1. business and industrial
2. construction

A Lifecycle Approach towards Building
Information Management
Technical and procedural implications for the facility management and
operations sector
Pouriya Parsanezhad
Licentiate thesis
Real Estate and Construction Management
Royal Institute of Technology
Kungliga Tekniska Högskolan
Stockholm 2015
© Pouriya Parsanezhad
Royal Institute of Technology (KTH)
School of Architecture and the Built Environment
Department of Real Estate and Construction Management
Division of Project Communication
SE-100 44 Stockholm
Printed by US-AB, Stockholm, April 2015
ISBN: 978-91-85783-48-9
TRITA-FOB-LIC-2015:3
ii
Abstract
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 BIMenabled 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 information management system for AECO firms.
The aim of paper 3 is twofold: firstly, to summarize the current status of the building information management
technologies applied in the facility operation activities and identifying prevailing issues; secondly, to devise
some technical solutions for those issues based on a case project. In the first part of this study, a summarized
description of information management configurations in eleven projects were extracted from literature and the
technical issues within those systems were identified. Moreover, five major categories of contemporary technical
solutions for enhancing information transfer from BIM to FM&O software were designated. Then, a narrative
and illustrative representation and reconstruction of an IT-implementation project was developed.
Paper 4 is another literary study which aims to provide the theoretical basis for more focused studies on existing
and desired processes in the FM&O sector and their associated information transactions. In this paper, firstly, the
more common definitions of the key concepts have been revisited and discussed. Then, the generic types of the
processes, activities and organizational roles common to FM&O firms, the types of information required by each
actor and how such information are acquired have been presented.
Keywords: Building Information Modelling, facilities management, facility management and operation,
interoperability, building information management, BIM repository, workflow process, BIM, FM&O
iii
Sammanfattning
En väl strukturerad och samordnad informationshanteringsmetodik är viktig för att främja effektiviteten i
byggandet. Informationshantering omfattar skapande, tolkning, kommunikation, samordning och lagring av
information. De förväntade fördelarna med användningen
av resultaten av IT-utvecklingen, såsom
ByggnadsInformationsModellering (BIM) i förvaltningssektorn, beräknas bli mycket större än inom andra
sektorer. Det finns dock en klyfta mellan den kunskap som finns inom området byggnadsinformationshantering
och de faktiska kraven från industrin - arkitekter, ingenjörer, byggare och förvaltare - och då särskilt
förvaltningssektorn.
Det övergripande syftet med denna kvalitativa forskning är att utveckla kunskap som konceptualiserar den
livscykelstödjande implementeringen av BIM i byggnadsindustrin, med fokus på dess konsekvenser för en BIMstödd fastighetsförvaltning. Denna tillämpade forskning består av ett antal summativa och formativa
komponenter: artikel 1 undersöker befintliga och framväxande system för fastighetsförvaltningssektorn och
deras karakteristika. Fokus för artikel 2 är begränsat till de tekniska kraven på
byggnadsinformationshanteringssystem, under det att dess temporala omfattning täcker byggnadernas hela
livscykel. Artikel 3 är en vidareutveckling av resultaten av artikel 1 och täcker de tekniska kraven för BIMimplementering i förvaltningssektorn. Artikel 4 undersöker arbetsflöden - en annan kategori av de frågor som
identifieeras i artikel 1.
Artikel 1 syftar till att ge en allmän förståelse för vikten och konsekvenserna av införandet av BIM-stödda
system i förvaltningssektorn. Den identifierar också de viktigaste kategorierna av de områden som är
förknippade med detta tillvägagångssätt. Denna literaturartikel presenterar en grundläggande forskning med ett
beskrivande tillvägagångssätt och bygger på uppgifter från en inte fullständig litteraturuppsättning. I artikeln har
arbetsflöden, avtal och informationsteknik identifierats som tre kategorier av frågor i samband med
implemntering av BIM-stödda system i förvaltningssektorn.
Artikel 2 är också en litteraturstudie som bygger på begreppet BIM-lager och syftar till att klargöra de tekniska
kraven för en mer samarbetande byggnadsindustri och samtidigt skildra aktuell status på byggrelaterad
kunskaps-hantering - de senaste trenderna och framtidsutsikterna. Öppna format för BIM-lagring har föreslagits
som hörnstenarna i ett integrerat system för byggsektorns informationshantering.
Syftet med artikel 3 är dubbelt: dels att sammanfatta den aktuella statusen för de byggnadsinformationshanteringstekniker som tillämpas i fastighetsdriftens aktiviteter och att identifiera rådande frågor; och dels att
utarbeta några tekniska lösningar för dessa frågor baserade på en fallstudie. I den första delen av denna studie,
togs en sammanfattande beskrivning av konfiguration av informationshantering i elva projekt fram ur litteraturen
och de tekniska frågorna inom dessa system identifierades. Dessutom har fem stora kategorier av samtida
tekniska lösningar för att förbättra informationsöverföringen från BIM till förvaltningsprogramvara angivits.
Därefter utvecklades en berättande och belysande representation och rekonstruktion för ett ITimplementeringsprojekt .
Artikel 4 är ytterligare en litteraturstudie som syftar till att ge den teoretiska grunden för mer fokuserade studier
av befintliga och önskade processer i förvaltningssektorn och deras tillhörande informationstransaktioner. I
denna artikel har främst de mer gemensamma definitionerna av nyckelbegreppen undersökts på nytt och
diskuterats. Slutligen har de generiska typerna av processer, aktiviteter och gemensamma för
förvaltningsföretagens organisatoriska roller, de typer av information som krävs av varje aktör och hur sådan
information förvärvas, presenterats.
iv
Foreword
“I said to him,” said Knowles, “’This here’s a re-search laboratory. Re-search
means look again, don’t it? Means they’re looking for something they found once
and it got away somehow, and now they got to re-search for it? How come they got
to build a building like this, with mayonnaise elevators and all, and fill it with all
these crazy people? What is it they’re trying to find again? Who lost what?’ Yes,
yes!”
Cat’s Cradle (Kurt Vonnegut)
Like many other junior architects, my very first professional tasks in my life were drafting and 3D-modelling.
Later in my career, I was responsible for spatial design and coordinating architectural documents with other
disciplinary drawings. Everyday hurdles of using traditional CAD tools induced a burgeoning desire for more
advanced design tools and methodologies: a minor change in a building component necessitated reviewing tens
of drawings, applying the changes in all views and manually checking the physical and functional consequences
of those modifications on other components and the overall design; during meetings with engineers from other
fields, overlay of two-dimensional drawings and manual identification of clashes and inconsistencies were
common routines; iterative queries for quantities upon changes during both conceptual and detailed design
procedures resulted in stagnant and inefficient work processes and lack of sufficient and accurate information
that was required for rational decision-making.
Moreover, design alternatives needed to take into the account the specific demands and requirements of the
activities that would presumably make up everyday living of the users of the prospective facilities according to
the design brief, building codes and technical specifications. However, the semantic richness and technical
capabilities required for explicitly expressing, implementing and evaluating those requirements within design
alternatives was often missing in the design software. Besides, not all operational requirements of the building
were clearly pronounced in the beginning; whereas the operation phase is apparently the primary goal and the
vital reason for the entire design and building practice.
A couple of years after I had quit my design career to embark on a second round of studies in spatial planning, I
got the gratifying opportunity to revisit my old concerns as clarified above and – together with my technologysavvy and like-minded supervisor – reformulate them into the topic for this thesis. To me, as an architect, this
was a meaningful venture to extend my perception of buildings and cities beyond the temporal and disciplinary
borders common to construction industry. In return, I envisioned my mission as a researcher as exploring the
potentials in contemporary building information management systems for promoting a more holistic approach
that would, hopefully, benefit the individual users of facilities and the society as a whole.
The concerns and interests mentioned above collectively guided me through developing my choice of the
research topic and formulating my research aim and research questions as articulated in this thesis among infinite
possibilities and directions.
v
Acknowledgements
This licentiate thesis is largely inspired by and evolved through the highly supportive, yet stimulating
environment provided by my supervisors. I owe therefore my deepest gratitude to Professor Väino Tarandi and
Dr. Tina Karrbom Gustavsson for their continuous support, encouragement and enthusiasm all the way through
this journey. My thanks also go to Dr. Olle Samuelson for the invaluable insights he offered during the internal
review process.
I would also share the credit of my work with Professor Charles M. Eastman, Professor Arto Kiviniemi,
Professor Anders Ekholm, Professor Bo-Christer Björk, Professor Žiga Turk, Dr. Bill East, Dr. Bilal Succar, Dr.
Thomas Liebich, Dr. Salman Azhar and Nicholas Nisbet whose distinguished publications as well as their
thought-provoking key-note talks gave significant influences on this work. More recently, their insightful and
instructive comments and suggestions on my draft motivated and underpinned a large part of my final revisions
and substantially boosted the quality of this thesis.
I am deeply indebted to all those scholars and experts around the world who willingly and passionately spared
their time sharing their knowledge and experience through inspirational conversations and correspondence
during and following conferences, seminars and workshops: Professor Keith Hampson, Professor Martin
Fischer, Professor Per Anker Jensen, Professor Jan Bröchner, Professor Antje Junghans, Professor Kalle
Kähkönen, Professor Vladimir Cvetkovic, Professor Robin Drogemuller, Professor Robert Amor, Dr. Rogier
Jongeling, Dr. Göran Lindahl, Dr. Jakob Beetz, Dr. Eilif Hjelseth, Leon van Berlo, Birgita Foster, Jiri Hietanen,
Bob Moffat, Marko Granroth and Christoph Merschbrock. I am also thankful to Johannes Dimyadi for his
pivotal role in our productive collaboration on the third article in this thesis.
My sincere thank goes out also to all my immediate colleagues at the Division of Project Communication, Örjan
Falk, Hannes Lindblad and Susanna Vass. I wish also to thank other staff and students at the Department of Real
Estate and Construction Management and the Center for Banking and Finance for contributing to a vibrant
environment and for all the enthusiasm, pleasure and festivity that they brought to the meetings, weekly
seminars, courses and trips that we took together. Special thanks go to Professor Thomas Kalbro, Professor Hans
Lind, Professor Hans Mattsson, Professor Mats Wilhelmsson, Professor Örjan Wikforss, Dr. Peter Ekbäck, Dr.
Berndt Lundgren, Dr. Han-Suck Song, Dr. Jenny Paulsson, Dr. Vania Ceccato, Dr. Svante Mandell, Dr. Björn
Berggren, Dr. Agnieszka Zalejska Jonsson, Dr. Fredrik Kopsch, Dr. Lovisa Hogberg, Dr. Corne Uittenbogaard,
Eidar Lindgren, Abukar Warsame, Fredrik Brunes, Olle Nordberg, Asifa Iqbal, Herman Donner, Henry
Muyingo, Lena Borg, Carl Caesar, Magnus Bonde, Sigrid Katzler, Gunnar Hultman, Annica Carlsson, Anders
Hellström, Eva Liedholm Johnson, Jonny Flodin, Kerstin Annadotter, Rosane Hungria Gunnelin, Nadia Arman,
Desirée Mathson, Birgitta Lindström, Arpine Hakobyan and Sultan Mahmood.
Finally, I would like to thank my family and friends, here, back in my home country, Iran, and also all around
the world for all the positive vibe and thoughts they brought to my life in the meanwhile. No word can begin to
express my heartfelt thanks for my beloved parents whose unconditional love and support has never faltered. I
would also like to express my profound gratitude to my closest and most amiable friends, Mozhgan and Alex,
who were my true companions at times, cheerful or difficult.
Stockholm, March 2015
vi
Abbreviations
AECO
AIA
BAS
BCF
BCI
BFI
BIM
BIMs
BIP
BMS
BPI
BPMN
bsDD
CAD
CAFM
CIC
CMMS
COBie
DMS
EDM
EUL
FM&O
GPS
GSA
GUID
IAI
IDDS
IDEF0
IDM
IFC
IFD
IFMA
IGES
IMU
IPD
ISO
IT
KPI
MoPo
MVD
NASA
NBIMS
NIST
OCCS
PM
RFID
RIBA
Architectural, engineering, construction and operation
American Institute of Architects
Building Automation System
BIM Collaboration Format
Building Condition Index
Building Fabric Index
Building information modelling
Building Information Models
Building Information Properties
Building Management System
Building Presentation Index
Business Process Model and Notation
buildingSMART Data Dictionary
Computer-Aided Design
Computer-Aided Facility Management
Computer Integrated Construction
Computerized maintenance and management system
Construction Operation Building information exchange
Document Management System
Engineering Data Model
Equipment’s useful life
Facility management and operations
Global Positioning System
General Service Administration
Global Unique Identifier
International Alliance for Interoperability
Integrated Design and Delivery Solutions
Icam DEFinition for Function Modeling
Information Delivery Manual
Industry Foundation Classes
International Framework for Dictionaries
International Facility Management Association
Interim Graphics Exchange Specification
inertial measurement units
Integrated Product Delivery
International Standardization Organization
Information technology
Key Performance Indicators
Models for the construction process
Model View Definition
National Aeronautics and Space Administration
National BIM Standards
National Institute of Standards and Technology
Omniclass Construction Specifications
Preventive maintenance
Radio Frequency Identification
Royal Institute of British Architects
vii
STEP
U.K.
U.S.
UML
UWB
VDC
WLAN
XML
Standard for the Exchange of Product model data
United Kingdom
United States
Unified Modelling Language
Ultra Wideband
Virtual Design and Construction
Wireless local area network
Extensible Markup Language
viii
Index
1. Introduction ...................................................................................................................................................................... 1 1.1. Research background ............................................................................................................................................... 1 1.2. Problem description ................................................................................................................................................. 2 1.3. Research aim and research questions....................................................................................................................... 4 1.4. Delimitations of scope ............................................................................................................................................. 4 1.5. Target audience ....................................................................................................................................................... 4 2. Theoretical grounds and current status ............................................................................................................................. 5 2.1. Knowledge generation and knowledge management .............................................................................................. 5 2.1.1. Data, information and knowledge semantic levels .................................................................................................. 6 2.2. Building Information Management ......................................................................................................................... 8 2.2.1. Construction IT ........................................................................................................................................................ 8 2.2.2. A brief history of building information modelling .................................................................................................. 9 2.2.3. Building Information Modelling.............................................................................................................................. 9 2.2.4. BIM frameworks ................................................................................................................................................... 11 2.3. Collaborative BIM ................................................................................................................................................. 13 2.3.1. Interoperability ...................................................................................................................................................... 13 2.3.2. buildingSMART .................................................................................................................................................... 14 2.3.3. Standards for interoperability across the AECO industry...................................................................................... 15 2.4. Facility management and operations ..................................................................................................................... 17 2.4.1. BIM implementation in the FM&O sector ............................................................................................................ 19 2.5. Process modelling .................................................................................................................................................. 19 3. Research Outline ............................................................................................................................................................ 21 3.1. Research approaches.............................................................................................................................................. 22 3.2. Research strategies ................................................................................................................................................ 23 3.3. Summative and formative evaluation .................................................................................................................... 25 4. Summary of papers......................................................................................................................................................... 26 4.1. Paper 1: Is the age of facility managers’ paper boxes over? .................................................................................. 26 4.2. Paper 2: A holistic approach to acquisition of building information for a more efficient collaboration ............... 27 4.3. Paper 3: Effective facility management and operations via a BIM-based integrated information system............. 27 4.4. Paper 4: An overview of information logistics for FM&O business processes ..................................................... 28 4.5. My contribution to the co-authored papers ............................................................................................................ 29 5. Discussion ...................................................................................................................................................................... 29 6. Final remarks .................................................................................................................................................................. 33 6.1. Limitations, validity and reliability of the findings ............................................................................................... 33 6.2. Future works .......................................................................................................................................................... 34 7. References ...................................................................................................................................................................... 35 7.1. Personal communication........................................................................................................................................ 41 ix
Listofappendedpapers Paper 1:”Is the age of facility managers’ paper boxes over?”
Paper 2: “A holistic approach to acquisition of building information for a more efficient collaboration”
Paper 3: “Effective facility management and operations via a BIM-based integrated information system”
Paper 4: “An overview of information logistics for FM&O business processes”
Tableoffigures
Figure 1 - Schematic demonstration of the comparative level of automation in different industries as well as different phases
within the AECO industry (partially based on Gallaher et al. 2004 and Owen 2009a)............................................................. 2 Figure 2 - A hypothetical representation of the loss of the value information across the building’s life cycle; the highest
amount of loss occurs upon the handover of information to the FM&O team (Eastman et al. 2011: 153) ............................... 2 Figure 3 - ‘Islands of automation in construction’ as initially drawn by Hannus, Penttilä, and Silén (1998) ........................... 3 Figure 4 - The full spectrum of evolutionary semantic levels (Longworth, 2003) .................................................................... 6 Figure 5 - The semantic levels of data, information and knowledge (according to Rezgui et al. 2010; Smith 2001; Dretske
1999) ......................................................................................................................................................................................... 7 Figure 6 - The reversed interpretation of the semantic levels according to Tuomi (1999) ....................................................... 7 Figure 7 - The cyclic model for transformation of semantic levels........................................................................................... 8 Figure 8 -The BIM framework proposed by Jung and Joo (2011: 127) ................................................................................. 12 Figure 9 - The overall architecture of the BIM Framework (Succar 2009)............................................................................. 13 Figure 10 - Proportions of the loss originating from issues with interoperability in the AECO industry for each phase ....... 19 Figure 11 - Temporal units of the lifecycle of the building at different granularity levels (phase, sub-phase, activity, subactivity and task) according to Succar's BIM Framework (Succar, 2009) .............................................................................. 20 Figure 12 - Dynamics surrounding an activity within a business process as defined in the IDEF0 process modelling
language (Marca and McGowan, 1988: xiii)........................................................................................................................... 21 Figure 13 - The bidirectional interaction of theory and practice in an applied research ......................................................... 22 Figure 14 - From general to specific and vice versa through deductive and inductive strategies (A reproduction of the
diagram at http://toknow-11.wikispaces.com/Inductive+Reasoning) ..................................................................................... 23 Figure 15 - The overall procedure of a typical hypothetico-deductive research (Blaikie, 2009) ............................................ 24 Figure 16 - The overall procedure of an applied research base on case study (as clarified by Hedrick et al., 1993) .............. 25 Tableoftables
Table 1 - The list of the papers included and the research questions dealt with in each paper ................................................. 4 Table 2 - A brief comparative summary of the characteristics of tacit and explicit knowledge ............................................... 6 Table 3 - A list of a number of prevalent definitions of BIM and whether they include the notions of processes and lifecycle
11 Table 4 - A summary of definitions of the term 'interoperability' and their approach and scope ............................................ 14 Table 5 - Major categories of the issues with implementing BIM in the FM&O sector as ariculated by different authors .... 30 Table 6 - The temporal and thematic scope of the papers included ........................................................................................ 30 x
1.
Introduction
1.1. Research background
Structured, coordinated and efficient management of information across the multitude of time-bound projects,
disciplinary organizations and roles is essential to promote efficiency in construction. According to Emmitt and
Gorse (2009), building information management encompasses authoring, interpretation, communication,
coordination and storage of building information. Many scholars have argued that promoting an integrated
approach to the – currently – segregated workflow of construction requires whole-life-supporting information
management systems (Tarandi, 2012; Eastman et al., 2011; Halfawy and Froese, 2007; Kiviniemi, 2005). Such
systems may range over a broad spectrum of products including but not limited to software, hardware and
network technologies, communication tools, databases and model servers. Succar (2009) illustrates the ultimate
goal of implementing Information Technology (IT) in the architectural, engineering, construction and operation
(AECO) industry as to increase efficiency, productivity and profitability; whereas Ekholm (2003) emphasizes
that smooth and seamless exchange of building information among disciplinary actors and their IT systems
demands ontologies and semantic structures that thoroughly and accurately represent the real-world objects and
processes. Such conceptual constructs could not exist in abstraction from reality, rather should be built upon the
due acknowledgement of their corresponding phenomena in the real world and be applicable to different life
cycle stages of buildings.
The lifecycle of a building is often roughly divided to the three major subsequent phases of design, construction
and operation (Succar, 2009). Previously, integration of building information management systems and
processes was often limited to design and construction phases (e.g. Teicholz and Fischer, 1994; Tarandi, 1998).
The average return on investment gained through implementing Building Information Modelling (BIM) for
detecting collisions during design and construction has been calculated up to 39,900% (Azhar, 2011). Whereas
the majority of the costs (Jordani, 2010) and environmental impacts (NIBS, 2014) incurred by man-made
facilities are borne during the operation and maintenance phase. Information management systems are now quite
ubiquitous in the preceding design and construction phases. According to Teicholz (2013a), extending the use of
1
such systems also to the facility management and operations (FM&O) sector would considerably reduce the
costs and burdens mentioned above. Gallaher and other (2004) estimated the benefits envisioned by utilizing
advanced IT developments such as BIM in a collaborative and coordinated way in the FM&O sector to be
greater than the sum of the corresponding economic gains realized in the design and construction sectors.
Nonetheless, some researchers such as Costin and Teizer (2014) and Kiviniemi (2005) contend that BIM-based
information management across the FM&O sector has implications for earlier lifecycle phases such as briefing,
design and building products manufacturing supply chain where various types of building information are
elicited from different participants in the construction project. This necessitates an initially broader approach to
the research topic i.e. a whole-life approach. Among the diversity of issues to be tackled for reaching a critical
mass of BIM implementation in the FM&O sector and creating an impact, this thesis – as reflected in the subtitle
– deals with the problems in the fields of technology and processes.
1.2. Problem description
The AECO industry is a late starter in adopting automated production methods as well as digital information
management systems (Figure 1). Automotive, ship building and aerospace industries are far more automated and
coordinated (Owen, 2009a). A multitude of automated methods for production and delivery of buildings have
been developed. Yet, in a global perspective, implementation of such methods is not quite widespread. Within
the AECO industry, the FM&O sector is lagging behind other sectors with regard to adoption of automated
methods and information systems. In the hypothetical diagram by Eastman et al. (2011), the problem is partly
attributed to the loss of the value of information across the building’s life cycle (Figure 2). The steep slope of the
segment representing the information handover from the construction team to the FM&O firm shows the adverse
impacts of lack of interoperability on the value of the information for the recipient.
Figure 1 - Schematic demonstration of the comparative level of automation in different industries as well as different
phases within the AECO industry (partially based on Gallaher et al. 2004 and Owen 2009a)
The diagram ‘Islands of automation in construction’
(Hannus et al., 1998) addresses the same issue and
visualizes the enablers and barriers of transsectorial interchange of building information
(Figure 3). Since the time the diagram was drawn,
some valuable progress has been made: the use of
the neutral building information model, Industry
Foundation Classes (IFC) is now much more
widespread and a number of tools and technologies
for enabling automated processes across the AECO
industry have been developed (e.g. model-checkers,
4D and 5D analysis tools, 3D-printing and RFID
technologies). However, there are still a number of
barriers to smooth, stable and sustained
2
Figure 2 - A hypothetical representation of the loss of the value
information across the building’s life cycle; the highest amount
of loss occurs upon the handover of information to the FM&O
team (Eastman et al. 2011: 153)
transdisciplinary collaboration among actors that should be removed.
Figure 3 - ‘Islands of automation in construction’ as initially drawn by Hannus, Penttilä, and Silén (1998)
During the last decade, implementation of BIM has been fairly established in building design and is gaining
momentum also in the construction sector. Even though BIM is expected to minimize the time spent on nonvalue-adding tasks in the FM&O sector and consequently promote a more cost-efficient FM&O practice,
scholars such as Teicholz (2013a) believe that those benefits are not yet fully realized (Teicholz, 2013a).
There is a gap between the knowledge available in the field of building information management and the actual
demands of the AECO industry, specifically the FM&O sector. The knowledge developed through research in
this subject area would provide theoretical grounds for further research as well as practical applications. The
resulting theories, conceptual models and frameworks would assist in identification and analysis of existing and
emerging challenges and possibilities as well as developing guidelines for further technological developments in
the field. Kiviniemi and Codinhoto (2014) notify the need for guidelines for implementing BIM in the FM&O
sector and defining requirements for the deliverables to the FM&O team.
3
1.3. Research aim and research questions
The aim of this thesis is twofold: firstly, to identify the main issues common to the contemporary information
management systems used in the FM&O sector; and secondly, to elaborate on the technical and procedural
requirements of a lifecycle supporting information management system. The overall aim has been expanded into
four research questions as follow:




