A knowledge-based BIM system for building maintenance

Decisions for buildingmaintenance require integration of various types of information and knowledge created by different members of construction teams such as: maintenance records, work orders, causes and knock-on effects of failures, etc. Failing to capture and use this information/knowledge results in significant costs due to ineffective decisions. Majority of the current buildingmaintenancesystems mainly focus on capturing either information or knowledge. This research aims to develop an integrated system to capture information and knowledge of buildingmaintenance operations when/after maintenance is carried out to understand how abuilding is deteriorating and to support preventive/corrective maintenance decisions. To develop the system, a number of case studies were investigated and interviews were conducted with professionals from different buildingmaintenance departments in public organisations. This methodology helped identify the buildingmaintenance process and the opportunities for knowledge capture and exchange. A taxonomy for buildingmaintenance was then identified which enabled a formal approach for knowledge capture. The proposed system utilises the functions of information modelling techniques and knowledgesystems to facilitate full retrieval of information and knowledge for maintenance work. The system consists of two modules; BIM module to capture relevant information and Case-Based Reasoning (CBR) module to capture knowledge. The system can help maintenance teams learn from previous experience and trace the full history of abuilding element and all affected elements by previous maintenance operations. It is concluded that the integrated knowledge-basedBIMsystems can provide advanced useful functions for construction operations. On the other hand, incorporating Knowledge Management principles embedded in CBR systems with Information Management principles embedded in BIMsystems is a way forward for the transformation from ?Building Information Modelling? to ?BuildingKnowledge Modelling?.