To create a comprehensive living environment and enhance quality of life, improving facility management is essential. Residential buildings involve a wide range of facilities, including civil engineering, mechanical and electrical systems, water, electricity, air conditioning, communication, gas, fire protection, water supply and drainage, as well as waste management. It is crucial for personnel or organizations to leverage rapidly evolving technologies, such as Building Information Modeling (BIM), to make facility maintenance more efficient. Additionally, establishing basic behavioral guidelines for all residents helps protect their fundamental rights and interests. Let’s explore the significance of using BIM in facility maintenance management.
Throughout a building’s lifecycle, the use and maintenance phase is the longest and most closely connected to daily life. Regular maintenance and management of building facilities are necessary to ensure their proper operation and effectiveness. However, most construction companies only provide homeowners with building drawings and weak current equipment diagrams when handing over the property. Complete documentation and records are often kept on paper, which is inefficient. Current facility management methods require substantial time, manpower, and costs, and are prone to data loss and incomplete information. This can lead to communication challenges and delays in facility operation. Even with the use of computers and facility maintenance management information systems, real-time access to relevant drawings and attribute data for quick decision-making remains difficult.
BIM technology, widely applied in civil engineering and manufacturing, can be effectively used during the maintenance phase of a building’s lifecycle. Its main advantages include presenting and simulating building projects through 3D models and enabling the sharing of engineering information within these models. While BIM is increasingly accepted in the design and construction stages, its use in the operation and maintenance stage is still emerging. In residential facility management, BIM has yet to be fully adopted, and given the diverse resident population, not all users are familiar with or comfortable using this technology.
Currently, BIM technology is commonly used during building design and construction. If a construction company transfers the BIM model of a residential building to the buyer upon ownership transfer, a practical challenge arises: whether the user has the skills to operate the BIM model and apply it for facility maintenance and management. Furthermore, the typical 2D space and equipment configuration diagrams provided by construction companies may be difficult for residents without an engineering background to understand. Using BIM’s 3D visualization can help users better grasp facility layouts and information. Still, some users may struggle to interpret this data or operate the BIM model effectively.
From the above discussion, it is clear that applying BIM in facility maintenance management is highly important. In China, facility management practices remain relatively underdeveloped, with most management parties still relying on 2D methods. As construction projects grow in scale and complexity, and as equipment and facilities become more diverse, BIM application will inevitably become a mainstream trend in the future.
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