RQ-1: What are the main issues common to contemporary information management systems used in the
FM&O sector and in which ways could those problems be resolved?
RQ-2: What are the technical requirements on a lifecycle supporting information management system?
RQ-3: What are the requirements on BIM-enabled information management systems to be used in the
FM&O sector?
RQ-4: What types of information are needed by different actors in the FM&O sector? How do the FM&O
professionals currently acquire the information they need and how do current forms and formats of the
sources of FM&O information influence the quality of services?
Table 1 shows which research question(s) have been dealt with in which paper(s).
Table 1 - The list of the papers included and the research questions dealt with in each paper
Papers
RQ
Paper 1: “Is the age of facility managers’ paper boxes over?”
RQ-1,3
Paper 2: “A holistic approach to acquisition of building information for a more efficient collaboration”
RQ-2
Paper 3: “Effective facility management and operations via a BIM-based integrated information system”
RQ-1,3
Paper 4: “An overview of information logistics for FM&O business processes”
RQ-4
1.4. Delimitations of scope
A variety of multidisciplinary factors contribute to the subject area of this study - a lifecycle-supporting
approach to building information management. This research has nonetheless its focus on the technical and
procedural aspects of BIM-implementation in the FM&O sector. Even though other contributing factors,
enablers and barriers also have been identified and briefly explained, the research design has been formed to
mainly examine the technical and procedural aspects. Political mechanisms and organizational motives for
promoting or discouraging BIM-implementation in the FM&O sector, for instance, have not been problematized
and have been taken as existing preconditions. Regulatory concerns have also not been covered. Leaving out
such aspects has been conceived as a strategy for maintaining the clarity of focus and construct validity of the
research design.
1.5. Target audience
The outcomes are relevant and useful for both industry and academia and contribute to both theory and practice.
This will be discussed in further details in the chapter ‘3. Research outline’. The results could be beneficial for
scholars and practitioners in the subject area of information management in the AECO sector.
4
2.
Theoretical grounds and current status
In this section, a selection of the knowledge domains relevant for the purpose of this study, their core concepts
and terminologies and the current status in those subject areas are presented. Knowledge generation and
knowledge management, building information management, interoperability and process modelling are the main
fields that are covered here.
2.1. Knowledge generation and knowledge management
Already in 1994, Gibbons et al. (1994) articulated the shift towards more heterogeneous knowledge generation
environments as moving from knowledge generation mode I (traditional mode) to mode II (transdisciplinary
mode). They define transdisciplinarity as a ground for dynamic problem solving and recount four main
characteristics of transdisciplinary mode of knowledge generation as follows:




