Use of Building Information Modeling Technology in the Integration of the Handover Process and Facilities Management

USE OF BUILDING INFORMATION MODELING TECHNOLOGY IN THE INTEGRATION OF THE HANDOVER PROCESS AND FACILITIES MANAGEMENT by Sergio O. Alvarez-Romero A Dissertation Submitted to the Faculty of the WORCESTER POLYTECHNIC INSTITUTE in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the Degree of Doctor of Philosophy in Civil Engineering August, 2014 APPROVED: Guillermo Salazar, PhD, Major Advisor Leonard Albano, PhD, Committee Member Alfredo Di Mauro, AIA, Committee Member Laura Handler, LEED AP, Tocci Building Companies, Committee Member Fredrick Hart, PhD, Committee Member William Spratt, MSc FM, Committee Member John Tocci, CEO Tocci Building Companies, Tahar El-Korchi, PhD, Department Head Committee Member Abstract The operation and maintenance of a constructed facility takes place after the construction is finished. It is usually the longest phase in the lifecycle of the facility and the one that substantially contributes to its lifecycle cost. To efficiently manage the operation and maintenance of a facility, the staff in charge needs reliable and timely information to support decision making throughout the facility’s lifecycle. The use of Building Information Modeling (BIM) is gradually but steadily changing the way constructed facilities are designed and built. As a result of its use a significant amount of coordinated information is generated during this process and stored in the digital model. However, once the project is completed the owner does not necessarily receive full benefits from the model for future operation and maintenance of the facility. This research explores the information that in the context of educational facilities has value to the owner/operator and that can be delivered at the end of the construction stage through a BIM-enabled digital handover process. It discusses the importance of the Information Delivery Manual and Model and proposes an open standard approach for the creation of a Model View Definition that combines Industry Foundation Classes (IFCs) with COBie standards or with Owner defined standards. The research conducted an extensive literature review and an in-depth case study of an academic institution examining in the detail its current practices and needs for the handover of information, operation and maintenance and space management requirements as well as of the future needs of the facilities management department information system generated by the use of BIM technology. The proposed approach is validated in two parts. The first part is conducted through an online survey distributed to academic institutions across the nation and through selected interviews with facilities management staff in the local area. The second part creates a proof of concept by applying the proposed approach to an existing BIM model and then creates the model version for the handover. ii Acknowledgements I would like to thank my advisor Guillermo Salazar for all the guidance and patience for the realization of this work, I could not thank you enough. I would also like to express my gratitude to the rest of my committee members, Leonard Albano, Fredrick Hart, William Spratt, Alfredo Di Mauro, Laura Handler and John Tocci for taking the time to get involved and the wise advices provided. Thanks to Tahar El-Korchi for all the support in particular for the extra push during the last stages of the research. I want to thank the Facilities Department staff for all of the support and kindness for the realization of the case study which is the core of this research, in particular to Alfredo Di Mauro and Elizabeth Tomaszewski for your time and outstanding support. Thanks to all the WPI’s professors for sharing your invaluable knowledge. Thanks to Agatha Lajoie and Marylou Horanzy for all the administrative support. Thanks to PROMEP for the financial support for the realization of my doctoral studies. Thanks to the Universidad Autonoma de Yucatan, for providing the time that allowed me to be here and achieve this goal. Thanks to Jose Loria for the encouragement to pursue this degree and all the help to do so. Thanks to my wife Lourdes and my son Omar, for all the support and encouragement during this journey. Thanks to Lulu GL for your invaluable and cheerful friendship and all the teamwork support. iii Table of Contents 1 Introduction ................................................................................................................................................. 1 1.1 Research statement ............................................................................................................................ 2 1.2 Research objectives ............................................................................................................................ 3 1.3 Research scope .................................................................................................................................... 3 2 Literature review ......................................................................................................................................... 4 2.1 The facilities Management (FM) process ........................................................................................... 4 2.2 The handover process ......................................................................................................................... 9 2.2.1 Phases of a facility and the information valuable for facility management ............................ 9 2.2.2 Delivering the information at the end of construction ........................................................... 11 2.3 Building Information Modeling......................................................................................................... 16 2.4 BIM and FM ....................................................................................................................................... 18 2.5 Industry Foundation Classes ............................................................................................................. 22 2.6 Construction Operations Building Information Exchange (COBie) ................................................. 25 2.7 Conclusions ........................................................................................................................................ 27 3 Methodology ............................................................................................................................................. 29 3.1 Conduct a case study on the facilities management process ......................................................... 29 3.2 Identify the value and challenges of using BIM for FM ................................................................... 30 3.3 Develop a proposal for a BIM-Enabled Digital Handover Process .................................................. 30 3.4 Validate the contributions of the proposed BIM-Enabled Digital Handover Process ................... 32 4 The facilities management process .......................................................................................................... 33 4.1 The facilities department .................................................................................................................. 33 4.1.1 Organization .............................................................................................................................. 33 4.1.2 Computer Aided Facilities Management (CAFM).................................................................... 35 4.1.3 Conclusion ................................................................................................................................. 41 4.2 The handover process ....................................................................................................................... 42 4.2.1 WPI Sports and Recreation Center .......................................................................................... 42 4.2.2 Documents categories analysis ................................................................................................ 44 5 The value and challenges of using BIM for FM ........................................................................................ 49 5.1 Space management........................................................................................................................... 49 iv 5.1.1 The process of creating the BIM for the selected buildings ................................................... 50 5.1.2 The model parameters ............................................................................................................. 51 5.1.3 Use of the model....................................................................................................................... 52 5.1.4 Maintenance of the model. ...................................................................................................... 53 5.1.5 Conclusion ................................................................................................................................. 53 5.2 The value of using BIM for FM.......................................................................................................... 54 5.3 The challenges inherent in the using BIM for FM ........................................................................... 55 5.3.1 The BIM software ...................................................................................................................... 55 5.3.2 The models ...............................................................................................................................

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