Development of Asset Information Requirements to support Asset Management (2020)

The management of physical assets (asset management) is becoming increasingly important, supported by a shift in mindsets that are seeing maintenance moving from a "necessary evil" to a value-adding exercise. This is enforced by the need to achieve greater asset performance within increasing financial constraints, aiming to achieve "more for less" while limiting impact on the natural environment. The development of Building Information Modelling (BIM) and the concept of whole-life asset management provided a "new" approach to the management of physical assets based on emerging technologies and information management processes. The adoption of BIM within the design and construction phase has widely been considered successful with a wealth of studies showing an increase in productivity, reduction in cost and improved risk management. Despite this, the adoption of BIM within the Operation and maintenance (O&amp;M) phase has been limited. A lack of understanding of what information should be collected at an organisational level to support the management of assets throughout their life, results in asset-related information not being collected in alignment with an organisational requirement. Often the gap between the development of Organisational Information Requirements (OIR) and the generation of Asset Information Requirements (AIR), is too much of a jump or hurdle. This is partly due to the fact that asset management organisations purely focus on the development of technical information requirements, with little consideration of the wider organisation. This thesis proposes a solution to address this challenge by presenting an organisational led framework to the development of Asset Information Requirements (AIR). This thesis presents an Information Requirements framework and Concept Model, introducing the novel concept of Functional Information Requirements (FIR) to bridge the gap between the OIR and the AIR. The framework was derived through a literature review, industry investigation, and feedback gained through several iterations of partial case studies. The final iteration was tested and validated for its practical application by a case study within a university estate management department. Furthermore, the framework was tested by a third-party partner within the infrastructure sector. The thesis concludes that the framework aids in the development of AIR. Feedback noted that while the framework is helpful, it is resource intensive and the “value” of BIM within asset management needs to be addressed to gain the required resources. Furthermore, future research should investigate this challenge by considering the possibility of a common set of information requirements to reduce the need for the framework for individual instances of projects, when the projects are of similar purpose. Emerging techniques should be considered for automatic classification of Assets within a BIM model, this would greatly increase efficiency and reduce the resource intensive nature of the framework. Finally, future research should investigate how the proposed framework can support the evolution of the Digital Twin, within the context of the built environment.