A framework for problem-solving is produced through a dynamic process.
Generation and application of transdisciplinary knowledge occurs simultaneously.
Even though transdisciplinary knowledge is derived from a particular practice or technological
phenomenon, it possesses its own distinguished theoretical structures.
The knowledge developed through a transdisciplinary mode is primarily communicated to those involved in
that particular practice rather than through conventional and institutional channels of knowledge
distribution (Gibbons et al., 1994).
Heylighen et al. (2007) refer to this as a two-way flow of knowledge and emphasize the importance of disclosing
the knowledge about practice which is embedded in practice. More about this bidirectional contribution among
theory and practice is addressed in the section ‘3.1. Research approaches’.
The transdisciplinary knowledge generation mode has been widely assimilated into both academic and nonacademic research institutions and there is now an increasing need for more effective and structured knowledge
management. A further classification of knowledge to ‘tacit’ and ‘explicit’ forms will thus help explaining the
underlying structures and processes of generation, dissemination and maintenance of knowledge.
Tacit knowledge could be defined as “knowing how to do something without thinking about it” (Smith, 2001:
314) or learning through experiencing and apprenticeship (Nonaka and Takeuchi, 1995). Tacit knowledge is in
principle personal, subjective, informal and context-bound. Tacit knowledge could be produced and
disseminated at a local or global scale. It may be developed through a variety of procedures and vary in its level
of abstraction. Technical tacit knowledge, for instance, is constituted of the skills of doing something, while
cognitive tacit knowledge is an implicit mental model of the actors’ perceptions which is so self-evident that
could not easily be expressed in explicit forms (Sternberg, 1996). Explicit knowledge, on the other hand, is
academic, objective and formal. Smith (2001) asserts that structuring and codifying explicit knowledge assets
provides the basis for systematic storage and dissemination of information and assist organizations with solving
similar problems in the future. Table 2 demonstrates a brief comparative summary of the characteristics of the
tacit and explicit forms of knowledge as explained above.
According to scholars such as Griffith (2003) and Schön (1983), the two above categories of knowledge could be
extended further to three types: ‘explicit knowledge’, which comprises facts and can be uttered and understood
in explicit forms; ‘implicit knowledge’, which is in principle not created or stored in comprehendible forms, but
5
could eventually be reformatted into explicit forms; and ‘tacit knowledge’, which is deeply merged with the
actors’ experiences, memories, habits and unconsciousness.
Table 2 - A brief comparative summary of the characteristics of tacit and explicit knowledge
Tacit Knowledge
Explicit Knowledge
Definition
knowing how to do something without thinking about it
knowledge that is defined in a formal way
Form & format
is often implicit in actions, thoughts, etc.
is explicitly defined and expressed
Subjectivity
subjective and context-based
objective and universal
Origin
actions and processes
facts
Knowledge management could be defined as “a formal, directed process of determining what information a
company has that could benefit others in the company and then devising ways to making it easily available”
(Liss, 1999: 1). Studer (1998) defines the condition of formality as being machine-readable. Machinereadability, as a quality required for knowledge management as intended by Studer, justifies widespread
deployment of information technologies for this purpose. Information technologies applied for knowledge
management within any organization should correspond to its needs and business processes and help fulfill its
objectives. IT-implementation, in turn, facilitates tapping into the potential benefits of different forms of
knowledge developed within organizations (Smith, 2001).
2.1.1. Data, information and knowledge semantic levels
The concept of the consecutive semantic levels of data, information and knowledge was first introduced by
Longworth (2003) as the ‘learning ladder’. Dretske (1999) takes on this conceptual mode and asserts that raw
‘data’ could be evolved into ‘information’ through processing and contextualization; while ‘information’ could,
in turn, be transformed to ‘knowledge’ when authenticated against specific purposes of an organization or actor.
This procedure of evolution could proceed further and result in more subjective and tacit forms of
‘understanding’, ‘insight’ and ‘wisdom’. In this view, information is a subset of data, knowledge is a subset of
information, and so on (Figure 4).
Figure 4 - The full spectrum of evolutionary semantic levels (Longworth, 2003)
The learning ladder of Longworth is often shortened to the semantic levels of data, information and knowledge
(e.g. by Succar, 2009). In line with approach, Rezgui et al. (2010) and Smith (2001) interpret the term ‘data’ as
raw, numeric and basic facts or quantifiable outcomes of observation; ‘information’ as ‘data’ that have relevance
and context such as unit of measurement; and the term ‘knowledge’ as a subset of ‘information’ which is useful
6
and meaningful for a specific purpose. In this view, data could be transformed into information through
processing and information could be evolved to knowledge through authentication (as illustrated in Figure 5).
Figure 5 - The semantic levels of data, information and knowledge (according to Rezgui et al. 2010; Smith 2001;
Dretske 1999)
These concepts have not been used consistently by all researchers. Davis and Olson (1985), for instance, refer to
the term ‘information’ in a sense which is closer to what others define as ‘knowledge’:
"information is data that has been processed into a form that is meaningful to the recipient and is of real
or perceived value in current or prospective actions or decisions" (Davis and Olson, 1985: 200).
Alavi and Liender (2001) emphasize the subjectivity intrinsic to knowledge by defining it as the information
which has been processed in the minds of the individuals. In this sense, the concept of ‘knowledge’ along the
semantic ladder could be considered as the equivalent of ‘tacit knowledge’ as defined in the previous section.
The process of evolution of data to information and knowledge is not agreed upon across academia and is
sometimes mapped in different ways and even in the reverse direction. In his article titled as ‘Data Is More than
Knowledge’, Tuomi (1999) asserts that, in practice, it is knowledge that exists first and is then transformed to
data when structured and formally expressed. In this view, only part of the existing knowledge can be captured
as data and information and no such thing as ‘raw data’ could be conceived. In Tuomi’s (1999) interpretation,
information is a subset of knowledge and data is a subset of information (Figure 6).
Figure 6 - The reversed interpretation of the semantic levels according to Tuomi (1999)
For the purpose of this research, each of the two approaches could explain part of the processes of knowledge
generation and knowledge management. As depicted in Figure 7, the content is perceived to be transformed
across different semantic levels in a cyclic manner rather than along a one-way evolutional axis.
In this view, subjective pre-assumptions and tacit knowledge embedded in the minds of the disciplinary actors
are turned into ‘information’ and ‘data’ when structured, formally expressed and documented. Tacit knowledge
of the individuals can also be decisive in how the presumably ‘raw data’ are collected. The collected ‘data’ are
processed to form ‘information’ and then authenticated according to the organization’s norms and values to form
corporate ‘knowledge’. The initial knowledge utilized for data collection is however not identical to the
knowledge that is created through further authentication of those data. Within any single business process or
7
activity in an AECO firm, one or several segments demonstrated in Figure 7 could represent data, information
and knowledge transactions and transformations.
Figure 7 - The cyclic model for transformation of semantic levels
2.2. Building Information Management
2.2.1. Construction IT
Times when computers were regarded with contempt by design professionals and were recognized merely as
faster and cheaper draftsmen are over. IT systems and applications are now widely used for a host of disciplinary
tasks across the AECO industry. This has compelled the emergence of the knowledge domain of ‘Construction
IT’ also referred to as ‘construction informatics’. Different views on what is implied by the term ‘information’
were introduced in the previous section. Other relevant concepts such as ‘technology’ and ‘information
technology’ will be briefly clarified here.
The term technology is defined as “the practical application of knowledge especially in a particular area”
(Merriam-Webster, 2014) or – in a slightly different wording – “The application of scientific knowledge for
practical purposes, especially in industry” (Oxford, 2014). Information Technology (IT) could accordingly be
defined as applying scientific knowledge on information management for practical purposes; or in the words of
March and Smith:
“Information technology is technology used to acquire and process information in support of human
purposes. It is typically instantiated as IT systems – complex organizations of hardware, software,
procedures, data, and people, developed to address tasks faced by individuals and groups, typically within
some organizational setting” (March and Smith, 1995: 252).
Björk (1999) takes a more focused approach and defines IT as “the use of electronic machines and programs for
the processing, storage, transfer and presentation of information” (Björk, 1999: 4). The following definition for
the term ‘construction informatics’ by Turk (2006) suits best the purpose of this study, since it also recognizes
the importance of the human users in implementing IT in the AECO industry:
“Construction informatics is an applied science that studies the construction specific issues related to
processing, representation and communication of construction specific information in humans and
software” (Turk, 2006: 188).
A considerable number of scholars in the field of construction IT have alleged that coordinated and structured
use of IT in construction calls for integrated product and process modelling methodologies such as Building
8
Information Modelling (BIM) (Azhar, 2011; Owen et al., 2010; Gu and London, 2010; Howard and Björk, 2008;
Penttilä, 2006).
2.2.2. A brief history of building information modelling
The way contents are categorized, tagged and structured in computers and communicated to users should be in
accord with the cognitive capacities and limitations of humans. Rumelhart and Ortony (1976) assert that
information should be broken into small inter-linked packets in order to facilitate the knowledge acquisition
process. One of the concepts that explain such small bundles of building information is ‘schemata’. The concept
of ‘schemata’ emerged in the ‘Schema theory’ developed by Rumelhart and Ortony (1976) and embraced both
information about concepts and interrelations among those packets of information. Carrara et al. (1994) explain
the way the theory conceptualized how to capture both descriptive and operational building design knowledge
within ‘schema’ units.
Evolution of such concepts as ‘schemata’ paved the way for further conceptualization and construction of
computerized building models. Contemporary digital building models, however, are built upon the notion of
‘objects’ and their corresponding ‘attributes’. According to Björk (1989), “Objects (entities) are collections of
data that are related in some meaningful way”; while “attributes describe the properties of the object in question”
(Björk, 1989: 73). The associative relationships between objects and their attributes are formally expressed in
the form of hierarchical breakdown structures with different types of relationships among entities. Several
researchers such as Eastman (1992) and Björk (1989) demonstrate how construction entities are defined at
different levels of abstraction e.g. building level, system level, subsystem level, part level, and detail level.
Engineering Data Model (EDM) introduced by Eastman (1993) was one of the earliest suggestions for building
information models which put forward a methodology for representing design information in a modular way.
Eastman regards EDM as an alternative to the ISO-STEP and Express language (Eastman, 2014). As asserted by
many researchers in the field, such initiatives for capturing, structuring and communicating building information
as EDM and its successors were all based on the object-oriented modelling principle (Augenbroe, 1992; Björk,
1989; Eastman, 1992; Froese and Paulson, 1994) which was later on widely recognized by the industry as
Building Information Modelling (BIM).
2.2.3. Building Information Modelling
‘Building Information Modelling’, formerly referred to as ‘building product modelling’ (Eastman, 1999) or
‘building data modelling’ (Penttilä, 2006) was initially defined as “a methodology to manage the essential
building design and project data in digital format throughout the building’s lifecycle” (Penttilä, 2006: 403). In a
market-based survey by McGraw Hill, BIM was defined as “the process of creating and using digital models for
design, construction and/or operations of projects” (Young et al., 2008: 2).
The definition provided by Eastman et al. in their BIM Handbook (Eastman et al., 2011) excludes the notion of
lifecycle support and confines the term to its basic components; while – similar to McGraw Hills report – the
processes involved in creating, using and communicating Building Information Models (BIMs) are incorporated
in the definition of the term: BIM is “a modeling technology and associated set of processes to produce,
communicate, and analyze building models” (Eastman et al., 2011: 16). The definition is then amended by major
characteristics of BIMs as follows (Eastman et al., 2011):
9



