Engagement of Facilities Management in Design Stage through BIM: Framework and a Case Study

Hindawi Publishing Corporation
Advances in Civil Engineering
Volume 2013, Article ID 189105, 8 pages
http://dx.doi.org/10.1155/2013/189105
Research Article
Engagement of Facilities Management in Design Stage through
BIM: Framework and a Case Study
Ying Wang,1 Xiangyu Wang,1 Jun Wang, 2 Ping Yung,1 and Guo Jun 3
1 School of Built Environment, Curtin University of Western Australia, Australia
2 School of Construction Management and Real Estate, Chongqing University, China
3 CCDI, China
Correspondence should be addressed to Xiangyu Wang; [e-mail]
Received 13 November 2012; Revised 24 March 2013; Accepted 8 April 2013
Academic Editor: Ghassan Chehab
Copyright © 2013 Ying Wang et al. This is an open access article distributed under the Creative Commons Attribution License,
which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.
Considering facilities management (FM) at the early design stage could potentially reduce the efforts for maintenance during the
operational phase of facilities. Few efforts in construction industry have involved facility managers into the design phase. It was
suggested that early adoption of facilities management will contribute to reducing the needs for major repairs and alternations that
will otherwise occur at the operational phase. There should be an integrated data source providing information support for the
building lifecycle. It is envisaged that Building Information Modelling (BIM) would fill the gap by acting as a visual model and a
database throughout the building lifecycle. This paper develops a framework of how FM can be considered in design stage through
BIM. Based on the framework, the paper explores how BIM will beneficially support FM in the design phase, such as space planning
and energy analysis. A case study of using BIM to design facility managers’ travelling path in the maintenance process is presented.
The results show that early adoption of FM in design stage with BIM can significantly reduce life cycle costs.
1. Introduction
According to the International Facility Management Asso-
ciation (IFMA), facility management (FM) is defined as “a
profession that encompasses multiple disciplines to ensure
functionality of the built environment by integrating people,
place, processes and technology” [1]. Industries in varieties of
areas are adopting BIM for FM. Organizations such univer-
sity, government, healthcare, retail, and information technol-
ogy are taking a survey for the adoption of BIM-based FM [2].
Different parts of FM are adopted with BIM in these organi-
zations. Figure 1 depicts the proportion of each function.
However, few efforts in the construction industry have
involved facility FM into the design phase [3, 4]. It was
suggested that early engagement of FM would contribute
to reducing the needs for major repairs and alternations
that will otherwise occur at the operational phase [2, 5].
There have been rare effective approaches or processes to
engage FM in design stage. The proposed framework of
this paper is going to integrate these FM works into early
design stage which could potentially strengthen the col-
laboration between design team and FM team and reduce
alternations. BIM is envisaged to be an effective tool, as
proposed in this paper. Considering the multidisciplinary
and interoperability of this process, there must be a data
source providing convenient integration and access to the
relevant information. Building Information Modelling (BIM)
is a conceptual approach to building design and construction
that comprises all the graphic and linguistic data of building
for design and detailing which facilitates exchange of building
information between design, construction, and operational
phase [6]. A BIM model could comprise individual 3D
models of each building component with all associated prop-
erties such as weight, material, length, height, geographical
information system GIS and information [7]. Beyond the
inherent information, BIM also includes external association
between building components. For example, the column with
name Col. −093 is installed between box ceiling Cei. −52 and
level 2 floor with GUID number 30836. Figure 2 depicts the
column model and associated properties. The main difference

