Knowledge-Based Building Information Modeling (K-BIM) for Facilities Management

Full text

Knowledge-based Building Information Modeling (K-BIM)
for Facilities Management
V. Paul C. Charlesraj
Assistant Professor, RICS School of Built Environment, Amity University, India
Email: vpcharlesraj@rics.org
Abstract -
Knowledge Management (KM) is a business
management technique that promises improved
competitive advantage among other benefits for an
organization. The application of KM in construction
is fairly researched and reported. Although Building
Information Modeling (BIM) is gaining wide
acceptance among Architects and Project Managers
for efficient and effective design and construction
management, the adoption of BIM in operations
during post-construction phase such as Facilities
Management (FM) is in its normative stage. As FM is
knowledge and information intensive and relies
heavily on historical information, a Knowledge-based
BIM (K-BIM) that is developed on the basis of as-
constructed information of the facility has the
capability for effective and efficient FM and thereby
enhance the competitive advantage of a FM
organisation. Ontologies have the potential to
represent the body of knowledge of the various
domains involved such as KM, FM and BIM.
Integration of KM, FM and BIM can also be achieved
through ontologies. The proposed conceptual
framework, K-BIM is an attempt to advance BIM by
way of integrating KM, FM and BIM using ontologies,
rather than building a system on a model built using
BIM.
Keywords -
IT Applications; Knowledge Management;
Building Information Modeling; Facilities
Management; Knowledge-based BIM; Ontology
1 Introduction
Of late, in the quest of sustainable competitive
advantage, organisations have come to realise that their
competitiveness edge is mostly the brainpower or
intellectual capital of their employees and management.
To be more specific, an organisation’s competitive
advantage depends on what it knows – how it uses what
it knows – and how fast it can know something new. In
order to stay ahead of the pack, organisations must
leverage their knowledge internally and externally to
survive. Specific KM activities help focus the
organisation on acquiring, storing and utilising
knowledge for problem solving, dynamic learning,
strategic planning and decision making. It also protects
intellectual assets from decay, adds to organisation
intelligence and provides increased flexibility. The
emergence of KM may be explained by the confluence
and natural evolution of several factors. KM is a
necessity, driven by the market forces of competition,
market place demands, new operating and management
practices, and the availability of KM approaches and
Information & Communication Technologies (ICT).
The application of KM in construction is fairly
researched and reported. Although Building Information
Modeling (BIM) is gaining wide acceptance among
Architects and Project Managers for efficient and
effective design and construction management, the
adoption of BIM in operations during post-construction
phase is in its normative stage. Facilities Management
(FM) is one of the major tasks involved in the post-
construction phase. As FM is knowledge and
information intensive and relies heavily on historical
information, a Knowledge-based BIM (K-BIM) that is
developed on the basis of as-constructed information of
the facility has the potential for effective and efficient
FM and thereby enhance the competitive advantage of a
FM organisation. An integrated ontology-based KM
framework for FM facilitated by BIM has the potential to
promote the efficiency and effectiveness of a FM system.
K-BIM is such a framework that attempts to advance
BIM by way of integrating KM, FM and BIM using
ontologies.
2 Literature Review
2.1 Knowledge Management (KM)
KM can be defined as the systematic and explicit
management of knowledge-related activities involving
knowledge-workers in an organisation to improve
organisational knowledge-related efficiency and
effectiveness, thereby to achieve specified organisational
goals and objectives.
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There has been a quite extensive research reported on
the role/application of KM in construction [1,2]. The
applicability and usefulness of KM in construction has
been researched in strategic management of construction
[3], general construction project management [4,5,6],
knowledge discovery from construction databases [7],
design management [8] and corporate memory for
construction [9]. Carrillo and Chinowsky investigated the
implementation of KM initiatives in major engineering
design and construction organisations in United States of
America [10]. Chen and Mohamed studied the impact of
the internal business environment on KM within
construction organizations in Hong Kong [11] and also
the strategic importance of tacit knowledge management
activities in construction [12]. It has been reported that
the changes in organizational culture are critical to
successful KM [13].
