Author(s)

NADINE WILLS, JOAQUIN DIAZ

Abstract

Computer aid in Facility Management (FM) has been in use for about 40 years and has led to the so-called Computer Aided Facility Management (CAFM). CAFM offers various interfaces to exchange information between different kinds of tools. Various inter-trade organisations and associations have already developed information-exchange procedures. Besides the CAFM-developer, these organisations have defined information-exchange standards to integrate the Building Information Modeling (BIM) approach into FM, e.g. 3D visualization and underlying information concerning buildings and its devices. At this juncture (March 2017) the combination of BIM and FM is not only possible, it is mandatory. It is merely possible to exchange already existing information concerning the buildings. This implicates the acquisition and also adding the exchange of these information through to the chosen CAFM and BIM software tools. According to the fact that already existing information can only be used for the information exchange (and are later usable in FM), it is not possible to represent information which are related close to real-time. “Operating instead of reacting” is often used as a maxim in industry which leads to the integration of BIM and FM. The need of linking real-time data in FM is based on the requirement in the fields of energy management, central building control and safety systems. Via static and mobile sensors, information is collected and sent to CAFM-connectors. Within these connectors, information concerning BIM-linked building parts are transferred to an external database, which offers information management by the building participants, such as the architect, experts, project manager, building coordinator, investor and structural engineer. While using real-time data systems, lifecycle costs will decline while the whole life period of the building will increase, and safety for users will improve.

Keywords

integration, FM, CAFM, BIM, real-time data, data exchange