The lifecycle value of construction information

tend to be inaccurate or incomplete, missing spatial data, and decoupled from warranties, manufacturer’s information, and maintenance instructions. From the outset this can hamper the ability for an owner/operator to plan and deliver the necessary FM services, and on ocassion, requires the commissioning of independent surveys of brand-new facilities to verify the constructed spaces and installed assets.

The scale of the challenge is further evidenced in a recent publication by the UK Government’s FM Taskforce, which tallies the UK public sector estate at around 300,000 properties. The publication identifies issues with ‘departments and their arm’s length bodies’ asset registers and signalled that they represented significant obstacles to improving FM. It notes differing approaches on formats, ownership, management, and governance of asset data have led to problems around incomplete asset transfers and the accuracy of data at contract expiry. As a result, the key identified risk(s) are that decisions around asset maintenance and contract compliance can or will not be based on comprehensive, accurate and up-to-date information. (HM Gov, 2022)

Such risks are of serious concern, as without accurate asset information, building owners or their operators may be unable to evidence or demonstrate their buildings are safe to occupy, compliant with current legislation, or are being maintained in an economical and energy-efficient way.

So, in consideration of the above, what are the fundamental challenges that public sector clients and the construction industry need to address and resolve?

Below are several suggestions and observations:

• Until recently there has been no specific industry standards or guidance for information management practice and delivery across the whole asset lifecycle. This has changed with the release of BS EN ISO 19650 parts 1, 2 and 3, (2018-2020) and the delivery of supporting industry guidance through the UK BIM Framework.

• Historically, clients have produced poor briefs for their asset information handover requirements and haven’t established the necessary management systems to support their whole-life asset management needs. Again, BS EN ISO 19650 plays an important role in addressing this issue alongside other industry standards, namely the BS EN 41000 (2018-2020) series for facilities management and the BS ISO 55000 series (2014-2018) for asset management. Both these series of standards identify the need for asset owners and operators to align their information requirements to organisational objectives and business strategies, to support effective and efficient operations of their assets across the whole lifecycle.

Ryan Tennyson is presenting at the BIM Coordinators Summit, and will provide a practical overview on how the Standard Information Management Plan resource was formed to support clear clients and industry needs, the role of the client-side information manager to enable the consistent specification and delivery of quality information exchanges and handovers on each project, and the ongoing resources being developed by SFT and the working group to better manage public sector buildings and their asset information in the operational phase.

• Traditional industry methods for the capture and handover of asset (operations and maintenance) information have not evolved and created inconsistencies in the way asset information is created, collated, and delivered to clients. For instance, O&M and user manuals tend to be conglomerates of electronic and paper-based files, copied into folder sets, and stored in different geographical locations during the operational stage. This approach creates silos of information, which are difficult to keep up to date concurrently as a building and its inherent assets change over time.

Currently within the UK there are several drivers to address the above challenges, which are reviewed in the remaining section.

Industry drivers for consistent change

1. Legislation – UK Building Safety Act 2022

Following the Grenfell Fire disaster, the UK Building Safety Act has been passed and makes it a legal requirement for owners (accountable persons) to keep an accurate record or ‘golden thread’ of information on their (higher risk) building assets, to evidence and report on the building safety during the whole lifecycle.

Enforcing and managing the consistent delivery and up-keep of accurate building information across the whole lifecycle will require owners (accountable persons) and all relevant parties to adopt and integrate the same standards and processes into their business practices and working procedures.

2. Standards - UK Government function: property.

Two facility management standards have been developed to support the UK Government’s functional standard for property, which sets expectations for the management of all governmentbuilt assets and is mandatory for central government organisations with property responsibilities.

The supporting standards set out the minimum requirements for the delivery of FM services and their management across the public estate, as well as a range of asset data deliverables to support consistency and improvement in the use of asset data across government. Key notable requirements for public organisations are:

• to develop and maintain an FM strategy which supports organisational and operational requirements and follows a recognised standard(s).

• to understand how Building Information Modelling (BIM) relates to their estate and develop policies and processes to enable the organisations to maintain and leverage BIM information in the delivery of FM services (throughout its lifecycle).

• to develop and maintain an asset register that includes a complete list of assets and is aligned to the data structure in the standard. The asset register shall be available for organisations and suppliers to support the delivery and management of FM. (HM Gov, 2022).

3. Resources – SFT Standard Information Management Plan.

Finally, the Standard Information Management Plan has been developed by Scottish Futures Trust (SFT) to support Scottish public sector clients specify, receive, and manage appropriate project and asset information requirements in line with BS EN ISO 19650, the UK BIM Framework and the Uniclass classification system. The resource has three primary objectives:

1. Support a structured and consistent approach in how public bodies specify project information delivered through BIM.

2. Enable delivery of accurate as built 2D, 3D digital information models and O&M handover manuals to support lifecycle asset management.

3. Comply and align with new international standards in the adoption of BIM and digital information management.

Currently, the Standard Information Management Plan is being deployed on a £2bn Scottish Government education programme, which includes new and existing refurbishment school projects.

Through client-industry working group collaboration the resource continues to evolve, improving the ability of public sector clients to clearly specify their information handover requirements at the project outset, and helping industry partners and supply chains to generate and deliver their asset information in a standardised and consistent way.

Figure 03: Standards & processes (needle) guides the golden thread of information.

References

Atkins, KPMG. (2021) The value of Information Management in the construction and infrastructure sector. A report commissioned by the University of Cambridge’s Centre for Digital Built Britain (CDBB) GOV.UK (2022) Golden thread: factsheet. Available at: https://www.gov.uk/government/ publications/building-safety-bill-factsheets/ golden-thread-factsheet (Accessed: 28th May 2022)

HM Government. (2022) Government

Function: Property. Facilities Management Standard. FMS 001: Management and Services. Version 1.0.(Office of Government Property, Cabinet Office)

HM Government. (2022) Government

Function: Property. Facilities Management

Standard FMS 002: Asset Data. Version 1.0.(Office of Government Property, Cabinet Office)

Figures

01: Main components of the Data Architecture backbone. Source: https://dataarchitecture. blog.gov.uk/2018/05/03/data-architecture-ingovernment/ (Accessed: 6th June 2022)

02: Is my building safe? Image by R. Tennyson. Scottish Futures Trust.

03: Standards & processes (needle) guides the golden thread of information. Image by R. Tennyson. Scottish Futures Trust.