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Maintainability is not traditionally considered in the design of buildings. This is partly because design tools seldom facilitate the involvement of facility managers. They do not have rules for checking maintainability either. Consequently, buildings often have components or systems that are challenging to access for maintenance. To access the com...
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... accessibility button. Each of the equipment has a maximum reach height and guidelines for use. For example, in the case of a ladder, Administration [40] recommends that an average height maintenance personnel should stand at least 2 ft down from the top of a ladder and the maximum working height should be about 3 ft above the top of the ladder (Fig. 3). On selecting any access equipment, the plug-in determines the maximum working height by deducting the height of the ladder from the height of the component from the floor (Eq. (1)). ...
Citations
... The operational regime of the buildings creates a dynamic environment and complex organizational structure, which constantly exposes their workers to varying and unexpected safety risks such as the risk of falls, bruises, cuts, etc (Akanmu et al., 2020) and contributes to becoming maintenance more labor-intensive, and costly in their operational stages (Asmone and Chew, 2020). Systems are often called complex whenever is difficult, or even impossible, to reduce the number of components to understand fully the behavior of the system as a whole (Pavard and Dugdale, 2006). ...
... Few studies deal with the semantic/ontological approach, since it is a systematic approach that involves several specific processes and software. [14], [46], [55], [62], [63], [80] Logical [48], [61], [65], [70], [73], [79], [82] Object-oriented [13], [15], [16], [26], [28], [34], [52], [56], [60], [69], [71], [74], [75], [78], [88], [89] The hard-coded approach ends up having as limitations the fact that, in general, software have a closed architecture (black-box), in which the user is not able to measure all the steps and processes of checking. Related to this is the high cost of software. ...
... Own development [13], [15], [31], [32], [48], [52], [65], [68], [70], [71], [73], [75], [78], [79], [82], [88] Solibri [14], [46], [61]- [63], [80] VPL Dynamo [26], [28], [56], [ [16] Concerning the difficulties and limitations found in the automatic rule checking processes, issues related only to technology were identified, such as: (i) data processing; (ii) geometry; (iii) scope of the investigation; and (iv) tests ( Figure 18, Table 6). [14], [34], [55], [56], [63], [70], [74] Geometry [15], [16], [28], [46], [48], [65], [69], [75] Data processing [13], [26], [31], [52], [60], [68], [73], [79], [82], [88], [89] V. CONCLUSIONS ...
... Own development [13], [15], [31], [32], [48], [52], [65], [68], [70], [71], [73], [75], [78], [79], [82], [88] Solibri [14], [46], [61]- [63], [80] VPL Dynamo [26], [28], [56], [ [16] Concerning the difficulties and limitations found in the automatic rule checking processes, issues related only to technology were identified, such as: (i) data processing; (ii) geometry; (iii) scope of the investigation; and (iv) tests ( Figure 18, Table 6). [14], [34], [55], [56], [63], [70], [74] Geometry [15], [16], [28], [46], [48], [65], [69], [75] Data processing [13], [26], [31], [52], [60], [68], [73], [79], [82], [88], [89] V. CONCLUSIONS ...
BIM Systematics for Process Optimization have been widely developed in recent years, considering the benefits they provide to the Architecture, Engineering, and Construction (AEC) sector. One of the systematics that deserves to be highlighted is automatic rule checking, which allows for the automation of specific compliance relevant to several design modalities. With this in mind, it is imperative to search for ways to automate processes of design compliance. This study, by a systematic literature review (SR), seeks to understand the current state of the art regarding the automation of BIM-based design compliance. With it, it was possible to identify the main points inherent to the process, such as (i) the main tools used, (ii) how the Industry Foundation Class scheme was used, (iii) the procedures and challenges found for the development of design. The evaluation indicates that it is possible to highlight the complexity of the process, especially for its implementation. Each study approaches the topic in a different way, using specific strategies. The use of hard-coded mechanisms proved to be the most suitable for developing specific systems. The findings suggest that the greatest difficulties and limitations of the studies analyzed are directly related to the technology axis, more specifically regarding the treatment and manipulation of geometry in general.
