BIM – Building Information Modeling
BIM (Building Information Modeling) is the efficient management of the life-cycle of the built environment supported by digital technology.
BIM can provide huge benefits to the stakeholders in all phases of the building process – Planning; Design; Construction; and Operations and Maintenance.
The Operation & Maintenance (O&M) phase spans a very long period. O&M costs far exceed those of any previous phase, averaging 70% of total life-cycle costs.
The adoption of digital processes and methodologies supported by a robust and reliable information system such as BIM, and the associated implementation of LEAN processes, enables significantly improve financial and physical performance outcomes. Overall productivity and user physical asset performance are measurably improved.
The Facility Manager is no longer responsible for simply “changing light bulbs” or for maintaining elevators but is an active part of a new culture of collaboration, environmental sustainability, information sharing and innovative initiatives.
The Facility Manager must participate in the building process right from the start… planning together with the designers and the builders… jointing deciding what data and information from the planning and execution phases is needed… and how it is structured, to move in an optimized way to, and be useable in, the management phase of the building.
The initial use of BIM in the design and construction phases is widespread and a consolidated practice in much of the world. While further improvements remain to be made, and greater value achieved, measurable benefits have been clearly demonstrated.
BIM for Facility Management represents the final step, the point of arrival where all information and data, consciously structured, from the beginning of the process, become an integral part of the management and maintenance of a building.
It is a common opinion that BIM, when used during operations and maintenance phase, can bring enormous benefits in terms of efficiency recovery, cost reduction, and enhanced building user satisfaction.
The owners and investors have a clear understanding of the potential of BIM within the construction process and realize its potential even in the maintenance phase.
The main problem, therefore, is not on the owner’s side, willing to invest in exchange for a financial return, but on the Facility Manager’s side who only today have begun to approach the BIM issue.
The real benefits of the “BIM method” will come when it will finally be used for real estate life-cycle management.
The challenge has begun: are Facility managers ready to face it?
BiC-6D is part of the overall vision of Lemsys which aims to create a solution’s collection dedicated to the individual phases building integrated with the Building in the Cloud collaboration platform.
The additional modules are intended to cover, with the common denominator of the BIM Model, all the phases of the processes necessary for the correct building’s life-cycle.