Introduction In this five-part series on Practical BIM Implementa- tion for Facility Management (FM), we introduced the 3x3 principle as the fundamental digital twin frame- work in the first article. The 3x3 principle framework breaks down the level of information needed to sup - port different personas, associated tasks, and responsi - bilities. It provides an efficient and effective platform to facilitate what is required for various roles to per- SUSTAINABILITY IN FACILITY MANAGEMENT By Kai Yin, and Jiayi Yan with George Broadbent, Dr. Jeff Chen, and Dr. Eve Lin
Figure 1: challenges & barriers in current sustainable practice in FM
form their functions without overwhelming them. Next, we introduced the necessity of modular data analytics to cover various aspects of the facility’s performance. By coupling these module breakdowns with a scoring system, the performance of the facility’s facets can be easily tracked, monitored, and maintained accordingly. In this article, we will dive into sustainability, a trending topic across the project delivery stage, which is viewed as complex because it in - volves competing criteria. We will also present the sustainability mod - ule, dissect its complexity and offer a potential solution to facilitate sustainable practices in FM. Complications in Current Sustainability Practice in FM Sustainable development is a difficult problem that involves multiple stakeholders, interrelated components, confusing systems, and com - peting criteria throughout the building lifecycle, from concept forma - tion to operations and maintenance. Despite the complexity, sustain - able development is a necessary path to ensure it meets present needs without compromising future generations. Various standards and the international efforts of the United Nations, the U.S. Green Building Council (USGBC), and Building Research Establishment (BRE), have led to the establishment of guidelines and certifications to assist with designing, measuring, and implementing sustainable development. While building technology’s advancement demonstrates tremendous opportunities to help the Architecture, Engineering, Construction, and Owner (AECO) industry from the design phase through the operational stage, it also presents several challenges and barriers to information and data utilization to support the sustainable development process. In addition to commonly-found issues of data quality, consistency, and interoperability during the project lifecycle, other major challenges and barriers are as illustrated in Figure 1. Lack of Domain Knowledge One of the significant hurdles to sustainable FM is the lack of domain knowledge. There are many barriers to sustainable facility manage - ment implementation, including lack of knowledge, senior manage -
ment commitment, time and financial constraints, and lack of capabil- ity. However, insufficient knowledge is the most significant. Typically, facility managers do not have sustainable operations as part of their required domain knowledge. Compounding the situation is a severe scarcity of sustainability-related information to support facility man- agement’s sustainability activities. Data Disconnection With the data disconnection issue impacting every stage of the building lifecycle, it becomes a main impeding factor to sustainable develop - ment. This is due to tool interoperability, the need for diverse domain expertise, different lifecycle activities, and lack of a central repository for sustainability-related data that winds up being scattered. The data disconnection between the design and analysis platforms creates a discrepancy between the analyzed data and the actual documented de - sign. This disconnection between the design and construction models compromises the as-built information from the original design intent. The problem is further compounded by the data disconnection between as-built and FM models which costs extra time and effort for data col- lection. This loss of several important sustainability-related attributes hinders sustainable facility management activities. Lack of Information Exchange Standards & Requirements The amount of data and information involved in the AECO industry is growing exponentially and combined with this data explosion, creating a digital transformation era wave. In an ideal scenario, the increase of data and information can present several opportunities for cost and time reductions, promote human comfort, increase space usage, de - crease energy consumption, and improve indoor environmental qual- ity. However, due to the lack of data information exchange standards and requirements, these data sources cannot be effectively managed and leveraged, leading to inefficient decisions and processes. Some examples of data-related issues include but are not limited to inconsistent naming, formatting, and data storage, ambiguous and invalidated data sources, and insufficient or irrelevant information.
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csengineermag.com
November 2021
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