Digital library of construction informatics and information technology in civil engineering and construction
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Paper: w78-2000-983
| Paper title: | Whole life building management: occupancy to dismantling |
| Authors: | Vanier D J |
| Summary: | "The CIB W78 Workshop on Service Life and Asset Management, as part of the 8th International Conference on the Durability of Building Materials and Components (8DBMC), was held in Vancouver in June 1998. It was there that the workshop delegates were introduced to the concept of the architectural ""charette"". Each of the three ""IT Futures"" charettes consisted of a one-half day intense discussion on a discrete topic; one dealt with the research needs for ""Whole Life Building Management"". The results of the three charettes were presented at the Plenary Session of the 8DBMC Conference; however, at that time it was decided by the charette teams that further investigation was warranted and that the teams should collaborate on finalizing the charette findings in a technical paper. This paper is the result of that initial and subsequent work and it details the importance of information flow in ""Whole Life Building Management"". The scope of this domain includes all data, knowledge and information needed for managing a building from occupancy to demolition. The key aspects of the information flow identified during the charette were: (1) the data needs for decision support tools, (2) the development of quality metrics for evaluation; (3) the need for standardization of data and information flow; (4) the strong relationship of whole life management to the concept of intelligent buildings, and (5) the need for continuous data transfer amongst actors in the process. The charette also identified the need for research and standardization in all these domains. For decades the construction research community has focused primarily on design and construction with little research and development attention being devoted to the problems of the ""built environment"". North America, for example, has an established “built environment” of buildings and constructed infrastructure with a value of more than $33 trillion. This number is significant and frightening – much like the combined national and regional governmental debts. As such, the operation, maintenance, repairs, and eventual renewal of this ""built environment"" represent a major, and rapidly growing, cost to Canada and the USA. In essence, this paper addresses the future needs of this rapidly evolving field of ""asset management"" as well as the need for sophisticated IT tools to assist decision-makers. Asset management can be described as the six ""Whats"": (1) what do you own; (2) what is it worth; (3) what is it's condition; (4) what is the deferred maintenance; (5) what is the remaining service life, and (6) what do you fix first? As can be seen, this has little to do with 3D or 4D CAD, virtual reality, process modeling, expert systems, computer integrated construction, or many of the current research topics in construction IT. However, all these sources for data and information can be used by the asset managers, and therefore the aforementioned IT technologies must be integrated into ""whole life building management"" or asset management. Asset management comprises a significant portion of the funds expended on construction each year. Investigation of the field to date has found a limited number of applications for decision-support in this domain, and did not find any comprehensive solution that addresses the current and future needs for tactical and strategic planning by facility engineers and managers. This paper stresses the need for ""whole life building management"", that is, asset management, and the requirements for integration of data, information and knowledge from the design phase to the construction phase, and onwards to the maintenance and operation phase of the built environment." |
| Type: | |
| Year of publication: | 2000 |
| Series: | w78:2000 |
| ISSN: | 2706-6568 |
| Download paper: | /pdfs/w78-2000-983.content.pdf |
| Citation: | Vanier D J (2000). Whole life building management: occupancy to dismantling. Construction Information Technology 2000. Taking the construction industry into the 21st century.; ISBN 9979-9174-3-1; Reykjavik, Iceland, June 28 - 30, 2000 (ISSN: 2706-6568), http://itc.scix.net/paper/w78-2000-983 |
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