BIMs are digital representations of building components containing geometry, attributes and parametric
rules.
BIMs also include information on functions and behaviors of the building components.
Contents of BIMs are non-redundant, coordinated and consistent through all views within the BIM
environment.
In the definition provided by buildingSMART, again, the importance of applicability of BIM to all lifecycle
stages of the facility is accentuated. Moreover, the need for including the functional traits of the building
components has been made explicit:
“BIM is a digital representation of physical and functional characteristics of a facility. A building
information model is a shared knowledge resource for information about a facility forming a reliable
basis for decisions during its lifecycle; defined as existing from earliest conception to demolition”
(buildingSMART, 2014a).
The U.S. National BIM Standards has also adopted the same definition (NBIMS, 2014). U.S. General Service
Administration (GSA) offers a more evidence-based and detailed definition which, in fact, reflects the BIM use
cases common to this agency:
“Building Information Modeling is the development and use of a multi-faceted computer software data
model to not only document a building design, but to simulate the construction and operation of a new
capital facility or a recapitalized (modernized) facility. The resulting Building Information Model is a
data-rich, object-based, intelligent and parametric digital representation of the facility, from which views
appropriate to various users’ needs can be extracted and analyzed to generate feedback and improvement
of the facility design” (GSA, 2007: 3).
A summary of the most comprehensive definitions of BIM and whether they include the BIM processes and the
lifecycle approach or not, is provided in Table 3. BIM as intended through this research, is closest to the
definition provided by the BIM Handbook (Eastman et al., 2011). One criterion for this choice is that other than
the main components of the concept, fundamental characteristics such as being object-oriented, data-rich,
parametric and intelligent – as formulated in the GSA’s definition – are also mentioned in the amendments of the
BIM Handbook’s definition. Throughout this thesis, it has been assumed that the lifecycle approach is not an
essential component of BIM rather it is an additional quality that will be achieved at higher BIM maturity levels
(Succar, 2009). Hence, a modelling methodology that fulfills all requirements addressed in the definition, but is
confined to a particular stage e.g. design or construction is still considered a BIM methodology. At the same
time, it is asserted in BIM Handbook that BIM “supports a reevaluation of IT use in the creation and
management of the facility’s lifecycle.” (Eastman et al., 2011: 17).
The term BIM has often been replaced, accompanied, explained or amended by other terms such as Integrated
Product Delivery (IPD) (AIA, 2014), nD-modelling (Lee et al., 2003), Virtual Design and Construction (VDC)
(Kunz and Fischer, 2005), Integrated Design and Delivery Solutions (IDDS) (Owen, 2009a), and Computer
Integrated Construction (CIC) (Jung and Gibson, 1999). As pointed out by Succar (2009), these terms have been
developed by different industry and research bodies for clarifying approximately the same concept, though at
varying descriptive and conceptual levels and from different actor perspectives.
10
Author
“a methodology to manage the essential building design and project data in digital format
throughout the building’s lifecycle”
Penttilä
“the process of creating and using digital models for design, construction and/or operations
of projects”
McGraw Hill
“a modeling technology and associated set of processes to produce, communicate, and
analyze building models”
Eastman et al.
“BIM is a digital representation of physical and functional characteristics of a facility. A
building information model is a shared knowledge resource for information about a facility
forming a reliable basis for decisions during its lifecycle; defined as existing from earliest
conception to demolition.”
buildingSMART /
NBIMS
“Building Information Modeling is the development and use of a multi-faceted computer
software data model to not only document a building design, but to simulate the construction
and operation of a new capital facility or a recapitalized (modernized) facility. The resulting
Building Information Model is a data-rich, object-based, intelligent and parametric digital
representation of the facility, from which views appropriate to various users’ needs can be
extracted and analyzed to generate feedback and improvement of the facility design.”
GSA
Lifecycle approach
Definition
The BIM processes
Table 3 - A list of a number of prevalent definitions of BIM and whether they include the notions of processes and lifecycle
-
●
●
●
●
-
-
●
●
●
2.2.4. BIM frameworks
An abundance of BIM market survey reports and national and organizational BIM guidelines are now available
(GSA, 2007; ASHRAE, 2010; Young et al., 2008; Bernstein, 2012; Jokela et al., 2012). Nonetheless, such
reports and guidelines are often community- or organization-specific in their scope and are based upon exclusive
ontologies and subjective and time-bound interpretations. Consequently, they could not be considered as the
scientific constructs required for systematic investigation of the subject area. In absence of all-inclusive theories
specific to the BIM field of study, BIM frameworks are the most appropriate alternatives for framing and
guiding the research on BIM.
According to Meredith (1993), “a framework is essentially a pre-theory and may well substitute in many ways
for a theory” (Meredith, 1993: 7). Utilizing frameworks in science is grounded on the concept of ‘frames’. In his
‘frame theory’, Minsky (1975) defines a ‘frame’ as a network of nodes and relations that are developed in the
occasion of totally unprecedented situations:
11
“Here is the essence of the theory: When one encounters a new situation (or makes a substantial change
in one's view of the present problem), one selects from memory a structure called a Frame. This is a
remembered framework to be adapted to fit reality by changing details as necessary. A frame is a datastructure for representing a stereotyped situation…” (Minsky, 1975: 22).
Broadly speaking, a BIM framework facilitates
systematic investigation of the BIM subject area. Such
a framework is used for – among all – organizing
domain knowledge, eliciting tacit expertise,
facilitating knowledge creation, structuring arguments
in manageable sections, integrating product and
process modelling, connecting academic and
industrial understanding of BIM (Succar, 2009),
guiding research activities and integrating relevant
concepts into descriptive and prescriptive models
(Jung and Joo, 2011).
Currently, only a few BIM frameworks have been
developed. The ‘Collaborative BIM Decision
Framework’ introduced by Gu and London (2010)
identifies different aspects of BIM implementation,
but is exclusively configured as a decision-making
framework to be used for facilitating BIM adoption in
Figure 8 -The BIM framework proposed by Jung and
Joo (2011: 127)
the AECO industry. A further BIM framework
developed by Jung and Joo (2011) divides BIM issues into the three dimensions of ‘BIM technology’, ‘BIM
perspective’, and ‘construction business functions’ (Figure 8). Each dimension is, in turn, divided into a number
of categories.
The BIM Framework devised by Succar (2009), however, has a clearer structure and offers applicable constructs
for both researchers and practitioners. Succar’s BIM Framework has three axes at its base: BIM fields of activity
(players and their deliverables), BIM stages (BIM implementation maturity levels), and BIM lenses (the depth
and breadth of enquiry to fields and stages). The three BIM fields of activity have been defined as:



