BIM, the underpinning of digital transformation within design and construction, offers a platform to optimize value for building owners. With BIM, an owner can receive a digital representation of a building asset, culling data from across its lifecycle. And when that data is brought into a real-time digital replica such as a digital twin, facilities managers can use that handover to optimize all elements of building operations.
Buildings need to be managed more efficiently. Using BIM to track and parse inputs, outputs, actions, and reactions provides a much deeper understanding of how a building functions—and the cost of action (or inaction). BIM data can offer building management better visibility into the life functions of a building—when things are fixed, when tasks are complete, and how traffic patterns change throughout a day—to unlock new efficiencies.
Facility management today is too often characterized by disconnected experiences, proprietary management, and siloed data, with multiple file formats that need to be leveraged and shared. Inefficient operations and maintenance processes waste time, money, and energy. BIM addresses all these challenges.
The benefits of BIM will only improve as the sensors and technology that monitor buildings improve. Advanced computer vision, artificial intelligence, and machine learning, fed by the evolving Industrial Internet of Things (IIoT), means that even the most minute building function will be tracked, analyzed, and understood. Significant improvements in sustainability, safety, and tenant comfort—as well as lower operational costs and, potentially, even insurance premiums—could be realized using an array of sensors tracking electrical and emissions data, space optimization, and health and wellness data.
BIM above all helps optimize cost, providing additional control, energy efficiencies, and a sense of what’s next for facility managers. By providing granular detail about floor area and space management and utilization, BIM can help operators improve the comfort and safety of tenants while better optimizing and monetizing space. An encyclopedic understanding of building functions and mechanical systems can help reduce energy costs and carbon footprints as well as schedule and record cost-saving preventative maintenance tasks. Any retrofit or renovation decision can tap into detailed performance data to make sure the right products are being purchased and the right timeline is being followed.
If BIM is an operating system for increasingly technologically sophisticated buildings, using it for facilities management taps into that computing power to optimize the performance of the larger machine. This translates to a range of benefits for operators.
Tapping into sensors, smart devices, utility data, and building utilization analysis, operators can make cost-effective upgrades and plan the most environmentally beneficial renovations.
Aging HVAC systems, old foundations, deteriorating facades, and damage from the elements are costly to fix. BIM can track and identify problems before they get too expensive.
By accruing a wealth of historical building usage data, it’s possible to better price real estate, find optimal tenants, and better utilize shared space.
As technology, sustainability, and work culture undergo significant shifts, knowing where to spend infrastructure dollars is key. BIM helps investments in your building generate the best returns.
A proper BIM setup consolidates data and operating systems into one central hub, making it easier to track building performance. It’s also simpler for teams to work on the same platform.
Powerful BIM and CAD tools for designers, engineers, and contractors, including Revit, AutoCAD, Civil 3D, Autodesk Forma, and more
BIM 360 is a construction management platform that connects, organizes, and optimizes projects from design to construction.
Access APIs and services that help you use your design and engineering data in the cloud
Yasui Architects & Engineers
This Japanese firm developed its own BuildCAN system, built on BIM, to interconnect key data such as environmental factors, earthquake history, and operating conditions.
NEST
Switzerland’s Next Evolution in Sustainable Building Technologies (NEST) is a futuristic testing ground for new technology, pushing the boundaries of how buildings can operate.
Build Health International
A nonprofit focused on building health care facilities in frontier markets uses BIM as a tool to design and operate more energy-efficient facilities.
Learn how BIM helps you create, build, and manage better.
Discover how operations data can improve future building design.
Learn how facility management teams can visualize models and maximize efficiency with Autodesk.
BIM offers advantages in nearly every aspect of facilities management. A centralized repository of real-time data makes it easier to evaluate and assess building performance and glean actionable insights, saving costs and improving operations.
Advanced sensor technology and computer-aided analysis can offer further benefits, including more sustainable performance and better space optimization and revenue.
BIM is particularly important because of the complex nature of modern building management. Using a digital twin, or 3D digital map of a building, allows the data platform to grow, expand, and evolve as the project changes through construction and occupancy. It also clarifies the relationships and connections that can help improve operations.
Real-time data in a 3D environment, unlike charts of results or schematics and blueprints, creates a living model that can incorporate dimensions such as project scope and budget.
BIM can function simultaneously as a data source, a tool, and a project-management system. By applying best practices around data collection and analysis, facilities managers gain extraordinary insight into the functions, lifecycles, and eccentricities of their buildings. This enables more strategic, efficient, and cost-effective planning around building labor, repairs and preventative maintenance, ordering and stocking materials and supplies, and more thoughtful use of time and resources overall.
