Knowledge Management and Information Tools for Building Maintenance and Facility Management

The aim of this chapter is to introduce the main aspects and needs connected with information management within the facility management integrated services. The market of Facility Management (FM) in Europe has been significantly expanding in the last ten years with a general tendency to more and more integrated services, focusing on strategic initiatives within longer-term contracts. Within this scenario of market increase, the field of FM services has also been involved with rapid developments, related to various aspects connected with integration of services and strategic planning, such as: the enlargement of the areas of interest; the increasing complexity in the forms of contracting and in the organization models; the changing of the roles and the skills of the operators; the increasing expectations for the improvement of efficiency in the processes; the demand of improvements in the practices of planned maintenance; etc. In this situation of rapid evolutions, the information management is a subject that is becoming more and more important and strategic, highlighting several key factors, that have to be deeply investigated in order to pursue the improvement of the effectiveness and the integration of FM services. The main key factors may be summarized as: knowledge-bases for the strategic, tactical and operational levels of the integrated services; procedures and tools for selecting, collecting and managing information; procedures and criteria for orienting and checking the quality of information; requirements for the information systems.

The aim of the chapter is to analyse the building registry, interpreted as a data base, supported by appropriate methods for the breakdown and the classification of the building and its parts, containing the information necessary to describe the consistency, the functional and the technical characteristics. The chapter highlights the role of the registry within FM services, its contents and relation with the inventory and the information system. Considering the risks of inefficiency, connected with the absence of a pre-determined framework for the collection and organization of information, first of all, some key concepts are introduced: the registry must be able to collect and connect documents and information, both on spaces and technical elements; the registry should be drawn according to the principle of gradualism and it should grow over time starting from a minimum information set; the structure of the registry depends on the “registry system”, that can be considered as a framework of criteria useful for the classification and coding of spatial and technical elements and of an apparatus of data sheets, useful for collecting information. Starting from these assumptions, some subjects are analysed: the role of documents review for the collection of a large amount of information, developed and used in the building life cycle; the criteria for breaking down, classifying and coding the building and its parts. Starting from the prevailing logical breakdown scheme, consisting in the representation of the building as a hierarchical open structure applicable both to spaces and technical elements, several international standard references are introduced and analyzed; the contents and the structure of the system of data sheets, listing, with the support of international standards, the information that can be acquired over time.

The aim of the chapter is to highlight the main functions and specific requirements that should characterize an information system for real estate management. Given the consideration that the common practice is still late in maturing a full awareness of the close relationship existing between the specificity of the context (organizational model of FM services, characteristics of the real estate, client’s requirements) and the structure and modes of use of the information system, the aim of the chapter is to propose some key concepts useful for the development of technical specifications within the service tender documents. By acquiring and developing the guidelines proposed by some standards, the chapter deals with some connected subjects: relation between the information system, the inventory and the building registry; modalities of use of data processed in the information system, in relation to the various activities constituting the FM service (aggregate data and single data); structure of the database, constituting the core of the information system (registries and archives); modular structure of the information system; key functions of an information system in relation to the supply of a FM service (building registry; monitoring; collection and processing of feedback information); role and functions of an information system in the services of maintenance management.

The aim of the chapter is to investigate and highlight characteristics and key functions of the core structure of a FM service, here named “command centre” (CC), which is the structure responsible for the planning and coordination of interventions, the monitoring of the outcomes and the management of information flows. Starting from a framework of the key functions, the main activities of the CC have been analyzed in order to point out information needs and supporting tools. This analysis has been developed in relation to four theoretical models of CC, proposed as representative of some various approach that nowadays are observable in the field of FM services: command centre internal to the client of the service; command centre internal to the service supplier; command centre managed by a third party; control command centre jointly managed by client and supplier.

The aim of this chapter is to introduce the main aspects and needs of the relation between the Building Information Modeling (BIM) methodology and the Facility Management (FM) sector. In fact FM activities, which nowadays are negatively influenced by the fragmentation within the construction industry and the inadequate information exchange between Project Lifecycle Phases (PLPs), can be improved and addressed by the synchronized and collaborative nature of BIM which works as a lifecycle and interdisciplinary 3D data store. Although benefits of an efficient knowledge and process management by using BIM to support FM activities, the adoption of this new methodology for asset management and facility maintenance has been overlooked for a while. Nevertheless, recently the BIM potentiality to overcome the traditional uncertainty in the information management of the built environment and to improve deficient documentation prevalent in existing buildings has boosted the research focus towards this direction. In particular many research groups are working at defining the information requirement of BIM objects as useful for FM activities.

The aim of this chapter is to investigate a possible implementation of the existing BIM-Objects Information Requirements and data standards in relation to information need of FM processes. In order to address this topic, it is presented the output of a methodological experimentation carried out at Politecnico di Milano with the aim of defining a datasheet template enabling information exchange to support FM activities in a BIM environment. The proposed data schema together with its protocol compilation shall support FM activities by defining a dataset to be included in model elements as necessary to multiple activities which characterizes facility management phase (i.e. maintenance scheduling, space management, spare parts management, etc.). Ongoing research is showing some areas of possible integration of the protocol/data format with FM activities, such as the development of a maintenance manual starting from the design and construction information as provided by the BIM model. The developed datasheet template is also allowing some experimentation concerning the implementation of existing interoperable overlays between BIM software and Facilities Information Systems.

This book proposes a thorough analysis of information management within FM services. The aim of the book is to highlight some key concepts that should be well known and applied by the various operators of FM services, both in the problem setting and problem solving: in other words, both in the investigation activities to be carried out in a stage preliminary to the setting of the service and the subsequent drafting of the tender, and in those ones of drafting, negotiation and application of Facility Management agreements.