Technology field: includes actors such as software and hardware companies and network providers as well
as BIM software, communication systems, database technologies, model servers, GIS software, etc.
Process field: encompasses the variety of disciplinary actors and their information.
Policy field: includes actors such as insurance companies, research centers, educational institutions and
regulatory bodies as well as regulations, contracts, standards, educational programs, research projects, etc.
BIM fields and BIM stages could be investigated through macroscopic, mesoscopic or microscopic lenses. In
figure 9, all components and sub-components of Succar’s BIM Framework have been integrated into one
diagram to present the overall architecture of the Framework1.
1
Later components and updated versions and terminologies of BIM Framework since its inception could be reached at
http://www.bimframework.info/
12
Figure 9 - The overall architecture of the BIM Framework (Succar 2009)
2.3. Collaborative BIM
2.3.1. Interoperability
The AECO industry should exterminate the prevailing culture of fragmentation and silo mentalities. The
immediate requirement for this vision is to increase interoperability across the entire industry. In two separate
reports where the U.S. National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) was involved (Gallaher et al.,
2004; Fallon and Palmer, 2006) lack of interoperability was identified as the source of delays and confusion and
as a big burden for construction projects. The IEEE Standard Computer Dictionary defines ‘interoperability’ as
“the ability of two or more systems or components to exchange information and to use the information that has
been exchanged” (Geraci, 1991). Shen and et al. (2010) propose a broader approach to also address the users of
the exchanged information, but confine the usage of the term to situations where the proper interpretation of the
transmitted data on the recipient’s side has actually occurred: “Interoperability can be defined as the ability that
data generated by any one party can be properly interpreted by all other parties” (Shen et al., 2010: 197). The
NIST takes a middle approach and defines the term as “the ability to manage and communicate electronic
13
product and project data between collaborating firms and within individual companies’ design, construction,
maintenance, and business process systems” (Gallaher et al., 2004: ES–1).
The above definitions can alternately be deployed at micro, macro and meso levels (see the previous section,
‘2.2.4. BIM frameworks’). The definition provided by IEEE could run the risk of neglecting the organizational
and social attributes of data and information transactions and the business processes through which such
transactions occur. The above definitions and their approach and scope are summarized in Table 4.
As evident in Table 4, definitions of the term ‘interoperability’ vary in the terminology used for addressing the
content of transactions (either the term ‘information’ or ‘data’ has been used and no clear distinction has been
made). Some definitions limit the usage of the term to transfer of data/information, while interpretation and use
of data/information is also included in others. For the sake of clarity and consistency in this research, the
concepts of ‘interchange’ and ‘exchange’ are borrowed from Succar’s BIM Framework; where an ‘exchange’ is
defined as an actor exporting or importing data/information that is neither structured nor computable for the
recipient, whereas an ‘interchange’ occurs only if the exported and subsequently imported data/information are
both structured and computable at the recipient’s application. An interchange is thereafter defined as an
interoperable exchange of information2.
Table 4 - A summary of definitions of the term 'interoperability' and their approach and scope
Definition
“The ability of two or more
systems or components to
exchange information and to use
the information that has been
exchanged”
“The ability to manage and
communicate electronic product
and project data between
collaborating firms and within
individual companies’ design,
construction, maintenance, and
business process systems”
“The ability that data generated by
any one party can be properly
interpreted by all other parties”
Author
Scope
Players
Content
Action
IEEE
micro
systems/components
information
exchange/use
NIST
meso
firms/individuals
data
manage/communicate
Shen et al.
macro
parties
information
interpret
Life time of buildings normally exceeds that of many software companies. This urges for vendor-neutral open
standards for building information to guarantee that building models will remain useful for operational purposes
as well as further renovation, addition and alteration projects during the entire lifecycle of facilities. Tarandi
(1998) emphasizes the crucial role of standardization in facilitating the flow of information from design to
construction via product models. One of the most distinguished organizations working towards developing open
format standards for the AECO industry is buildingSMART. Implementation of the standards developed by
buildingSMART is often termed as ‘open BIM’ (Berlo et al., 2012; Tarandi, 2011).
2.3.2. buildingSMART
2
In all definitions borrowed from the BIM Framework (Succar, 2009), ’data’ has been replaced by ’data/information’ in
order to be consistent with the definitions provided in the section ‘2.1.1. Data, information and knowledge semantic
levels‘. In many transactions across the AECO industry, the content that is transformed is explicitly accompanied by
metadata that defines its context and relevance and should therefore be referred to as ‘information’.
14
buildingSMART, formerly the International Alliance for Interoperability (IAI), is one of the most distinguished
global actors aiming towards promoting interoperability across the AECO industry. The executive committee of
this non-for-profit organization serves a world-wide alliance comprising a wide range of disciplinary actors
including architects, engineers, contractors, building owners, facility managers, manufacturers, software
vendors, information providers, government agencies, research laboratories and universities. buildingSMART
International has a number of regional chapters as separate organizations responsible for developing standards
for interoperability at different geographical locations around the world3.
buildingSMART has so far developed or conceptualized a number of open standards for the AECO industry,
namely, the IFC data model (buildingSMART, 2014b), the Information Delivery Manual (IDM) data exchange
specification (buildingSMART, 2014c) and its corresponding Model View Definitions (MVDs)
(buildingSMART, 2014d), buildingSMART Data Dictionary (bsDD – formerly termed as International
Framework for Dictionaries or IFD) (buildingSMART, 2014e) and quite recently, the BIM Collaboration Format
(BCF) (buildingSMART, 2014f). Certification of BIM applications for IFC-implementation is also performed by
buildingSMART.
2.3.3. Standards for interoperability across the AECO industry
Below, a non-exhaustive list of standards within the AECO industry is provided and each initiative is briefly
introduced. The main criterion for choosing among the numerous standards in the field has been their
applicability to the entire lifecycle of the building including the FM&O phase.
ISO 10303 (STEP)
‘Automation systems and integration - Product data representation and exchange’ is informally
known as the ‘Standard for the Exchange of Product model data’ (STEP) and has been adopted as a
standard by the International Standardization Organization (ISO). According to Gallaher and et al.
(2004), STEP is a fundamental industry-wide standard for interchange of three-dimensional models
as well as related information in a neutral format across different organizations and lifecycle stages.
STEP has the capacity to store and transfer computer-interpretable representation of industrial
products in both geometric and semantic terms (ISO, 2008).
A widely-used part of STEP, ISO 10303-45:2008 includes specifications of the values of various
engineering properties of products, the conditions for validity of those values, and the description of
the composition of products. Properties and composition of the products can be expressed in either
numerical formats or as mathematical functions which can, in turn, be described in more details
according to their type, precision and uncertainty (ISO, 2008). STEP is applied in automotive,
shipbuilding, aerospace and process plant (Owolabi et al., 2003).
3
http://www.buildingsmart.org/
15
Industry Foundation Classes (IFC)
IFC is the main buildingSMART data model in neutral format which is used for exchanging both
geometric and non-geometric building information across different disciplines and temporal phases
of a building’s lifecycle (buildingSMART, 2014b). The IFC specification has been written using the
EXPRESS data modelling language. EXPRESS provides a wide range of constructs that are
essential to product modelling, namely data types, entities, attributes, supertypes and subtypes, and
algorithmic constraints (ISO, 2004). The IFC file format is based on the STEP standard and
therefore referred to as the ‘STEP physical file format’.
The first version of IFC, Release 1.5., was published in 1998. A later version, the IFC 2x release
included the ifcXML specification as an alternative XML-based specification for the EXPRESS-based
schema (Shen et al., 2010). Recently, buildingSMART has published the latest version of its data
model, IFC4.
Nowadays, almost all major providers of BIM software support IFC import and export functionalities
in their applications. IFC has been criticized for being too complex (Howard and Björk, 2008) and
creating large file sizes (e.g. Bazjanac, 2002). Research has been ongoing for several decades to
resolve such problems (e.g. Won and Lee, 2011; Vanlande et al., 2003).
Information Delivery Manual (IDM)
IDM specifies the types of building information that are required for disciplinary actors in the AECO
industry and clarifies when during workflow processes, the information is needed. Model View
Definitions (MVDs) are the formally-expressed specifications of IDMs which are specific to certain
use cases (buildingSMART, 2014c) e.g. energy analysis, quantity take-off, cost estimation, ingress
and egress. A methodology and format for development of IDMs has been provided in ISO 294811:2010 (ISO, 2010). The first MVD developed by buildingSMART is the Coordination View which is
aimed to facilitate sharing of building models among AECO disciplines4.
BuildingSMART Data Dictionary (bsDD)
BsDD, formerly known as the International Framework for Dictionaries (IFD), is an interlinked set of
multilingual dictionaries or ontologies that provides the AECO industry with a common vocabulary
that underpins collaboration and cooperation beyond geographical and disciplinary boundaries
(buildingSMART, 2014e). BsDD is based on a concept presented in ISO 12006-3:2007 (ISO, 2007).
The bsDD reference library is based on the EXPRESS data modelling language and uses the
concept of Global Unique Identifier (GUID) for global indexing of concepts in an object-oriented
database5.
BIM Collaboration Format (BCF)
BCF is the most recent product of buildingSMART, which is currently a pre-release. It is intended to
support communication of issues with building models among different users. BCF is an XML
schema and enables interoperable, rapid, and traceable interchange of issues mainly during design
and construction phases. BCF has been devised to avoid time- and resource-demanding information
transactions when communicating minor subsets of building information such as design issues
(buildingSMART, 2014f).
4
5
http://www.buildingsmart-tech.org/specifications/ifc-view-definition/coordination-view-v2.0
http://www.buildingsmart-tech.org/specifications/ifc-releases/ifc2x4-release/rc4-release
16
Construction Operation Building information exchange (COBie)
COBie is a buildingSMART international MVD called the Facility Management Handover Model View
which was developed in 2006 by the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers and National Aeronautics and
Space Administration (NASA). The initiative was tested for validating the imports and exports to and
from Computerized Maintenance Management Systems (CMMS’s) through COBie Challenges
(Teicholz, 2013b).
COBie contains a list of managed assets. The list is initially developed in the briefing and design
phase by the architect and the owner, and incrementally completed and updated through
procurement, construction and commissioning processes. East and et al. (2013) explain how
complementary building information is elicited from a variety of documents such as the product data
sheets provided by manufacturers and system layout drawings received from fabricators. According
to the COBie Guide, COBie deliverables could be made in different ways and formats, namely by
manually entering data into spreadsheets, exporting an external COBie file, using COBie-compliant
software for interchange of information or in the form of IFC (East and Carrasquillo-Mangual, 2012).
The most common form of COBie information is however an Excel file comprising 16 spreadsheets
for different concepts across the entire lifecycle of the facility (Teicholz, 2013b). Building Information
Modelling Task Group in the U.K. has developed a slightly different variant of COBie, known as
COBie U.K.6.
Uniformat, MasterFormat and Omniclass
While UniFormat, the U.S. classification schema for coding building elements, spaces and
equipment is mainly used by designers, the other American standard, MasterFormat, prioritizes work
results and is therefore more appropriate for the construction sector. Omniclass Construction
Specifications (OCCS) – which was developed later – encompasses both UniFormat and
MasterFormat to maintain a more holistic and industry-wide approach (OCCS, 2013). Due to the
wide diversity of building products, materials and construction techniques, there are numerous
national standards as such around the world. BSAB and AMA could, for instance, be roughly
considered as the Swedish equivalents of – respectively – UniFormat and MasterFormat. While
BSAB is mainly a classification system for building elements and products materials, AMA provides
standardized descriptions for construction activities and processes (Svensk Byggtjänst, 2013).
Standard formats are intended as a common language for data exchange among actors and enterprises. Yet, as
clarified by Tarandi (2012), not all information available in proprietary data models could be captured and
transferred via such neutral formats. Design work will still be done in proprietary formats to deploy high
professional capacities of discipline-specific tools. Neutral formats such as IFC, on the other hand, provide the
capacity to practice a coordinated and collaborative building data management. An open standard BIM
repository would operate as the central information hub for streamlining trans-disciplinary use of IFC and
facilitating seamless, coordinated and documented building data exchange (Tarandi, 2012).
2.4. Facility management and operations
Facilities constitute a significant proportion of the overall asset portfolio of any business corporation
(Zeckhauser and Silverman, 1983). From the AECO industry point of view, the majority of the costs associated
with any building during its total lifecycle occurs post-construction (Jordani, 2010). Therefore, minimizing the
costs incurred by non-value-adding activities through the facility management and operations phase, e.g. manual
information retrieval, will dramatically reduce the whole-life costs of facilities.
6
http://www.bimtaskgroup.org/cobie-uk-2012/
17
There is no widespread agreement on how the overall lifecycle of the building should be divided into phases and
how those temporal phases should be named. The OmniClass Construction Classification System (see the
previous section’2.3.3. Standards for interoperability across the AECO industry’) differentiates among the terms
‘facility management’, ‘facility operation and maintenance’, and ‘facility operations’:



‘Facility management’ mainly comprises administrative activities for guaranteeing a safe and functioning
building;
‘Facility Operation and Maintenance’ encompasses both oversight and maintenance of the systems and
services within facilities
‘Facility Operations’ refers to the act of providing services to support operation within facilities (OCCS,
2013 - Table 33 - Disciplines).
Facility Management and Operations (FM&O) is however a more common and overarching term which is also
used throughout this thesis. FM&O could also be defined as a discipline that “encompasses all of the broad
spectrum of services required to assure that the built environment will perform the functions for which a facility
was designed and constructed” (Sapp, 2013). The International Facility Management Association (IFMA) also
assimilates the organizational and social attributes of FM&O activities by defining the term as “the practice of
coordinating the physical workplace with the people and work of the organization” (IFMA, 2013).
Buildings, rooms and building elements are the main constituent parts, but not the only parts of physical
workplaces. The more general term ‘managed assets’ could be a more appropriate wording for referring to all
physical components that are involved in FM&O activities. Managed assets are defined as “those assets that
require management, maintenance, consumable parts, regular inspection, and so on” (East, 2013: 110). The two
major types of managed assets are spatial assets and equipment assets (East, 2013). It should, however, be noted
that linear assets such as bridges, roads, pipes, ducts, beams and columns are ‘not’ considered as managed assets
(East, 2014).
Building information management systems that are deployed by FM&O firms can be categorized as follows:





