A Lifecycle Approach towards Building Information Management: Technical and procedural implications for the facility management and operations sector

A well-structured and coordinated information management practice is central to promoting efficiency in construction. Building information management encompasses authoring, interpretation, communication, coordination and storage of building information. The benefits envisioned by utilizing IT developments such as Building Information Modelling (BIM) in the facility management and operations (FM&O) sector are estimated to be far greater than in other sectors. There is, however, a gap between the knowledge available in the field of building information management and the actual demands of the architectural, engineering, construction and operation (AECO) industry, especially the FM&O sector. The overall aim of this qualitative research is to develop knowledge that conceptualizes the lifecycle supporting implementation of BIM in the AECO industry with a focus on its implications for a BIM-enabled FM&O practice. This applied research comprises a number of summative and formative components: paper 1 investigates the existing and emerging information management systems for the FM&O sector and their characteristics. The focus of paper 2 is narrowed down to the technical requirements on building information management systems; while its temporal scope spans the entire lifecycle of buildings. Paper 3 is a further elaboration on the findings of paper 1 and covers the technical requirements of BIM-implementation in the FM&O sector. Paper 4 investigates workflows – another category of the issues identified in paper 1. Paper 1 aims to provide a general understanding of the importance and implications of implementing BIM-enabled systems in the FM&O sector and also identifies the main categories of the issues associated with this approach. This literary paper reports on a basic research with a descriptive approach and builds upon the information from a non-exhaustive set of literature. In this paper, workflows, contracts and information technology have been identified as three categories of the issues associated with implementing BIM-enabled systems in the FM&O sector. Paper 2 is also a literary research which draws on the notion of BIM repositories and aims to clarify the technical requirements for a more collaborative building industry as well as depicting the current status of building knowledge management technologies, recent trends and future prospects. Open format BIM repositories have been suggested as the cornerstones of an integrated i