Building Information Modeling (BIM) for Facilities Management – Literature Review and Future Needs

Facilities management (FM) is a discipline comprising of various operations, activities and maintenance services to support the main functions of an in-use building or facility. It demands comprehensive sets of information about the facility. While various FM information systems are currently being used to manage such information, the multifarious graphical and non-graphical information stored in Building Information Models (BIM) from the pre-use phase have not been sufficiently integrated in existing FM systems. BIM, with its visualization, interoperability and information exchange capabilities, can streamline FM activities. Hence, use of BIM for FM has gained global research interest. This paper analyzes this trend based on qualitative analysis of the state- of-art literature on the topic. In particular, this paper scrutinizes the nature of BIM and FM within their variety of functions and interactions. The analysis concentrates on the value-adding potential of BIM and reports the findings to designate the benefits of BIM for FM, and assess potential challenges that are hindering the effective use of BIM in FM.