Maintaining and managing building facilities can span several decades, generating vast amounts of complex information and numerous changes over time. Efficiently handling facility maintenance and management is therefore a challenging task. After years of global research and development, the BIM concept has gradually expanded from the design and construction phases into the operation and maintenance stages. This raises the question: is it feasible to introduce BIM concepts into facility operation and maintenance?
The primary goal of facility management is to ensure that all equipment and infrastructure operate normally and fulfill their intended functions. To effectively manage maintenance, planning must begin early in the facility’s lifecycle, facilitating future upkeep and reducing potential costs. Today, an increasing number of industrial organizations recognize that maintaining well-organized and efficient facilities is crucial for business success. As the construction industry grows in scale and complexity, leveraging computer information systems and moving towards information management becomes inevitable. However, with the generation of vast amounts of data, it remains essential to explore how to best integrate and visualize this information for facility maintenance and management.
In construction engineering, integrating and managing project data effectively has become a priority, leading to the widespread adoption of BIM Technology. BIM integrates all construction-related information and presents it visually in multiple dimensions (such as 3D, 4D, 5D), using statistical, analytical, and simulation methods. This comprehensive visualization supports the entire project lifecycle, helping to reduce errors, shorten construction timelines, and lower costs. With BIM, projects are supported through every phase, from planning and design to construction and operation and maintenance management. The BIM approach enables digital integration of data and processes, allowing early-stage information to be reused by different stakeholders, thereby improving quality, minimizing duplicated data entry, and reducing human error and labor costs.
Currently, BIM models are primarily established for design and construction purposes, with less consideration given to the information needed for subsequent operation and maintenance. To make BIM applications more comprehensive, researchers worldwide are focusing on how BIM technology can support future facility maintenance and management. For example, the National BIM Standard in the United States (NBIMS) covers the entire building lifecycle—planning, design, construction, and operation. It includes BIM model standards, best practices, technical development, deployment plans, and lifecycle management strategies. NBIMS also addresses interoperability standards, necessary workflows, and related BIM software applications, providing important services for the later operation and maintenance stages.
Another key development is the COBie standard, which incorporates Construction Operations Building Information Exchange technology. COBie focuses on collecting and integrating essential facility management data during building design and construction, ensuring that this information can be effectively transferred to operational teams upon project completion. This facilitates the establishment of efficient facility management systems during the building’s operation and maintenance phases. Globally, BIM and COBie applications are receiving increasing attention, with leading BIM software developers actively competing to create tools that support their implementation and data conversion.
The post-completion operation and use of buildings represent the longest phase in a building’s lifecycle and often incur the highest cumulative maintenance costs. Over this extended period, staff turnover and changes in spatial functional requirements can lead to loss of critical facility information, making it difficult to fully understand and manage building systems. This drives up management costs and reduces efficiency. These challenges highlight the importance of effective facility management in modern buildings, particularly within the context of sustainable development and smart building trends. BIM technology attempts to model and control the extensive lifecycle activities of buildings using multidimensional information (3D, 4D, 5D). Based on this, the question remains: is it truly feasible to integrate BIM concepts into operation and maintenance? This is a question that calls for its own clear answer.
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