2 Advances in Civil Engineering0 10 20 30 40 50 60 70 80 90(%)82%79%75%74%71%66%44%21%Energy managementMaintenance and repairSpace managementQuality assurance and controlNoncapital constructionReal estate managementOthersCommissioning and closeout
Figure 1: Proportion of each function [2].3D modelGeometric informationMaterial informationID
Figure 2: Column model and properties in BIM.
between BIM and 2D CAD is that the latter describes a build-
ing layer by layer [8]. Editing one layer will result in massive
updating and checking work of associated floor plan. In con-
trast, BIM models are designed in terms of building compo-
nents in 3D view. An error-prone process such as clash detec-
tion could be conducted automatically [9]. This paper aims
to develop a framework of bringing facility management into
design stage through BIM. Which field of FM work should
be brought to the design stage and which data should be
collected are also proposed. With the ease of access to lifecycle
information of all the building components BIM provided,
proposed building plan could be optimized and lifecycle cost
could be reduced with the FM knowledge and experience.
2. Methodology: Conceptual Framework of
Integrating FM and BIM in Design Stage
Erdener [5] developed a framework linking design with FM
by programming—an extension of “problem defining-solving
method” which however did not classify the specific field
of work in FM that should be involved into the design
stage. Additionally, the backend database was not adopted
as an approach to integrate the massive information such
as asset portfolios, instructions, and design manuals in this
multidisciplinary process. Mostly, the operation and mainte-
nance process of a facility occupies more than 80% in its
lifecycle for both cost and time [10]. During the FM process,
facility managers have to acquire, integrate, edit, and update
massive information related to diverse building elements
such as operational costs, warranties, and specifications from
varieties of systems. BIM could effectively merge these prima-
ry data and provide convenient storage and retrieval of these
FM data. Based on the work of Becerik-Gerber et al. [2], three
types of FM data should be incorporated into BIM: (1) equip-
ment and systems, (2) attributes and data, (3) portfolios and
documents. Figure 3 illustrates the structure of the proposed
BIM database for FM. Every facility in buildings is regarded as
an individual entity with two kinds of properties—attributes
and portfolios. Six types of basic equipment such as HVAC,
plumbing, and electrical are represented as entities in BIM.
Each entity has its attributes (vender information, location
information, etc.) and attached documents (specifications,
warranties, manuals, etc.). Specifically, serial numbers of
products specified by vendors will be collected as unique
identifier for each facility. Model and part numbers will act
as reference information during the maintenance. Location
information is comprised of building number, floor, and
room number. Description stores the status of the facility.
Attributes include weight, power, and energy consumption.
In order to integrate the whole information into one stan-
dardised BIM database, interoperability needs to be assured.
This is partially because in different circumstances different

Advances in Civil Engineering 3Equipment and systemsPortfolios and documentsSpecificationManualsCertificatesHVAC PlumbingElectricalNetworkFire safetySensorAttributes and dataVenderAttributesDescriptionWarrantiesInstructionsTest reportsinformation Locationinformation
Figure 3: FM based BIM database.
FM software systems are adopted, that is, Mainpac for build-
ing maintenance; FaPI for monitoring building condition;
TRIM for document management. Nevertheless, all these
software have their own data structure and usually they
are not compatible with each other. International Alliance
for Interoperability (IAI) published the Industry Foundation
Classes (IFC), a standard for BIM data structure based on an
ISO standard (ISO, 1994) enabling exchange of information
among heterogeneous systems [11].
BIM will provide supporting information for many cat-
egories of FM work such as maintenance and repair, energy
management, commissioning, safety, and space management.
Three categories of FM during the building’s lifecycle are
determined to be the most proper and specially discussed
in this paper—(1) maintenance and repair, (2) energy man-
agement, and (3) commissioning. The decisions made in the
design stage affect all aspects in maintenance stage and vice
versa. The designer’s relationship with the other participants
in maintenance stages is very important [12]. Therefore, the
maintenance team should also be involved into design stage
for decision making. Additionally, different energy saving
alternatives can be explored and simulated in early design
stage with BIM [13]. Last but not least, commissioning stage
ensures that a new building or system begins its life cycle at
optimal productivity [14], in which coordination and infor-
mation sharing between designer and participants essential.
This transformation will provide evaluation information
for the design team and make the decision making much
easier in both strategic-tactical and operational phase.
For the former, the facility manager could provide post
occupancy evaluation of facilities for the design team as
feedback. For the latter, bringing these FM jobs into the
design stage will avoid redesign and reduce the maintenance
job. The following subsection discusses the BIM role in FM
engagement in design stage in detail.
2.1. Maintenance and Repair. Maintenance is defined as
activities required keeping a facility in as-built condition,
while continuing to maintain its original productivity [12].
During this procedure, FM personnel have to identify the
components’ location and get access to the relevant doc-
uments, and finally, the maintenance information. In the
state-of-the-art design phase, facility management relevant
information such as working space of equipment, storage
condition, and weight are not considered. This directly leads
to the inappropriate allocation of space and incorrect estima-
tion of load expectations.
Location information of facility could help facility man-
agers efficiently identify the location of specific building
components, especially for those who outsource the FM tasks.
The knowledge and experience of facility managers could
inform the architecture designers with working condition
and space of different facilities. Both interior and exterior
space requirements must be considered for the normal
installation and implementation. Interior space refers to the
working space, storage space, and privacy of the space.
Exterior space includes the spaces needed for installation
and, in case of emergency, for people’s escape route. All the
above issues could be incorporated into BIM and shown in
graphical interface for the discussion between designers and
facility managers.
Additionally, FM personnel could retrieve the relevant
data of task from BIM’s graphical interface in real time.
For example, when troubleshooting a printer, FM personnel
have to check the maintenance history, get the mainte-
nance manual, generate maintenance reports, and close the
request. Conventionally, they have to log on to different elec-
tronic document management systems (EDMSs) and toggle
between multiple databases to retrieve relevant information.
Preventative maintenance (PM) is defined as the care
and servicing by personnel for the purpose of maintaining