expectations before the administration. First, it requires employee training if they have not had previous experience in working with similar solutions. An important aspect is also discipline when updating the information contained in the model and changing habits related to the systematics of work. However, it is worth remembering that the experience gained from the pilot project will certainly pay off in subsequent implementations.

Summarizing

If we would like to summarize our considerations on the subject, we would certainly pay attention to the fact that BIM is changing the functioning of facility management towards more flexible solutions and more direct information management. It allows you to reduce operating costs at every stage of the building’s operation and allows continuous monitoring of its operation. As you can easily see, Facility Management is another argument for implementing BIM.

Piotr Wolny
BIM Specialist
bimdrone.pl