AUTOMATED ASSET INFORMATION CHECKER FOR BIM IN FACILITIES MANAGEMENT (TOWNSHIP MANAGEMENT) USING COBIE

Abstract

The advent of Building Information Modelling (BIM) has transformed the way stakeholders communicate in the Architectural, Engineering, and Construction (AEC) industry. The ability of BIM to consolidate, store, and manage asset information has also proved to be exceptionally useful for operation and maintenance (O&M). However, the fragmented industry and the unclear Employer’s Information Requirements (EIR) often lead to the handing over of low-quality asset information to the facility managers. These asset data are usually inaccurate and irrelevant due to unclear requirements. Furthermore, information exchange between stakeholders with heterogenous software often result in data distortions and even data losses. Facility managers are unable to make the most of BIM for Facilities Management (FM) with such low-quality asset information. These issues indicate the lack of (i) effective information management by authoritative parties within projects and (ii) an automated information checker that is able to detect and highlight potential errors due to wrongful inputs and data drops. Since the Town Councils (TCs) in Singapore are only starting to adopt BIM into their workflow, this study investigates the fundamental reasons behind such a phenomenon and apply the lessons learnt from BIM in FM onto BIM in Township Management (TM) to their process of BIM adoption. This study employs a holistic approach by gathering and analysing both primary and secondary sources of information. Primary sources of information include interviews and a case study on one of Singapore’s TC while secondary sources of information include journals, published reports, books, and articles. Comprehensive analyses of literature have revealed that the lack of automated checkers for asset information is due to the complexity and unique properties of items within Asset Information Models (AIMs). Construction Operations Building information exchange (COBie) was also found to be the only open, neutral, and well-developed interoperability standard for BIM asset information. Hence, this study endeavours the use of COBie spreadsheets as a light-weight asset information repository for TM and proceeds to develop an automated checker to highlight the potential errors within.