Computer-Aided Facility Management (CAFM) systems: CAFM systems link together legacy ComputerAided Design (CAD) documents and relational databases of FM&O firms and provide information at
greater spatial granularities such as spaces and rooms.
Computerized Maintenance Management Systems (CMMS’s): CMMS’s deal with detailed and often
operational work orders related to maintenance services (East, 2013). CMMS’s are however also used for
some strategic tasks such as performing asset inventories and asset tracking (Sapp, 2013).
Building Automation Systems (BAS’s): BAS’s are made up of a network of hardware and software that
control an interlinked constellation of mechanical and electrical equipment in a facility (Chipley, 2014).
Document Management Systems (DMS’s): DMS’s are systems that are used for administering electronic
documents of corporations (AIIM, 2014).
Building Management Systems (BMS’s): “The Building Management System provides automatic monitoring,
interaction and management for electricity, ventilation, water supply, security and fire control to the
building” (Chipley, 2014). BMS’s manage and coordinate minor systems such as BAS’s, security and fire
safety systems. Based on the size and function of the building, BMS’s may vary from a single workstation to
manned operation centers.
Interoperability among the building information management systems deployed in the FM&O sector and those
used during the preceding phases of design and construction is required to ensure a seamless flow of information
through the entire lifecycle of buildings. Jaafari (1997) has envisioned how such an infrastructure would
facilitate implementation of integrated and concurrent construction methods and promote a fully-automated and
phaseless AECO industry.
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2.4.1. BIM implementation in the FM&O sector
According to Schevers et al. (2007), availability of required information in a timely manner and usable format is
central to an efficient FM&O practice. As demonstrated in a report by NIST, around two-thirds of the loss
originating from issues with interoperability in the AECO industry occurs within the FM&O phase (Gallaher et
al., 2004) (Figure 10). Teicholz (2013c) estimates that this amount constitutes 12.4 percent of the mean total
annual FM&O costs. According to Eastman and et al. (2011), implementing BIM in its full-spectrum capabilities
will considerably reduce the FM&O costs induced by insufficient interoperability across the AECO industry.
This is clarified in more concrete terms in the BIM Guide published by the GSA:
“The overall purpose of utilizing BIM for facility management is to enable GSA to leverage facility data
through the facility lifecycle to provide safe, healthy, effective and efficient work environments for our
clients” (GSA, 2011: 8).
There are a variety of use cases for investing in BIMenabled systems for the FM&O sector. Ammari and
Hammad (2014) suggest automating data-entry into
CMMS’s for enhancing maintenance management through
connecting them to BIMs and using video-based tracking
technologies. Accurate and swift indoor localization of
assets could considerably streamline such FM&O services
as failure discovery, criteria-based asset inventories, move
management, rescue operations and logistics. According to
Taneja and et al. (2012), the accuracy for indoor
localization of the equipment and components within the
Figure 10 - Proportions of the loss originating from issues
building needed for common functions is around 3 meters with interoperability in the AECO industry for each phase
which lies beyond the capacities of contemporary indoors
locating technologies such as global positioning system (GPS), ultra wideband (UWB), radio frequency
Identification (RFID), wireless local area network (WLAN) and inertial measurement units (IMU). The
performance of such technologies should therefore be enhanced by using accurate underlying layouts (Schafer et
al., 2011; Taneja et al., 2012) that could be provided by BIMs. As an example, Costin and Teizer (2014)
introduced and applied a methodology for utilizing BIM together with RFID tags for achieving higher accuracy
in identification of indoors assets location.
A more advanced initiative in the field is to integrate the real-time performance data sourcing from wired and
wireless sensors into BIMs (Cahil et al., 2012; Akinci and Liu, 2009). This is though merely a preliminary step
towards tapping into the infinite potentials of the extensive sets of data for enhancing functional and
environmental performance of our built environment. Mayer-Schönberger and Cukier (2013) describe such types
of datasets as massive and messy and call them ‘Big data’ (Mayer-Schönberger and Cukier, 2013).
2.5. Process modelling
Implementing BIM-based systems in corporations has implications for their business processes (Owen et al.,
2010). The majority of developments in the BIM subject area have been focused on product modelling; yet, BIM
has sometimes been defined as the “integration of product and process modelling” (e.g. Kimmance, 2002, p. 6).
Implementing BIM can dramatically change the sequence of activities and tasks carried out in FM&O firms.
19
Such changes occur incrementally over time as higher BIM maturity levels are achieved. Procedural changes as
such are motivated and necessitated by unprecedented interactions set off by BIM implementation (Succar,
2009). Changes may occur at a micro scale such as introducing new activities and tasks or even at macro levels
e.g. building lifecycle phases. Investigating these procedural changes triggered by BIM-implementation firstly
demands a thorough understanding of the corresponding concepts and how they are defined in relation to one
another.
Temporal divisions of a building’s lifecycle could be made in a variety of ways depending on legislative systems
and procurement methods. According to OmniClass Construction Classification System (OCCS), the overall
lifecycle of the building is composed of nine distinct stages: inception phase, conceptualization phase, criteria
definition phase, design phase, coordination phase, implementation phase, handover phase, operation phase and
closure phase (OCCS, 2013). The Royal Institute of British Architects (RIBA), however, suggests seven stages
of strategic definition, preparation and brief, concept design, developed design, technical design, construction,
handover & closeout, and ‘in use’ (Sinclair, 2013: 39). In his BIM Framework, Succar (2009) suggests using a
simplified division comprising design phase, construction phase and operation phase. According to him, those
overarching lifecycle phases can then successively be divided into smaller temporal units of sub-phases,
activities, sub-activities and tasks (Figure 11). The smallest temporal unit, ‘task’, could be defined as “a piece of
work to be done or undertaken” (Oxford, 2014).
Figure 11 - Temporal units of the lifecycle of the building at different granularity levels (phase, sub-phase, activity, sub-activity
and task) according to Succar's BIM Framework (Succar, 2009)
The more business-related concept of ‘process’ may now be defined through the above temporal units.
Davenport’s definition of ‘process’, for example, is based on the intermediate temporal unit, ‘activity’: “process
is a specific ordering of work activities across time and place, with a beginning, an end, and clearly identified
inputs and outputs: a structure for action” (Davenport, 1993: 5). A process could be decomposed to its
constituent activities and its surrounding dynamics. A fairly informative and detailed, and yet ideally concise
clarification of this setting for defining activities within a process follows: “under control, inputs are transformed
into outputs by mechanisms” (Marca and McGowan, 1988: xiii) which is visualized in Figure 12 using the Icam
DEFinition for Function Modeling (IDEF0) methodology.
One challenge for using IT (in general) and BIM (in particular) within the AECO industry (in general) and the
FM&O phase (in particular) is, however, that activities are vague and difficult to define (Eastman and Siabiris,
1995). To overcome such ambiguities, processes need to be expressed in formal formats i.e. process models.
Berg von Linde (2001) define the criteria for process models as user-friendliness, efficiency and completeness.
Efficiency is – for the purpose of process models – defined as supporting the problem-solving procedure without
transforming it; while completeness means that all required information is available in the model (ibid.).
Lundgren (2009) asserts that process models should be supported by a methodology, should be fairly simple and
manage cultural differences across organizations.
20
Figure 12 - Dynamics surrounding an activity within a business process as defined in the IDEF0 process modelling language
(Marca and McGowan, 1988: xiii)
Currently, there is an abundance of process modelling methodologies and languages to choose among and
implement. Some are designed especially for construction industry, e.g. the generic design and construction
process model (Cooper et al., 1998) and the methodology developed through the multinational MoPo (Models
for the construction process) project (VTT, 2002); while others are generic-purpose such as IDEF0 (KBSI,
2014), Petri Nets (Murata, 1989), Business Process Model and Notation (BPMN) (Dijkman et al., 2011) and
conventional flowcharts (Lundgren, 2009). Svensson’s (1998) generic process model for the FM&O sector
which is presented in IDEF0-notation is composed of four main parts i.e. core processes, FM configuration
process, FM execution process and FM control process. Kimmance (2002) developed a prototype of an
integrated product and process modelling system simultaneously using IDEF0 and Unified Modelling Language
(UML).
According to Lundgren (2009), implementing process models in practice entails some problems. Quite often,
formal process models turn out to be too complicated to be communicated to practitioners. The problem with
more generic process models is that they are often too abstract to help understanding specific real-life situations
within actual workflow procedures of organizations. In such cases, in-depth applied research is required for
mapping processes at a more detailed granularity level (ibid.).
3.
Research Outline
As motivated by a large body of literature in the field of information management in the AECO industry, and as
presented in chapter ‘1. Introduction’, the answers to the research questions have been sought after through
investigating different aspects of implementing the technological phenomenon, BIM, to the particular field of
FM&O. The research questions framed within this study (see the section ‘1.3. Research aim and research
questions’) investigate different aspects of implementing a new technological phenomenon, BIM, to a particular
field, FM&O. According to Pope and Mays (1995), questions such as ‘what is X and how does X vary in
different circumstances, and why?’ could be best answered by qualitative research. In this thesis, research
questions 1 to 3 are of the ‘what are?’ types and the forth research question has a ‘what are’ and two ‘how do’
components. This was the main criteria for designing the overall outline of this study as a qualitative research.
21
Within any qualitative research, there are a variety of research approaches, strategies, methodological models
and methods to choose among. In this chapter, an overview of such concepts is presented and the choices made
for this research and the criteria for those choices are justified.
3.1. Research approaches
Patton (2014) mentions five possible research approaches in qualitative research as basic research, applied
research, summative evaluation, formative evaluation and action research. According to Patton (ibid.), in basic
research, research questions are based on the researcher’s personal intellectual interests. The purpose of the
research is producing knowledge through discovering truth and contributing to the existing theoretical
foundations; whereas in applied research, the point of departure is a real-life problem. The purpose is to
investigate the sources of human and social problems and to develop theoretical constructs that support problemsolving endeavors. Not all scholars agree upon the taxonomy of the research approaches as formulated by Patton.
Saunders et al. (2009), for instance, regard ‘action research’ as a research strategy along with other strategies
such as case study and survey.
The aim of applied research is to understand the nature and the sources of human problems existing within a
social setting. Here, the implicit assumption is that the problem can be solved by use of knowledge. Applied
research results in a theoretical contribution that can be used for formulating problem-solving programs or
actions. According to Schön (1983), this approach entails applying in-depth theoretical knowledge to the
problem, while there is often a gap between theory and practice. Gibbons et al. (1994) suggest that this gap can
be bridged through iteratively moving back and forth between theoretical and practical arenas.
Figure 13 - The bidirectional interaction of theory and practice in an applied research
As clarified in section ‘2.1. Knowledge generation and knowledge management’, transdisciplinary knowledge
generation mode is mainly based on the following dynamics: the research activity initially emerges from a
particular practice or technological phenomenon, borrows some constructs from existing theory, and eventually
develops its own distinguished theoretical constructs, models, frameworks and/or methodologies. The
22
bidirectional interaction of the two – hypothetically-distinct fields of – theory and practice within an applied
research is demonstrated in Figure 13 in an abstract schematic configuration. As shown here, the eventual aim of
such a research approach is solving a real-life problem. This is also reflected in the definition of the term
‘technology’ as “The application of scientific knowledge for practical purposes” (see the section ‘2.2.1.
Construction IT’).
As expressed in the research aim statement and research questions (section 1.3), the aim of this thesis is studying
a real-life problem in a specific context i.e. implementing information management systems in the FM&O sector.
Therefore, an applied research strategy has been adopted for the purpose of this thesis.
3.2. Research strategies
Within any applied research, different research strategies
could be applied. The two major research strategies are
‘induction’ and ‘deduction’ which are based on ‘inductive’
and ‘deductive’ logical reasoning methods as articulated by
Heit and Rotello (2010). The dichotomy of the general and
the specific is often used for clarifying the two strategies in
a concise way. As demonstrated in Figure 14, general
principles could be induced from special cases, while
general theories could in turn be deduced to clarify specific Figure 14 - From general to specific and vice versa through
situations. Blaikie (2009) extends the two major research deductive and inductive strategies (A reproduction of the
diagram at http://toknowstrategies to four categories:
11.wikispaces.com/Inductive+Reasoning)
Inductive research strategy
This strategy is implemented when it could be motivated to generalize the findings of a specific case derived
from empirical evidences. The components of an inductive research activity are: 1) a phenomenal set of facts, 2)
a relation between the facts and the general conclusion, and 3) justification of why the general argument is valid.
Deductive research strategy
This is a very common approach for extending the use of a general theory to a new field of science. The outcome
is one or more hypotheses (such as theoretical models) that should then be examined using empirical inputs. It is
therefore sometimes referred to as the ‘hypothetico-deductive’ method. Figure 15 represents a typical
hypothetico-deductive research process in a simplified way.
Abductive research strategy
The theory of abduction was originally introduced by the American philosopher, Charles Sander Pierce (18391914) (Fann, 1970). Abduction is a qualitative research method that implies searching for pattern in a
phenomenon and suggesting a hypothesis mainly based on explanatory considerations. Itō (1996) asserts that, as
in the case of deduction, the produced hypothesis should be tested and verified.
Abduction is used for investigating and interpreting a single case with the aid of a theory. It is however different
from deduction in that an abductive strategy gives equal importance to empirical evidences and theory and
provides a balance between their influence on the final outcomes; whereas a deductive research activity is
primarily ruled by a theory. Even though an inductive research also departs from facts, it deploys data – contrary
23
to abductive research – for validating a pre-existing hypothesis rather than to unbiasedly discover the patterns
that could be observed in data (Rodrigues, 2011).
Figure 15 - The overall procedure of a typical hypothetico-deductive research (Blaikie, 2009)
Retroductive research strategy
Retroduction is an eclectic research strategy which – in the same way as induction and abduction – starts with
observation of the facts in search of regularities. It is however a creative enquiry of underlying structures and
aims mainly to produce theoretical structures and hypothetical models itself rather than being guided by theories.
In a retrospective study, it is still possible to borrow ideas from structures and mechanisms in other fields
(Blaikie, 2009).
Different research strategies mentioned above mainly correspond to the degree that theories and empirical
evidences are prioritized by the researcher over one another. In reality, no individual theory can explain
complicated phenomena; while interpreting empirical evidences in a structured way and evaluating the outputs
requires a theoretical anchor. As mentioned in section ‘2.2.4. BIM frameworks’, the subject area of building
information management is overwhelmed with market- and industry-led whitepapers, surveys and reports and
there is a scarcity of robust theoretical foundations in this field. Therefore, pure deductive or inductive strategies
were deemed inappropriate for this research. Due to the explanatory nature of the research questions and the
field of study, the overall strategy of the current research is closest to, but does not strictly stick to all
recommendations of the abductive research strategy.
Saunders et al. (2009) use the term ‘research strategies’ to connote a different set of concepts at a more detailed
level comprising case study, grounded theory, experiment, survey, archival research, ethnography, action
research, narrative enquiry, etc.
According to Yin (2003), case study is a research strategy that is deployed for understanding complex situations
and explaining real-life events. Within a case study research with applied research approach, a theory can be
used as a template for guiding experiments. In the absence of rival theories, replication of the experiment will
then result in generalization (Firestone, 1993). As clarified through inductive, deductive, abductive and
retroductive approaches, the extent to which the design of a case study research is ruled by theoretical constructs
varies from one study to another with regard to the phenomenon that is being studied. The overall procedure of a
typical case study research with an applied approach is demonstrated in Figure 16.
24
Figure 16 - The overall procedure of an applied research base on case study (as clarified by Hedrick et al., 1993)
According to Flick (2009), the grounded theory strategy is used when the research questions cannot be answered
by theory-driven and linear models. Grounded theory is a methodological strategy for qualitative studies which
was introduced by Glaser and Strauss (1967) and is based on initiating the research with data collection and
subsequently seeking codes, concepts, and categories that help further formulation of theories (Corbin and
Strauss, 1990).
Paper 3 in this thesis is partly based on a case study. Moreover, the overall methodological approach of this
paper is based on the principles of the grounded theory. Detailed descriptions of the research strategies
implemented in each paper and justification of the corresponding criteria are provided in chapter ‘4. Summary of
papers’.
3.3. Summative and formative evaluation
Regardless of which overall research approach or strategy has been adopted, any research may include
descriptive and/or prescriptive components. Tsang (1997) introduces two main streams of theorizing in
organizational learning as ‘descriptive’ and ‘prescriptive’. In a descriptive study, the questions will be as ‘how
does…’, while a prescriptive approach will instead ask ‘how should…’. To clarify the dichotomy, it would be
useful to revisit the trichotomy of descriptive, normative and prescriptive models in decision-making. While
descriptive models simply document the ‘as is’, normative models clarify the ‘ought to’ which is a more realistic
approach in theorizing how rational people make decisions. However, deficiencies in the human’s cognitive
capabilities such as changing values and anxieties often causes some irrationalities in decision making
procedures (Bell et al., 1988). The prescriptive model has thereby been devised as an urge to minimize the
irrationalities embedded in normative models. A prescriptive model is defined as one that takes in “some of the
logical consequences of normative theories and the empirical findings of descriptive studies” (Bell et al., 1988:
9).
Patton’s (2014) interpretation of summative and formative approaches build upon the concept of descriptive and
prescriptive models of knowledge acquisition: the purpose of summative evaluation is examining the
effectiveness of human actions such as policies and programs. The outcome of a summative study will be
descriptive and prescriptive knowledge and guidelines on conditions of effective interventions. The purpose of
formative evaluation, on the other hand, is improving an existing intervention (e.g. a policy, a program or a
product) by identifying its strengths and weaknesses; which is mainly prescriptive (ibid.).
25
4.
Summary of papers
Findings of this research have been reported in four papers and motivated, clarified and compiled through this
introductory part. All papers have been peer-reviewed, presented at international conferences and published in
the corresponding proceedings. In this chapter, summaries of papers including their background and aim, the
method(s) used, findings and some complementary remarks are presented.
4.1. Paper 1: Is the age of facility managers’ paper boxes over?
By Pouriya Parsanezhad and Väino Tarandi, published in the “Proceedings of the 19th CIB World Building
Congress, Brisbane 2013: Construction and Society” (Parsanezhad and Tarandi, 2013a)
The aim of this paper is to provide a general understanding of the importance and implications of implementing
BIM-enabled systems in the FM&O sector as well as identifying the main categories of the issues associated
with such an approach. Implementing BIM in the FM&O sector envisions an increase in the value of the
information which is handed over to the owner’s FM&O staff to underpin their services and support their
decision-making procedures.
The paper reports on a basic research with a descriptive approach. The information is derived from a nonexclusive set of journal and conference papers as well as books in the subject area of building information
management. The collected information has been complemented with inputs from further resources e.g.
websites, whitepapers, software manuals, handbooks and working reports of different organizations and
companies. The information obtained from presentations and ensuing discussions at a number of conferences,
seminars and workshops have also been used to develop a thorough insight into the subject area of the research.
According to the literature, the majority of environmental impacts and costs associated with buildings through
their lifecycle occur during the operation phase. BIM-enabled tools are assumed to be more efficient for
evaluation of environmental performance of buildings compared with methods such as energy-reduction targets
and checklists. Some potential areas of applications of BIM in the FM&O sector are facility /property strategic
management, financial management, building performance evaluation, cleaning services, maintenance
management, end-user services, security schema and renovation planning. BIM-enabled systems help
automating registration and retrieval of building performance evaluation indicators such as Building Condition
Index (BCI), Building Fabric Index (BFI), Building Presentation Index (BPI) and Key Performance Indicators
(KPI). Moreover, BIM-enabled systems are assumed to provide more accurate and updated information for
different types of maintenance activities i.e. reactive maintenance (corrective maintenance or repair), predictive
maintenance and preventive maintenance (prescriptive maintenance).
In addition to the theoretical clarifications on the importance of implementing BIM in the FM&O sector as
mentioned above, three categories of the issues associated with implementing BIM-enabled systems in the
FM&O sector have been identified in this paper as workflows, contracts and information technology. Moreover,
the characteristics of the information management systems that are currently used in the FM&O sector i.e.
FM:BIM and FM:BIM:BAS systems are briefly presented.
26
4.2. Paper 2: A holistic approach to acquisition of building
information for a more efficient collaboration
By Pouriya Parsanezhad and Väino Tarandi, published in the “Proceedings of the 7th Nordic Conference on
Construction Economics and Organisation 2013” (Parsanezhad and Tarandi, 2013b)
This paper adopts a whole-life perspective on information management in the AECO industry mainly based on
the notion of BIM repositories. The paper 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.
Similarly to paper 1, this is also a literary research mainly based on journal and conference papers as well as
books and reports in the subject area of information management. The focus of this paper is, however, narrowed
down to the technical requirements on building information management systems; while its temporal scope
spans the entire lifecycle of buildings.
According to the literature, the main key to more collaborative processes in the AECO industry is
implementation of new contractual methods such as IPD. Within such collaborative legal frameworks and
through adjusted business processes, BIM implementation is driven by acknowledged and motivated BIM
managers, 4D specialists or VDC managers. Truly benefiting BIM demands a closer collaboration among actors.
BIM technologies, in turn, reinforce and facilitate more collaboration.
As a fundamental type of BIM technologies, BIM servers should ideally make information accessible and futureproof through functionalities for version-checking and version-retrieval. Other requirements on BIM servers to
become prevalent across the AECO industry are functionalities such as object-level information management,
partial exchange of BIMs, notification of change, eliminating redundant or inconsistent information, database
querying, extracting temporary updates from complete transactions, automated synchronization of documents,
visualization, energy analysis and clash detection through occasional merging of disciplinary models.
In addition to the findings mentioned above, paper 2 characterizes a lifecycle supporting information
management system as one with communicative and analytic capabilities and interoperability with FM&O
systems and databases. Open format BIM repositories have been suggested as the cornerstones of an integrated
federation of information management systems for AECO firms.
4.3. Paper 3: Effective facility management and operations via
a BIM-based integrated information system
By Pouriya Parsanezhad and Johannes Dimyadi, published in the “Proceedings of the CIB Facilities
Management Conference” (Parsanezhad and Dimyadi, 2014)
Similarly to paper 2, paper 3 also covers the technical requirements on BIM-implementation. The temporal
scope of this study is, nonetheless, limited to the operation phase. The purpose of this paper is twofold: firstly, to
summarize the current status of the building information management technologies applied in the facility
operation activities and identifying prevailing issues and impediments; secondly, to devise some technical
solutions for those issues based on a case project. In paper 3, the acronym BIM is intended as ‘building
information management’.
27
Since information management systems for the FM&O sector is a relatively new field of research, this study was
based on the principles of grounded theory instead of theory-driven and linear models in that, in this study, data
were collected from a case in search of patterns and regularities. However, not all detailed steps of the grounded
theory methodology e.g. identifying codes, concepts and categories were applied here.
In the first part of this study, a summarized description of information management configurations in eleven
projects were extracted from journal and conference papers, books and reports, and the technical issues within
those systems were identified. Moreover, five major categories of contemporary technical solutions for
enhancing information transfer from BIM to FM&O software were identified. Then, a narrative and illustrative
representation and reconstruction of an IT-implementation project was developed. The choice of the case project
was a purposive sampling based on the positive impacts of implementation of the BIM-enabled system in this
project such as energy savings and improved workflows. Through this retrospective study, a mesoscopic BIM
lens was applied according to Succar’s BIM Framework.
Within the selected case project implemented at Unitec tertiary education facilities comprising three campuses in
Auckland, 191 buildings had been modeled during 4 years in three different stages. The BIM repository
implemented in the project was based on an industry standard (SQL Server-ISO/IEC 9075); but the BIMs were
created in a proprietary format. This resulted in a partially interoperable configuration. In parallel, models were
exported and archived also in IFC format as a provision for further implementation of open standards. According
to the findings derived from the case project in the second part of the study, the central role of the FM
department of Unitec in development of the system was crucial to the success of the project.
In addition to their theoretical significance, the results provide in-depth insight into prevailing issues with BIMbased IT solutions for the FM&O sector as well as examples of how those technical issues can be resolved. The
results will be useful to decision-making buddies as well as DBMS implementers and database designers active
in the FM&O sector. Nevertheless, developing prescriptive outcomes based on this study requires further
research. The efficiency of the system implemented at Unitec should be meticulously evaluated e.g. through
measuring indicators such as the time spent for planning maintenance activities and average work order duration
after implementation of the portal solution and comparing the results with the corresponding figures before
implementing the system.
4.4. Paper 4: An overview of information logistics for FM&O
business processes
By Pouriya Parsanezhad, published in the “Proceedings of the 10th European Conference on Product
and Process Modelling (ECPPM 2014)” (Parsanezhad, 2014)
This paper draws on another category of the issues associated with implementing BIM-enabled FM&O systems
as identified in paper 1 i.e. workflows. The majority of research on using BIM for FM has, in fact, been focused
on the technical requirements. The literary research presented in this paper aims, therefore, to provide the
theoretical basis for more focused studies on existing and desired processes in the FM&O sector and their
associated information transactions.
Firstly, different definitions of the key concepts in the subject area of this research e.g. data, information,
knowledge, BIM, facility management and process have been revisited and discussed. Then, the generic types of
the processes and activities common to the FM&O sector, the main organizational roles common to FM&O
28
firms, the types of information required by each actor and how those information are acquired have been briefly
presented mainly based on literary resources.
This study constitutes the initial phase of a broader research that will investigate information transactions within
two specific activities common to FM&O firms: area management and maintenance work order management.
4.5. My contribution to the co-authored papers
In both papers 1 and 2, the main study, analysis and presentation of the results as well as oral presentation at the
conferences were done by me. The co-author, my supervisor, conducted the process as the work proceeded,
provided critical comments and suggestions for improvement of the work, performed several rounds of proofreading the final text and contributed to adjusting and complementing the content with regard to the reviewers’
comments prior to final submittal.
In paper 3, the basic design of the research, the initial literary part, final analysis of data and discussion,
presentation of the results as well as oral presentation at the conference was done by me. The co-author both
provided and presented the empirical parts and contributed with his critical comments and suggestions as the
work proceeded. He also did several rounds of proof-reading the final text and was involved in modifying and
complementing the content with regard to the reviewers’ comments.
5.
Discussion
In this Chapter, the findings that were briefly presented in the previous chapter are mapped onto the overall
account of the research to address the aim of the thesis as stipulated in section ‘1.3. Research aim and research
questions’:
The aim of this thesis is twofold: firstly, to identify the main issues common to the contemporary
information management systems used in the FM&O sector (addressed in papers 1, 3) ; and secondly, to
elaborate on the technical (addressed in paper 1, 2 and 3) and procedural (addressed in paper 4)
requirements of a lifecycle supporting information management system.
As presented in paper 1, the most fundamental issues with implementing BIM in the FM&O sector could be
associated with ‘information technology’, ‘workflows’ or ‘contracts’. These categories were initially inspired by
the three industry foundations articulated by Owen (2009b) as technologies, processes, and people. East et al.
(2013: 110) have classified the “constraints on the practical delivery of the required information” in a slightly
different phrasing as “technological, contractual, and process constraints“ (East et al., 2013: 110). The
approximate equivalents of these three areas in Succar’s BIM Framework (Succar, 2009) are the three fields of
‘technology’, ‘process’ and ‘policy’ (see Figure 9). In Table 5, the terms deployed by different authors to address
the three categories of issues are juxtaposed.
Following the initial mapping of the issues with current information management systems, some technical
requirements of a lifecycle supporting information management system have been described in paper 2. In this
paper, the concept of a central and lifecycle supporting BIM repository has been suggested as an alternative
approach.
29
Table 5 - Major categories of the issues with implementing BIM in the FM&O sector as ariculated by different authors
Author(s)
Major categories of the issues with implementing BIM in the FM&O sector
Owen (2009): industry foundation
classes
East et al. (2013)
Succar (2009)
Parsanezhad and Tarandi (2013a)
Technologies
Processes
People
Technological constraints
Technology
Information Technology
Process constraints
Process
Workflows
Contractual constraints
Policy
Contracts
Table 6 - The temporal and thematic scope of the papers included
Temporal
scope
Papers
Subject
D
C
O
IT
W
Ct
Paper 1: “Is the age of facility managers’ paper boxes over?”
-
-
●
●
●
●
Paper 2: “A holistic approach to acquisition of building information for a more efficient
collaboration”
●
●
●
●
-
-
Paper 3: “Effective facility management and operations via
a BIM-based integrated information system”
-
-
●
●
-
-
Paper 4: “An overview of information logistics for FM&O business processes”
-
-
●
●
-
-
Lifecycle stages:
Subjects:
D = Design, C = Construction, O = Facility management and operations
IT = Information Technology, W = Workflows, Ct = Contracts
The study reported in paper 3 is a more in-depth elaboration on the desired technical requirements of a BIMbased information management system for the FM&O sector. As evidenced in the findings of paper 3, the
majority of the prevailing technical issues have their roots in the two other fields of processes and contracts. This
necessitated a shift in the focus of the rest of the research towards studying business processes within the FM&O
sector. Paper 4 is hence a further elaboration on the procedural requirements of lifecycle supporting information
management systems. Table 6 summarizes the temporal and thematic scope of the papers included.
As previously clarified in table 1, the first research question has been answered in papers 1 and 3; the second
research question has been dealt with in paper 2; the answer to the third research question could be found in
papers 1 and 3; and the fourth research question has been answered in paper 4. A detailed summary of the
answers to research questions through the included papers follows:

RQ-1: What are the main issues common to contemporary information management systems used in the
FM&O sector and in which ways could those problems be resolved?
According to the findings of paper 1, the main categories of the issues associated with implementing BIMenabled systems used in the FM&O sector could be defined as workflows, contracts and Information
Technology. The first category, workflows, comprises non-efficient though established roles and practices which
are, in turn, generated and reinforced by short-sightedness and risk avoidance of the owners and FMprofessionals, document-based thinking, silo mentalities, etc. The contracts need to be reformulated to
incorporate as-built models instead of as-built drawings as deliverables. Issues with intellectual properties and
ownership of the models should also be eliminated. Time-consuming manual procedures for setup and data entry
into databases are one of the main problems with the IT systems used by FM&O practitioners. This is partly
caused by inefficient systems and partly by the bad quality of information: information which is handed over to
30
the FM&O team can be incomplete, inappropriate, old or redundant. Standards such as IFC and COBie could
resolve the issues raised by missing or insufficient interoperability among different IT systems.
Some other issues with current BIM-enabled systems used in the FM&O sector have been identified in the
outcomes of the initial literary part of paper 3 as follow: issues with constructing BIM models of existing
facilities as an input to FM&O systems, non-consistent terminologies and taxonomies, lack of routines for
formal expression of requirements in IT systems and linking those requirements to BIM models, and identifying
which information and at what levels of detail are required.
According to the findings derived from the case project in the second part of the study presented in paper 3,
many technical issues with information management systems could be eliminated when the FM&O organization
is in charge of development of their system and its underlying BIMs and databases. In the case of the project
studied within paper 3, the FM department taking the lead in developing their BIM-enabled FM&O system
resulted in that the information collected and embedded in BIMs and their levels of detail were matching the
needs of the FM&O organization.