2.1.1 OntologiesinKM
Ontology is an explicit specification of a
conceptualisation [14]. Ontologies can be effectively
used in solutions for many KM processes, especially for
knowledge representation [15]. Maedche et al. proposed
an integrated enterprise-KM architecture for
implementing an Ontology-based KM System (OKMS)
[16]. Saito et al. described the KM technologies
according to their support for strategy through an
ontology development method and categorised the KM
technologies based on their relationship with KM
strategy [17]. Ontology-based KM frameworks have
been reported for engineering design management, risk
management in construction projects and competency
development of construction project managers [18,19,20].
2.2 Building Information Modeling (BIM)
Essentially, BIM combines technology with new
working practices to improve the quality of the delivered
product and also improve the reliability, timeliness and
consistency of the process. It is equally applicable to
asset and facilities management as it is to construction.
BIM provides a common single and coordinated source
of structured information to support all parties involved
in the delivery process, whether that be to design,
construct, and/or operate. Because all parties involved
with a BIM project have access to the same data, the
information loss associated with handing a project over
from design team to construction team and to building
owner/operator is kept to a minimum. It has been
reported that BIM is a suitable facilitator for KM in
construction for various applications such as knowledge
sharing [21], construction supply chain management [22],
sustainability & asset management [23] building
maintenance [24] construction defect management [25]
and lean architectural practice [26].
2.3 Facilities Management (FM)
Facility management is a profession that
encompasses multiple disciplines to ensure functionality
of the built environment by integrating people, place,
process and technology. [27]
It has been reported that the potential benefits of using
BIM in FM seem to be such as valuable ‘as-built’
(heritage) documentation, maintenance of warranty and
service information, quality control, assessment and
monitoring, energy and space management, emergency
management or retrofit planning [23,28,29,30].
Decontamination or deconstruction processes could also
benefit from structured up-to-date building information
to reduce errors and financial risk, e.g. through
deconstruction scheduling and sequencing, cost
calculation, rubble management, optimization of
deconstruction progress tracking or data management
[28].
2.4 Summary of Literature Review
It has been observed that the application/role of KM
in construction is well researched and in the other phases
of the built environment projects is limited. Ontology is
a potential technique for the solutions involving KM
systems. Research efforts on the role of BIM in KM as
well as in FM are in their normative stage. It would be
interesting to investigate how KM and BIM contribute
together for better FM.
3 K-BIM for FM Framework
The objective of this framework is to effectively
facilitate the FM through the strengths of KM & BIM. K-
BIM attempts to incorporate the best practices of the
three domains viz. Knowledge Management, Building
Information Modeling and Facilities Management as
shown in Figure 1.
In 2009, a global job task analysis (GJTA) of
International Facility Management Association (IFMA)
defined 11 core competencies of facility managers. The
GJTA included responses from facility managers in 62
countries. It is the most comprehensive to date and the
first truly global survey and analysis [27]. Those core
competencies are:
xCommunication - Communication plans and
processes for both internal and external
stakeholders
xEmergency Preparedness and Business
Continuity - Emergency and risk management
plans and procedures
xEnvironmental Stewardship and
Sustainability - Sustainable management of
built and natural environments
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xFinance & Business - Strategic plans, budgets,
financial analyses, procurement
xHuman Factors - Healthful and save
environment, security, FM employee
development
xLeadership and Strategy - Strategic planning,
organize, staff and lead organization
xOperations and Maintenance - Building
operations and maintenance, occupant services
xProject Management - Oversight and
management of all projects and related contracts
xQuality - Best practices, process improvements,
audits and measurements
xReal Estate and Property Management - Real
estate planning, acquisition and disposition
xTechnology - Facility management technology,
workplace management systems
At the very outset, development of all the above
mentioned core competencies of facility management can
be facilitated by adopting the best practices of KM, BIM
and FM. The concept map of the proposed K-BIM
framework (as shown in Figure 2) is based on the premise
that BIM models of the constructed facilities would
facilitate the FM processes. Hence, it is expected that
BIM would play an important role in the development of
the core competencies of FM as BIM is the interface
between the facility managers and the knowledgebase.
