COBie Research Papers - Academia.edu (original) (raw)

Operation and Maintenance (O&M) costs in buildings represent a significant part of the total building life cycle cost. However, project delivery methods in the Architectural, Engineering and Construction (AEC) industry are often focused... more

Operation and Maintenance (O&M) costs in buildings represent a significant part of the total building life cycle cost. However, project delivery methods in the Architectural, Engineering and Construction (AEC) industry are often focused on the capital delivery stage and associated costs ranging from planning, through design, to construction and handover. Open data standards such as the Industry Foundation Classes (IFC) and specifications such as the Construction Operations Building information exchange (COBie) provide the capability to capture Facilities Management (FM) data requirements in a structured manner from the early stages of project development. We aim to investigate how and whether IFC and COBie can deliver the data and information about assets required by facility managers within a whole life cycle perspective. We focus on specific use cases including the creation of asset registers and service life planning. However, the methodology adopted can be generalised and applied to any other FM use case. The results show that IFC, COBie and the tested supporting tools exhibited some shortcomings in delivering some of the data entities, types and parameters required for the selected FM use cases. We discuss these shortcomings and propose them as areas for improvement to domain researchers, standardisation bodies and technology providers. Finally, we instigate domain researchers to adopt the proposed methodology and conduct further FM use cases.

Operation and Maintenance costs in buildings represent a large part of the total building lifecycle cost. However, project delivery methods in the Architectural, Engineering Construction (AEC) industry are often focused on capital... more

Operation and Maintenance costs in buildings represent a large part of the total building lifecycle cost. However, project delivery methods in the Architectural, Engineering Construction (AEC) industry are often focused on capital delivery and associated costs, which occur prior to the building handover to owners and occupiers. With the emergence of data specifications such as COBie (Construction and Operation Building information exchange) and the IFC (Industry Foundation Classes) open standard, there has been an increased interest in developing approaches that integrate building operation with the capital delivery phases. In this context, this research aims to assess how open BIM standards (i.e. IFC) and data specifications (i.e. COBie) can support information requirements of facility managers. A literature review of current studies on Building Information Modelling (BIM) for facilities management (FM) in general, and on IFC and COBie applications in FM in particular was conducted. Based on the results from the literature review, a use case was developed according to the Information Delivery Manual (IDM) methodology, in order to assess the applicability of IFC and COBie as sources of information for asset register creation and service life planning. The results from this use case highlighted shortcomings in IFC/COBie standards and commercially available tools and suggested improvements. In future work, the proposed research approach will be applied on a wider number of use cases in order to develop a decision support system that uses asset information from BIM to enable lifecycle cost planning during the use phase of buildings.

As the usage of BIM increased in the construction industry, some construction owners started exploring the use of BIM for maintaining their facilities. Construction Operations Building Information Exchange (COBIE), a spreadsheet data... more

As the usage of BIM increased in the construction industry, some construction owners started exploring the use of BIM for maintaining their facilities. Construction Operations Building Information Exchange (COBIE), a spreadsheet data format suggested in 2007 to manipulate building information, is considered as one of the solutions that would facilitate the process of transferring information from BIM to applications for facilities management. Several BIM and Computer Aided Facilities Management (CAFM) applications offer functions to export or import the COBIE data. To facilitate the process of generating the COBIE data out of Building Information Model, some add-in applications, such as COBIE Toolkit for Revit, also were developed. However, most of these applications handle a limited amount of COBIE data. Professionals using these add-in applications therefore sometimes end up spending a significant amount of time to add additional data manually to the COBIE data file. To automatically get a data-rich COBIE file, we developed a prototype application that extracts information from Revit, which is one of the BIM authoring tools, stores them in an external database, and then produces the COBIE file using information stored in the database. We applied our application to a pilot project and produced 8 COBIE worksheets automatically, which demonstrated a significant amount of time saving. This paper presents how our prototype application produces 8 COBIE data sets automatically. It also addresses our attempt to handle more COBIE data sets.

The AEC/FM industry has benefited from the innovative integration of information technologies and industry-wide processes in different lifecycle stages of facilities. Building Information Modeling (BIM), as one of these innovations, is... more

The AEC/FM industry has benefited from the innovative integration of information technologies and industry-wide processes in different lifecycle stages of facilities. Building Information Modeling (BIM), as one of these innovations, is fast becoming a key approach to virtually integrate the required information for facility design, construction, and management. So far, applications and benefits of using BIM tools and processes in building design and construction have been documented in research. However, landscape design and construction practice is underrated in current BIM developments and in integrated design-construction practices, and it has not benefited from the advantages BIM provides to the industry at different scales. This could result in a critical challenge, as BIM implementation and information modeling are becoming mandatory in many projects in public and private sectors, and the gap still exists in the processes of collaboration and information exchange between the landscape design and construction practice and other disciplines. As an early step to mitigate this challenge, this study shows that recent advances in BIM, COBie, information-exchange schemas (e.g. IFC), and taxonomies such as OmniClass have shortcomings in addressing landscape and hardscape elements and attributes. This challenge limits asset-management capabilities, and leads the practice to inefficient operations, more manual processes, and costly knowledge development and exchange. These findings have important implications for revising and updating existing taxonomies to support more automated information development and exchange processes.

