Are BIM models and Digital Twins suitable for Facility Management?
Do you have a BIM model or Digital Twin, but are you not yet fully using it for Facility Management? Discover how you can use this data to make maintenance, space management and other facility processes more efficient and value-driven.
More and more buildings have a Building Information Model (BIM) or a Digital Twin. These 3D data models of physical buildings are developed by architects, contractors, installers, and engineers to reduce failure costs during construction. Simply put: by sharing up-to-date data, the parties involved can work together without errors.
What does this mean for you as a facility manager? You can use BIM data for reliable and value-driven management of maintenance, space management, workplace management, cleaning and even designing catering concepts. We call this FM-BIM: an approach that directly links BIM data to your needs within Facility & Asset Management.
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BIM for Facility Management: maximise value during the use phase
During the use phase of a building, the use of BIM data differs significantly from the construction phase. While BIM is mainly used for design and construction during construction, the focus in the use phase is on management, maintenance and operation. Facility management and workplace management often require different, specific asset data than that of a construction project.
While the needs of facility management are often not taken into account when drawing up a schedule of requirements for new buildings, BIM data provides the most value during the 30 to 50 years of a building's useful life. By integrating a BIM model into your facility management, you can drastically reduce failure costs through better information management and data governance. This prevents dependence on external data partners and ensures that you always have up-to-date and useful information.
Data-driven Facility Management is all about optimising purchasing, space utilisation per m² and improving the quality and sustainability of the working environment. For this, it is crucial that the data is findable, accessible, exchangeable and reusable (FAIR). By setting clear requirements for the BIM model in the program of requirements, you can achieve optimal management and maintenance of building-related assets.
With a well-designed BIM model, you can transform your building from a simple building to a Smart Building, and ultimately to a Smart Workplace. This not only results in cost savings, but also increases the efficiency and sustainability of your facility processes.
FAIR | Findable, accessible, exchangeable and reusable data
The transfer of BIM information from the design and construction phase to Facility Management is currently often manual or incomplete. This leads to loss of time and increases the risk of errors, because the required data is not always findable, accessible, exchangeable and reusable (FAIR). Yet this information is essential for effective Facility & Asset Management.
With Cadac Connect and Cadac Control , we can bring together BIM and FM data from different suppliers and IWMS software in one overview. Thanks to smart visualisation techniques, the information is made accessible and insightful, and we can easily exchange data via the Autodesk Construction Cloud platform. As a facility or asset manager, you only get to see the relevant information, appropriate to your service process and role. Think, for example, of managing walls that need a new coat of paint or planning maintenance for chairs and coffee machines that will soon need maintenance.
BIM data during the entire life cycle of a built working environment requires a different approach than during the construction phase. Unfortunately, in practice, we still see too often that parties involved only focus on their own goals during construction, without sufficiently taking into account the long-term needs of Facility Management. As a result, the available data often differs from what is ultimately needed for management and maintenance.
How do you ensure that the right information is available for calculations and planning in Facility & Asset Management? For example, you know that carpeting made of a certain material needs to be cleaned on time, but this asset is not listed in the BIM model. With our FM-BIM approach, we ensure that the BIM model contains all crucial asset information that is important for Facility Management. This results in significant reduction in failure costs and more efficient management of your building and assets.
Our advice for a successful FM-BIM implementation
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Determine your FM-related information needs: Establish your FM information requirements and an Information Delivery Specification (ILS). Include these in the schedule of requirements for the assets to be purchased.
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Collaborate with your suppliers: Make sure that your suppliers place the assets they provide in the BIM model according to your specifications.
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Validate your data: Check the accuracy of the data supplied using Cadac Connect and Cadac Control to ensure that everything is correct and complete.
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Create an FM BIM model: Use the collected data to set up a specific FM-BIM model for FM-related assets and link it to your IWMS system.
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Integrate existing data: Link old BIM models, AutoCAD drawings, IWMS data and data from (internal) suppliers. These data sources can easily be linked to your FM-BIM model.
The result? A Common Data Environment in which both FM and construction data are integrated. This gives you full control over your data and information, reduces your failure costs, and improves supplier collaboration.
Feel free to contact us for more information about Autodesk Revit, Autodesk Construction Cloud, and our Cadac Connect & Cadac Control solutions. Discover how our software, services, training and experts can help you with the implementation of FM-BIM and value-driven Asset Management.
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