A KNOWLEDGE-BASED BUILDING INFORMATION MODELING FOR FACILITIES MANAGEMENT

Abstract

In today’s economy, Knowledge management (KM) is increasingly seen as a business management technique that improves competitive advantage for an organization. The application of KM using Building Information Modeling (BIM) in construction is widely researched. However, BIM application in Facilities Management (FM) is still in its normative stage. FM is recognized for its information and for being knowledge intensive. However, this knowledge and information is often incomplete or lost after construction. The decision for building maintenance often depends on information and knowledge from the construction teams, and failure to capture this knowledge and information will result in increased costs and ineffective work processes during the operation stage. There is a huge potential that comes from using BIM as a platform to manage knowledge so as to generate greater value for organization. Observations were made through a case study on a typical educational Institution’s organization in Singapore to understand their maintenance work processes and to identify their constraints and challenges, as they did not adopt BIM to manage their facilities. Case analysis is conducted to identify potential areas for the integration of BIM based KM system to monitor the overall use and efficiency of campus buildings. Therefore, the research aims to: (i) Investigate KM-BIM in order for the organization to realize the benefits; (ii) to prioritize the constraints and challenges of KM adoption; (iii) To find out whether technological adoptions would affect organization knowledge management; (iv) Propose a framework for implementation of KM using BIM for the organization facilities management department.