the construction industry despite the significant attempts to promote it. Design/methodology/approach: This paper framed and compared the normative model of COBie to a descriptive model of COBie. The normative model was based on the... more

the construction industry despite the significant attempts to promote it.
Design/methodology/approach: This paper framed and compared the normative model of COBie to a descriptive model of COBie. The normative model was based on the assumptions and planned procedures outlined in the COBie documentation. The descriptive model was developed through a case study of COBie implementation, with ethnographic observations, interviews, and artifact analysis as the data collection methods and thematic analysis as the data analysis method.
Findings: The comparative analysis of the normative and descriptive models showed that the underlying normative assumptions of COBie can be challenged in its implementation. In the case study, implementing COBie disrupted the conventional practice of few participating firms as the data requirements and the expected sequences and timelines of tasks were not aligned with the industry norms for exchanging data. Furthermore, the normative model of COBie could not account for the unanticipated variability in the internal routines of firms for submittal production.
Practical implications: COBie, as an instruction-based model, may not provide enough flexibility for some firms to adapt to its requirements such that COBie tasks become integrated with their existing workflows. COBie tasks may become additional efforts, and at times, conflict with the industry norms and firms’ routines, and therefore, disrupt the efficiency goals.
Originality/value: This paper provides empirical evidence to clarify why implementing COBie has not been as efficient for all industry players as expected.

Building Information Modelling (BIM) represents a move away from traditional practices and the formation of digital models to enable optimized decision making throughout planning, design, construction and operation stages of a facility's... more

Building Information Modelling (BIM) represents a move away from traditional practices and the formation of digital models to enable optimized decision making throughout planning, design, construction and operation stages of a facility's life. Usage of BIM is increasing, and seemingly has the capacity to transform every aspect of the construction industry, therefore making it essential for architectural practices to adapt and embrace this new way of working. Delivering projects through BIM within the UK construction industry is reaching a state of necessity. With the UK Government's mandate for BIM implementation coupled with developments in the BIM area, industry practitioners are becoming increasingly under pressure to adopt BIM. BIM technology can potentially change the process and product of architecture. According to Gaver (1991), new technologies primarily concentrate on the current articulated needs and tasks of the users and have the tendency to overlook the innovation potential of the new technologies at the same time. Understanding affordances that BIM can bring to the process of architectural design is a significant factor in the verdict of successful BIM implementation. This preliminary research aims to identify functional affordances of BIM and explore how they influence the architectural design process. Data collection was carried out through semi-structured interviews with BIM coordinators, architectural technologists and designers working on BIM projects to understand their perception of affordances that BIM can bring to the process of architectural design. We found that most actors/designers realize the potential of functional affordances of many BIM applications, however only a few utilize this capacity to enhance the design process. The literature and the results obtained through the interviews both revealed a potential additional affordance category which relates to the design stages and the use of BIM.

This article aims to present a theoretical review related to Building Information Modeling (BIM), Facility Management (FM) and Construction Operations Building Information Exchange (COBie), and promoting a comparative analysis of the... more

This article aims to present a theoretical review related to Building Information Modeling (BIM), Facility Management (FM) and Construction Operations Building Information Exchange (COBie), and promoting a comparative analysis of the specification and extraction process of the COBie standard among two acknowledged design BIM tools, Autodesk Revit and ArchiCAD. The aspects ranging from data input, setup, modify, data quality control until extraction were considered during the experiment.

The current proliferation of custom information exchange initiatives in projects disrupts the information exchange routines of design and construction firms. This paper investigates how firms perceive, interpret, and act upon information... more

The current proliferation of custom information exchange initiatives in projects disrupts the information exchange routines of design and construction firms. This paper investigates how firms perceive, interpret, and act upon information exchange requirements that do not align with their existing routines. This case study examines a construction project for which the owner specified highly custom requirements for digital production and delivery of project submittals. Using ethnographic methods, the project parties' existing routines and their patterns of perceiving and responding to the requirements were identified. These patterns showed that the parties perceived disruptions to the existing dispositions and rules that guided their routines and shaped their performance across projects. The project parties used a combination of deductive, inductive, and abductive reasoning mechanisms to interpret the requirements, expose the inefficiencies associated with their workflows, and set new ground rules for action. The grounded propositions in this study hold that the limited opportunities for inductive reasoning and reflective assessment of workflows in projects can press project parties into identifying alternative workflows through cognitive search and abductive reasoning. This, in turn, results in highly situated, temporary, and fragmented workflows that are not durable and effective to contribute to refinement of existing information exchange routines.