RQ-2: What are the technical requirements on a lifecycle supporting information management system?
According to the findings of paper 2, collaboration across lifecycle stages and disciplines within AECO industry
both strengthens and is strengthened by interoperability among information management systems used by
different actors. Interoperable exchange of information across the entire lifecycle a building requires a set of
protocols describing how to create and update models as well as a server for storage and retrieval of models.
BIM servers as such should ideally make information accessible and future-proof through functionalities for
version-checking and version-retrieval and enable object-level information management, partial exchange of
BIMs, notification of change, eliminating redundant or inconsistent information, database querying, extracting
temporary updates from complete transactions, automated synchronization of documents, visualization, energy
analysis and clash detection through occasional merging of disciplinary models, etc.
While BIM servers can be close or open and federated or unified, a major requirement for using BIM servers
also in the FM&O sector is their capability for communicating with CMMS’s. An open standard central data
repository could thus be an appropriate solution. Model viewers help non-experts access the information stored
in such repositories. Through-life implementation of open standard BIM repositories could thereby facilitate
subsequent upgrading of as-designed building models to as-built, as-commissioned, as-operated and asmaintained ones with minimized loss of information.

RQ-3: What are the requirements on the BIM-enabled information management systems to be used in the
FM&O sector?
Findings of paper 1 suggest that FM:BIM solution should be a federated set of minor solutions. FM:BIM
systems should be scalable and flexible and based on flexible and extensive semantic systems and ontology
structures, because ontologies used in different corporations are different. FM:BIM systems could be evaluated
based on their impact on reducing the number of work orders per year, the average time spent on work orders,
ease of access to information, etc.
In the more advanced FM:BIM:BAS systems, even real-time information such as CO2 emission, humidity,
lighting, wind speed, total and diffuse solar radiation, air velocity and water flow could be captured, analyzed
and channeled to decision-making procedures. Such an approach to FM&O information management is however
not yet widespread across the AECO industry.
31
A more in-depth study of the technical requirements of the BIM-enabled information management systems to be
used in the FM&O sector was done through the research presented in paper 3. Within the initial literary part of
this study, five major categories of technical solutions for enhancing information transfer from BIMs to FM&O
software were identified: using spreadsheets as document indexing tools through hyperlinking, using
spreadsheets as COBie documents through hyperlinking and syncing, using the IFC format through importing
and embedding information in FM&O systems as well as two portal solutions (coupling CMMS’s with BIMs
through APIs and using commercial middleware). As evidenced by the case project studied in the second part, a
portal solution using APIs provides a more flexible environment for the FM&O organization to align the
architecture of their federated information system with the needs of their business processes and organizational
roles.

RQ-4: What types of information are needed by different actors in the FM&O sector? How do the FM&O
professionals currently acquire the information they need and how do current forms and formats of the
sources of FM&O information influence the quality of services?
In search of the answer to the forth research question, paper 4 contemplates on the generic activities within the
FM&O sector and the main disciplinary actors who perform those activities.
Based on the literary findings, facility/property strategic and operational management have been suggested as the
two main categories of FM&O activities. It has also been suggested to exclude the core activities when
formulating generic taxonomies of FM&O activities, since such activities differ largely from one organization to
another. According to the findings of paper 4, the main facility use roles could be articulated as facility manager,
facility administrator, facility operator, operation engineers, facility assistant, facility service roles and custodian
roles. Each of these actors can be administrator, contributor or consumer of information at each workflow
sequence.
Having identified the main activities and disciplinary roles in the FM&O sector, some of the most common types
of information required by FM&O firms have been designated as asset provider, purchase price, installation date,
commissioning data, asset location, serial number, barcode number, expected useful life (EUL), warranty terms,
equipment preventive maintenance plans, startup and shutdown procedures, guaranty information, and spare and
consumable parts information. Since the majority of preventive maintenance (PM) tasks are performed on
HVAC systems, plumbing systems and elevators, there is a greater need for information on those assets.
Common practice for collecting relevant and required information on facilities in the majority of FM&O firms is
still gliding through a mix of digital and paper documents including submittals, product datasheets, warranty
manuals, part diagrams, and installation instructions. This leads to delayed, sluggish, iterative, and error-prone
data entry procedures, and lack of current and complete equipment data in FM&O systems e.g. CMMS’s,
CAFMs and DMS’s. Consequently, PM planning is postponed, warranties are voided and the intended service
life of the equipment cannot be achieved.
Yet, a more complete, accurate and reliable answer to this final research question requires more empirical
evidence from field activities of FM&O firms.
32
6.
Final remarks
6.1. Limitations, validity and reliability of the findings
Some major limitations and considerations about the validity and reliability of the findings of this research
follows:
 No such thing as utterly neutral and objective facts exists. As Hanson (1958) mentions, all facts are to
some degree theory-loaded. The observed data is filtered through the mental frame of reference formed
within a social context that is constructed upon the researcher’s ethnicity, education, social standing and
personal characteristics. This has inevitably been the case also for this study. The factors mentioned
above have also been influential in developing my choice of the subject area among endless possibilities
and directions, formulating the research aim and research questions, and setting up the research design as
clarified in previous sections.

Papers 1, 2 and 4 are primarily based on the previous literature; something that was imperative for
fostering a holistic theoretical insight into the subject area and establishing a robust theoretical ground
for the rest of the study. Yet, both fields of building information management and facility operation are
heavily influenced by common practices in the industry. Hence, it was probably not sound to limit the
literary study to academic resources. Therefore, other sources such as websites, whitepapers, software
manuals, handbooks and working reports were also consulted. This, in turn, hindered a clear delimitation
of the range of the literary resources used in this study and conducting a fully structured research.
Moreover, providing thorough answers to the research questions addressed in the above-mentioned
papers also requires studying more empirical evidences.

Since the findings are largely constituted of theoretical components inferred from literature, the chapter
‘2. Theoretical grounds and current status’ could have some overlaps with the findings presented in
chapters ‘4. Summary of papers’ and ‘5. Discussions’.

The second part of paper 3 is based on a case study. Despite the fact that case study is a very common
strategy in applied research, there are some logical concerns about the legitimacy of this method and
reliability of its results. The dilemma is that while generalization based on one or a limited number of
case studies could be a threat to the external validity of the research (Trochim and Donnelly, 2008; Yin,
2003; Patton, 2002), “the force of the example” in shaping conceptual models is undeniable (Flyvbjerg,
2004: 245). To eradicate this threat, a pragmatic and flexible case study design has been implemented.
According to Stake (1995), implementing a pragmatic case study implies that learning from the specific
observed case is aimed for improved understanding rather than generalizing through development of
theories.

In paper 3. the co-author was also one of the developers of the BIM-enabled FM&O system developed at
Unitec. This could have been a source of bias in the results. However, as mentioned in section ‘4.5. My
contribution to the co-authored papers’, the research design including selecting the case project based on
the criteria for a best practice was done by me. The data which were used for making this choice as well
as developing the findings were, later on, submitted to and will be published by the national BIM
33
acceleration committee of New Zealand as part of a series of New Zealand case studies on BIM adoption
(Huggard and Sander, 2014).
6.2. Future works
New technological phenomena which have emerged in recent decades and are becoming widespread could
largely benefit the AECO industry. An investigation of the possibilities brought about to the AECO industry in
general and the FM&O sector in specific, by technologies such as 3D-printing, laser scanning, RFID and Big
data capturing and analysis methods when integrated with BIMs is needed for providing the industry with
required guidelines and theoretical frameworks to harness the potentials of those technologies.
As stipulated in section ‘1.4. Delimitations of scope’, the impact of political mechanisms, legislative factors and
organizational motives on implementing BIM in the FM&O sector have not been covered in this thesis. Further
research is required for conceptualizing, among other factors, the insufficiencies of current contractual
relationships and risk-allocation models which do not build up the incentive structures required for tapping into
the full spectrum of the benefits of BIM (Succar, 2009). The ongoing compilation and publication of projectspecific, firm-specific, national and international BIM guidelines and standards around the world provide
invaluable sources of information for this purpose.
From a workflow perspective, it is necessary to further investigate how current business processes and
workflows within FM&O organizations should change to efficiently support a BIM-based FM&O practice. The
findings of paper 4 provide the theoretical grounds for this purpose and investigating the required guidelines and
frameworks for re-engineering current FM&O business processes aiming for boosting the efficiency.
Consequent changes in the FM&O business processes will subsequently provoke further organizational changes
that are required for efficient implementation of BIM in this sector. According to Kiviniemi and Codinhoto
(2014), operational initiatives for such organizational changes in FM&O firms could be developed either by
bottom-up approaches or through mandates from managerial teams. Theorizing this field would be yet another
ripe area for further investigation.
34
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