A Review of Building Information Modelling (BIM) for Facility Management (FM): Implementation in Public Organisations

Abstract

Building Information Modelling (BIM) has been extensively studied and applied within the AEC sector, particularly in design and construction. In recent years, Facility Management (FM) processes are becoming more digitalised, thus requiring effective BIM-FM integration. BIM adoption in many countries, such as the UK, Italy and Brazil, has been publicly driven. Generally, adoption was targeted at design and construction implementation, with little effort in framing public action for FM implementation. The lack of an integrated approach for BIM-FM implementation resulted in numerous bespoken implementation approaches that mimic the private sector and hinder knowledge exchange. Therefore, there is a need for assessing and amalgamating knowledge about BIM-FM for public organisations. This research aims to leverage knowledge about BIM-FM in the public domain by analysing and classifying articles published between 2010–2021. The research was carried out through a systematic review and comparative thematic analysis investigating the use of BIM for different public buildings (e.g., schools and hospitals) and the implementation for FM purposes. Research results outline prevalent trends and areas of research from three perspectives: people, process and technology. Results show an increasing number of publications about BIM-FM. However, the divide between BIM-FM for public and private organisations is unequal. BIM-FM research for public organisations is still limited and lacks standardisation. This state-of-the-art review makes an incremental contribution to knowledge by identifying progress, gaps and new industry directions on the subject matter.