Posts Tagged FM

IFMA Releases Sustainability Guide and Carbon Footprint Measuring Guidelines for Buildings

IFMA (International Facility Management Association)  the leading association for facility managers released a Sustainability Guide and Measuring Guidelines for determining a buildings footprint.  Buildings which account for around 40% of energy usage are perhaps the biggest consumers of fossil fuels and producers of carbon.  In order to understand how buildings are consuming energy, creating carbon and determining ways to manage  and reduce it IFMA published the guide and it is available for free.

According to the guide and referencing a  report from Groom Energy Solutions and Pure Strategies highlights the top five drivers that motivate a business to track and report carbon:

  1. Improved company/brand image
  2. Requests from top customer
  3. Investor pressure
  4. GHG regulation
  5. Cost savings

(Groom Energy Solutions 2010)

While surprising to me that cost savings is at #5 I think as more and more positive ROI cases are published people will realize that a path to sustainability brings more profits due to reduced operating costs.  Looks to me though that the role of the FM is going to get more glamorous, and those skilled in this art should be in high demand.

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BIM FM Rundown

BIM, supposedly, sits  at the center of  managing a building from design to demolition.  The longest part of that arc, facility management, seems to get the least amount of press and attention. Interestingly enough, Autodesk purchased FM Systems in in 2006 and discontinued its product FM Desktop by 2009.  This seems to leave a gaping whole in their portfolio but perhaps they just wanted to build something from the ground up integrated with Revit, maybe its in the pipeline somewhere. In between, there is an excellent article on AECBytes, BIM for Facilities Management, that breaks down the current BIM FM Marketplace.

 

Current Players:

FM Systems

ArchiFM now VintoCon

Benteley Facilites

Onuma System

Working on the live integration between BIM and BAS (Building Automation Systems)

EcoDomus

What I don’t completely understand is the step child status of FM applications.  Autodesk shed FM.  ArchiCAD seems to be distancing itself from FM with the introduction/spinoff of Vintocon, maybe it just takes too much work and integration, however, according to NIBS, Whole Building Design Group, that over a 30 year life of a building, operating it costs 3x more than building it.  One would think programming/implementing software to manage this process would be worth the effort, then again that’s 3x over 30 years.  My feeling the more it is integrated with BAS (Building Automation Systems) which then links directly to energy usage, the more popular it will become.

 

 

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BIM Projects Coming in 10% Lower –> IPD 20% Lower

A recent post by Dennis Neeley on Reed Construction Data states that recent reports show projects coming in at 10% for building drafted in a BIM format, and 20% lower for those using IPD and integrating the disciplines digitally.  However, Dennis goes on later on in the article to note, and rightly so, that operating costs of a building during its lifetime start to dwarf the construction costs.  And that correct data about existing facilities and the better management of those assets can show savings from 20% to 40%.  However, still one of the biggest issues, and one I touch on frequently,  is interoperability, the development of standards and standardized objects.  I also think there is an opportunity for manufacturers who provide excellent objects to designers can start see quicker adoption of there products and decreased sales cycles as consumers of those digital objects are already educated about the product and using them in their models.

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