There are three major components in the proposed K-
BIM framework. They are (i) Knowledgebase, (ii) K-
BIM Layer, and (iii) Stakeholder Interface.
3.1 Knowledgebase
The knowledgebase of the K-BIM framework is
primarily consists of two components. They are:
Ontology of KM and Ontology of FM.
3.1.1 OntologyofKM
The entire body of knowledge of the KM domain is
represented in this ontology. This include the KM
processes, knowledge domains, KM tools (techniques &
technology) and knowledge mapping [20].
3.1.2 OntologyofFM
The domain knowledge of the FM is represented
ontology of FM. This include the FM processes,
historical information, and best practices in FM. It would
also have the definition, assessment guidelines, and
performance criteria of the various core competencies of
FM as well as the competency mapping.
These ontologies can also interact between them based
on the context.
3.2 K-BIM Layer
The BIM layer consists of the BIM models of the
constructed facilities and the associated standards such as
National BIM Standard - United States (NBIMS-US)
[31]. These are managed by the BIM managers. The
data/information present in the models are depends
heavily on the knowledgebase as they are context-
specific. Whenever there is a request for information
(RFI) from any stakeholder, the knowledgebase is
referred before returning a result. Also, any updates shall
be applied to the BIM models/standards. In this way, the
capability of the BIM is enriched. The data/information
present in the BIM models are primarily knowledge-
driven rather than information-dependent. Hence, this
becomes the crucial layer of the proposed K-BIM.
3.3 Stakeholder Interface
Various stakeholders involved in the project/facility,
especially facility managers, shall use this interface to
interact with the K-BIM for problem-solving or decision
making.
KM
FM
BIM
K-BIM
for FM
Figure 1. K-BIM for Facilities Management
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KNOWLEDGEBASE
Ontology of KM
Ontology of FM
K-BIM
Models
BIM Manager
Standards
STAKEHOLDER
INTERFACE
FacilityManagers
Client
Customers
Suppliers
Service Contractors
Financiers
etc.
Figure 2. Concept Map of K-BIM Framework for Facilities Management
Domains; Processes;
Techniques; Tools;
Knowledge Map
Processes; Historical
Information; Tools;
Best Practices;
Competencies
NBIMS…
Architectural; Structural;
Services; n-D As-built Coordination
Collaboration
Communication
Competency
Development
Competitive
Advantage
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Based on the context of the query (may be related to the
core competencies of FM) the I-BIM returns appropriate
information derived from the knowledgebase that would
facilitate the competency development of the manager as
well as better facility management. This in turn, would
enhance the competitive advantage of the FM
organisation.
3.4 Suggested Methodology for
Implementation
The proposed framework can be implemented by first
building the knowledgebase. Ontologies of KM & FM
shall be developed using Knowledge-Engineering
methodology [32] or use some existing ontologies. BIM
models shall be integrated with the existing standards &
protocols to achieve the intended goals such as
coordination, collaboration & communication across
various stakeholders and this needs to be moderated by
the BIM managers. The stakeholder interface shall be
integrated with the workflow management systems to
maximise the operational efficiency.
4 Summary
The proposed K-BIM framework for FM is an
attempt to harness the power of KM and BIM to facilitate
the FM processes. As discussed, the framework consists
of three major components viz. knowledgebase, K-BIM
layer and stakeholder interface. The entire body of
knowledge of the KM & FM domain are modelled in the
knowledgebase. Ontologies are the potential technique
for design, development and update of the
knowledgebase. The middle layer, K-BIM is an
enhanced BIM (models/standards) that is driven by the
knowledgebase. The stakeholder interface is the platform
through which all the stakeholders of the project/facility
would interact. This framework would also be helpful in
the competency development of the facilities managers.
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