Benefits of Real-Time Data Driven BIM for FM Departments in Operations Control and Maintenance

Building information modeling (BIM) has been widely adopted in architecture, engineering, construction, and facilities management (AEC/FM) industry. Recently, 3D BIM models are commonly used; however, there is still some debates going on upon the necessity of as-built BIM models linked with operations and maintenance (O&M) information of building’s components. Owners are always faced with the dilemma of the benefits of real-time data driven BIM application in their projects’ lifecycle. In this paper, the timesaving benefits of BIM models linked with real-time operational information in facilities management (FM) practices during a building’s life cycle are studied. Real-time data driven BIM model application in operations control and maintenance, the two main responsibilities of FM departments, is studied in this paper. Several scenarios, tested in a building owned by USC facilities management department, are designed to determine the timesaving benefits of BIM model utilization. These scenarios are divided into two major categories: operations control and maintenance. Data acquisition from CRAC units, Chillers, and AHUs for operations control and two maintenance scenarios of occupant dissatisfaction from office temperature and leakage in chilled water lines have been studied in this paper. The time needed to accomplish the explained scenarios has been measured using two available approaches (Traditional vs. real-time data driven BIM). Based on achieved results, possible timesaving benefits of 6D-BIM model application are explored and presented.