B2: Group C - Coffey BIM Used for Maintenance and Operation

         BIM is now a crucial part of the Architectural, Electrical and Construction industry, but the the large adoption of BIM was only a recent event and has not always been the basis on which the industry has worked. Before the clash detection, project scheduling, collaboration improvement capabilities and other cost savings benefits of BIM were recognized and proven as results of BIM’s use, the time and money investment required to change from CAD to BIM deterred industrial change (Lu). There was no way to prove whether creating a BIM model of an entire project before its construction would result in the advertised benefits. Even still BIM has not been fully adopted for every project to use the advertised benefits. (Eastman).

Multiple dimensions can be added to a BIM model. Common dimensions include 3D model, construction scheduling, project cost estimation, life cycle assessment / sustainability and maintenance and operation implementations. Of these, I would like to go into more discussion about facility management. This is a dimension where BIM’s capabilities are used to improve building maintenance and operation. Although there are proven benefits to performing this extra work its is often not performed unless required by the client. Even when this dimension is required by the client it does not receive the same amount of attention as other dimensions because it does not directly affect the profit of the designer and contractor. All the benefits are passed onto the client. Even nearing the end of a project the contractor and designer are more focused on finishing the project and not highly interested in investing the profit from the project completion in something that does not have a sure return on investment. While the return on investment for the owner is conservatively 64% over a payback period of 1.56 years (Teicholz). The development and use of the facilities management dimension is able to have this significant of an impact on building maintenance and operation because the as built model of the building can be drafted to include  parametric data about each piece of equipment in the building, its exact location behind a wall, the model number, fabricator’s contact information, and equipment maintenance manuals (Teicholz). The BIM model can also be integrated with a building monitoring program that helps to identify problems and provide maintenance reminders (Teicholz). This wealth of information will enable the maintenance workers to react more quickly, reduce maintenance errors, perform better repairs, and reduce the amount of work they have to perform. These improvements will reduce the cost to maintain the building and extend the life of the building. If the building were to require renovation or retrofit, then an accurate BIM model would prove invaluable at increasing the efficiency and ease with which the building is reused.

While the cost is a significant deterrence to the owner requiring the facilities management dimension, sometimes that dimension is not necessary due to how important the building being constructed is and the cost benefit to the implementation of a building monitoring system. The cost benefit limits may fall short for the implementation of this dimension in a small residential home due be crucial tools for large, complicated and important structures such as a nuclear power plant. For the later, it is necessary that a highly accurate BIM model and monitoring system be implemented to notify maintenance workers of a problem, to extend the life of the very expensive building, and to reduce the chances of maintenance errors. The economic loss related to a failure at a powerplant greatly outweighs the loss of a residential house. In this case the reduction of risk is the primary motivator and not the return on investment. Meanwhile the investment would only be worthwhile if it actually produces plausible benefit and mitigates or prevent economic losses due to a failure.

Comments

Alexis,

I liked how you mentioned that the use of BIM for IPD is a large benefit of BIM modeling. I believe that the use of BIM as a collaboration tool is its largest benefit. The ability for the owner, maintenance manager, and building design and construction disciplines to quickly and easily collaborate improve the quality of the design and empowers the collaborators to develop solutions to conflicts between systems, often leading to a better solution then otherwise possible. The other benefits support the usefulness of BIM as a collaboration tool, through better better visualization of the building so that problems can be identified and the information in the model is the same for everyone so they can more easily and accurately communicate despite the potential distance between them.

Bryan,

I enjoyed the level of detail and explanation that you went into to describe the interoperability issues between BIM programs and supporting programs. Like you mentioned limitations on the interoperability of programs historically has been a problem that affected the effectiveness of using BIM programs and caused modeling errors. From what I have read, the interoperability has enabled BIM programs to accomplish tasks that no one program is capable of or is not as capable of when compared to supporting programs. Because there has been more focus on making the different BIM programs interoperable they are able to produce more complex buildings and perform more thorough analyses of building models. Just like you I think that there is still room for improvement and that the largest barrier to improvement is the collaboration between the software programmers developing the programs and the users of the programs. For instance, if an engineer is trying to produce an optimized building that requires the use of new technology or to perform a unique task to qualify a building that has a special use, BIM programs may not have the interoperability with the program that performs the required analysis. This interoperability will eventually be developed with enough need for BIM programs to perform that rare analysis because it was either not performed before or because the demand for that capability was outweighed by the demand for other more used capabilities.

References

Eastman, Charles M. BIM Handbook: A Guide to Building Information Modeling for Owners, Managers, Designers, Engineers and Contractors. Hoboken, NJ: Wiley, 2011. Print.

Lu, Weisheng, Ada Fung, Yi Peng, Cong Liang, and Steve Rowlinson. "Demystifying Construction Project Time–Effort Distribution Curves: BIM and Non-BIM Comparison." Journal of Management in Engineering J. Manage. Eng. 31.6 (2015): 04015010. Web. 

Teicholz, Paul M. BIM for Facility Managers. N.p.: Hoboken, NJ: Wiley, 2013. Print.