Building Information Modeling (BIM) is a powerful tool, but there’s a disconnect between the construction’s and facilities’ use of BIM, surrounding what is being built vs how to maintain it.

For one, the type and amount of data stored in BIM is total overload for a facilities operations group. Wherein BIM might contain hundreds of thousands of asset types and hundreds of thousands of assets, a subset of maybe a few hundred assets will require a dedicated maintenance program.

Secondly, BIM does not inherently integrate with CMMS. This needs to happen manually, so to speak, by first identifying the Maintenance Significant Items (MSIs) in BIM and assigning classification codes to them. Data continuity, between the contract docs/BIM side and the FO/CMMS side, drives preventive maintenance (PM) and other procedures as well as the staffing plans needed to carry them out. Applying an asset classification standard such as Uniformat 2010 to all MSIs in BIM is critical for querying the data and maintaining the asset.