A Case-Based Reasoning Model for Retrieving Window Replacement Costs through Industry Foundation Class

Building information modeling (BIM) provides facility managers with a large database consisting of 3D geometric data as well as management data. In particular, Industry Foundation Class (IFC) has been applied in many studies as it provides extensive and diverse information regarding building components. With the use of BIM combined with case-based reasoning (CBR), in this study, a model was developed to estimate replacement costs by retrieving cost information from IFC. This study focused on the replacement of windows for office buildings, and the costs associated with that replacement. Two main advantages were identified in the proposed approach. First, the replacement information required for the comparison of different cases is automatically obtained from a BIM file and parsed for predicting a cost estimate using IFC. Next, the accuracy is increased by matching various cost-related data such as contractors and manufacturers in the estimation of replacement costs with the help of CBR.