I received this morning parts of a discussion involving BIM application in UK and (unfortunately) a non-expressive involvement of facility managers in this case.

In fact, although we’ve had some good events about BIM in Brazil (specially in 2013), it is natural to observe an expressive participation of construction industry and that’s all.

I have been insisting for a long time that we (FM industry) shall learn from our mistakes and more than that, we must learn from statistical results, what can certainly help us in the future.

As an example, lets see the hvac system in a new commercial building…

If we just take a look over many new constructions in Brazil, we’ll certainly find almost the same basis of design in all of them… And more, we’ll certainly find almost the same operational problems in the future…

We know that system’s performance may vary not just considering specific issues during the design and construction (including commissioning process) phases, but also vary when we have Operation & Maintenance distortions.

But we also know that many of this “issues” and even “distortions” can be treated during the design phase, and that’s why BIM must be considered by FM professionals.

If well implemented and customized, management systems can provide very “rich” information to our FM, as well as to our construction industry.

Some possibilities shall be considered as follow:

• The involvement of the future FM during OPR (Owners Project Requirement) phase
• FM shall also integrate the new project team
• FM shall consider “lessons learned” and statistical results from their previous operations in order to eliminate “traditional” issues on the new project design
• Commissioning processes must start with OPR and design phases
• FM shall also participate within the new building commissioning completion and system’s startups
• A management system shall be provided with the new operation since the beginning

So, let’s think about that…