Building information modeling for facilities management: a literature review and future research directions

Although a considerable number of studies on building information modeling (BIM) for facilities management (FM) have been conducted during the past ten years, a lack of consensus remains among academics and practitioners concerning the successful and practical information exchange process between BIM and FM systems. There is a need to establish an up-to-date synthesis on the current status of information exchange and interoperability between BIM and FM systems. After an in-depth review of 113 journal articles published from 2008 to 2018, this study systematically presents (1) a holistic review and critical reflection on the current status of BIM implementation in FM with a focus on information exchange and interoperability, (2) research trends and patterns and (3) research gaps and a future agenda in this area. Through a bibliometric and content review analysis, this paper concludes that the process of information exchange between BIM models and FM systems is not a straightforward process, as software interoperability remains a significant challenge. Bridging this gap requires standardized practical processes to integrate different information sources related to maintenance management, health & safety management tasks and BIM data, to provide a rich semantic database to support FM systems. Finally, it is hoped that this paper will advocate further developing a seamless information exchange process between BIM and FM systems to overcome interoperability issues and facilitate BIM implementation in FM.