New BIM guidance published for operational phase of a building

Guidance on the use of BIM (Building Information Modelling) in the operational phase of a building has been issued by the business standards Institution (BSI). PAS 1192-3, Specification for information management for the operational phase of assets using building information modelling (BIM) is a companion document to PAS 1192-2, which specified an information management process to support building information modelling (BIM) Level 2 in the capital/delivery phase of projects. In contrast, PAS 1192-3 focuses on the operational phase of assets irrespective of whether these were commissioned, acquired through transfer of ownership or are part of an existing asset portfolio. The new specification recognizes that the cost of operating and maintaining buildings and facilities can represent up to 85 per cent of the whole-life cost and savings can pay back any upfront premium in construction expenses in a few years.

It has been written by the BSRIA and sponsored by the Construction Industry Council on behalf of the Building Information Modelling (BIM) Task Group.

The guidance was published as a direct response to the government’s 2011 Construction Strategy which is aimed at reducing the cost of constructing public sector assets by up to 20 per cent by 2016. To achieve this, the government mandated that all companies tendering for government construction work should be working at level 2 BIM by 2016, and the first PAS in this series, PAS 1192-2 was developed to support this in 2013.

The latest publication, PAS 1192-3 will provide asset managers with guidance on how to integrate the management of information, meaning that short term asset construction activity can be factored into longer term asset management activity for a portfolio of assets.

The result should deliver savings such as:

• Reduced costs as a result of the automated transfer of accurate, complete and unambiguous information at asset handover and during transfer of operation from one service provider to another.
• Better awareness of the operational and maintenance needs of assets.
• Better decisions regarding operation and maintenance expenditure based on actual asset performance and status.
• Better organizational and strategic planning from more complete and accurate asset. information, for example in the development of the health and safety file required by the Construction (Design and Management) Regulations.
• Reduced management process costs arising from incomplete data.

Anthony Burd Head of Market Development for Construction at BSI said: “Using PAS 1192-3 alongside PAS 1192-2 will allow asset and facilities managers to keep track of information that is being used across a project’s life cycle. Even before a project reaches the construction phase, all eventualities will have been considered pre-emptively resulting in clear coordinated thinking and potentially huge cost-savings.”