# Building Information Modelling Facility Management (BIM-FM)
## 6 Barriers Affecting the Implementation of BIM-FM
### Lack of Data Exchange Formats  
A number of authors have acknowledged that FM requires a complex selection of interrelated data and argue that BIM authoring tools alone are insufficient for managing all the data required for FM ([PERSON] and [PERSON], 2018; [PERSON], 2018; [PERSON], 2018).Whilst BIM conceptually requires all information to be stored in a single space, other authors such as [PERSON] et al. (2018) suggest that this can involve multiple systems as long as the systems are linked. Thus, data must be transferable across platforms, and hence, the Open BIM exchange formats (e.g., COBie) were created to this end ([PERSON] and [PERSON], 2018). However, as previously mentioned, the existing exchange formats are currently insufficient for BIM-FM. For example, [PERSON] et al. (2018) compared IFC 4 and COBie entities with the asset register requirements given in BS 8210:2012 ([PERSON], 2018) and found that, of the twenty-two asset register requirements, IFC and COBie were not able to support ten and seven of the twenty-two requirements, respectively. Whilst they were able to overcome this issue with custom 'Property Sets', they experienced further issues with IFC entities which were then incompatible with the IFC exporter. Although created for FM, COBie has a number of limitations:  
* It does not encompass all elements required for FM [44; 64];
* It does not encompass all types of assets [65];
* Some elements have limited practical value [66];
* The structure is not easily customisable [66];
* Verifying the quality and consistency of changing data is difficult [67];
* There are interoperability issues with BIM authoring tools [12; 33; 68]. There appears to be limited evidence of COBie and IFC working sufficiently except in the works by [PERSON] et al. [41], who were able to use existing COBie formats to create an AR-based FM system from a BIM model, and [PERSON] et al. [37], who created a BIM-FM integration for FM at healthcare facilities and claimed that IFC 4.2 was sufficient for all their identified information requirements. There have subsequently been many calls for the expansion of COBie [8; 44; 64] and IFC. Attempts have been made to extend COBie, but there is limited evidence of success to date, such as in the work discussed by [PERSON] et al. [65], who created a COBie for ports devoid of validation of their proposed schema. Furthermore, whilst [PERSON] and [PERSON] [8] advocated the use of a standard classification system for easier data transfer and extraction, they found, based on interviewing a number of asset owners, that they needed a certain level of customisation for their specific uses. Similarly, [PERSON] and [PERSON] [7] tried to automate the data transfer from the design and build stage to the FM stage and found that even when a full IFC standard was used, human error in object classification and incompleteness of data meant that the process could not be fully automated. However, despite potential human limitations, some evidence for the effectiveness of updating the IFC schema (and consequently other standardised exchange formats) is given by [PERSON] and [PERSON] [69], who used the 'IFCalignment' entity, a new feature of IFC 4.3, to successfully export GIS raster data, a functionality not previously possible. Similarly, [PERSON] et al. [62] created a federated model of a railway using infrastructure categories introduced in IFC 4.2 and state that its update is key to interoperability and functionality of models. The issue of exchange formats is not limited to IFC and COBie. [PERSON] et al. [70] investigated combining multiple ontologies to account for information from different sources, e.g., BIM, sensors and databases required for asset management, and there has been some notable success with alternative technologies. At a basic level, a lot of information needed for FM originates from the manufacturers of maintainable assets and is often provided in a PDF format.