... These themes reflect the propects of digital twins for smart buildings (Bevilacqua et al., 2020;Shirowzhan et al., 2020). However, some themes reflecting the significant application of digital twins for smart buildings are found with low link strength, and these include design optimisation, real-time information, real-time connection, systems thinking, remote control, real-time monitoring and tracking simulations (Akanmu et al., 2020;Zhao et al., 2021;Celik et al., 2021). Overall, this study reveals all the themes (Appendix) as reflecting the prospects of digital twins in smart buildings, regardless of the link strength, occurrences, average publication year, average citation and average normalised citation. ...
... Overall, this study reveals all the themes (Appendix) as reflecting the prospects of digital twins in smart buildings, regardless of the link strength, occurrences, average publication year, average citation and average normalised citation. To enhance the application of digital twin concepts to the field of AECO, a deliberate effort is required to consider critical aspects such as information analysis, transparency, safety and human-computer interactions (Akanmu et al., 2020;Agnusdei et al., 2021). Also, scholarly works must be translated into practice to prevent businesses from losing interest in innovative concepts (Kirchherr and van Santen, 2019). ...
... The digital twins' concept facilitates building improvements by ensuring efficiency and adequacy in the building management system (Zhao et al., 2021). The digital twin assists in real-time monitoring of building performance and generates data for facility and building managers to assess buildings and perform maintenance (Akanmu et al., 2020;Lu et al., 2020a;Chen et al., 2022a). This could generate data easily and seamlessly from human-unreachable parts of buildings. ...
Purpose
Digital twins provide enormous opportunities for smart buildings. However, an up-to-date intellectual landscape to understand and identify the major opportunities of digital twins for smart buildings is still not enough. This study, therefore, performs an up-to-date comprehensive literature review to identify the major opportunities of digital twins for smart buildings.
Design/methodology/approach
Scientometric and content analysis are utilised to comprehensively evaluate the intellectual landscape of the general knowledge of digital twins for smart buildings.
Findings
The study uncovered 24 opportunities that were further categorised into four major opportunities: efficient building performance (smart “building” environment), efficient building process (smart construction site environment), information efficiency and effective user interactions. The study further identified the limitations of the existing studies and made recommendations for future research in the methodology adopted and the research domain. Five research domains were considered for future research, namely “real-time data acquisition, processing and storage”, “security and privacy issues”, “standardised and domain modelling”, “collaboration between the building industry and the digital twin developers” and “skilled workforce to enable a seamless transition from theory to practice”.
Practical implications
All stakeholders, including practitioners, policymakers and researchers in the field of “architecture, engineering, construction and operations” (AECO), may benefit from the findings of this study by gaining an in-depth understanding of the opportunities of digital twins and their implementation in smart buildings in the AECO industry. The limitations and the possible research directions may serve as guidelines for streamlining the practical adoption and implementation of digital twins for smart buildings.
Originality/value
This study adopted scientometric and content analysis to comprehensively assess the intellectual landscape of relevant literature and identify four major opportunities of digital twins for smart building, to which scholars have given limited attention. Finally, a research direction framework is presented to address the identified limitations of existing studies and help envision the ideal state of digital twins for smart buildings.
... Among the building finish items, "Provision of safe access for maintenance of common areas" (12) was found to be important but had low applicability to remodeling. According to Akanmu et al. (2020), if the means of access, such as catwalks and permanent stairs, for the maintenance of common areas in a building are not provided (i.e., lack of accessibility to maintenance areas), it could lead to awkward postures or unsafe behaviors that would endanger the maintenance personnel. Furthermore, if the maintenance personnel who reach building components that lack accessibility face safety risks, the operating costs of the facility can increase (Akanmu et al., 2020). ...
... According to Akanmu et al. (2020), if the means of access, such as catwalks and permanent stairs, for the maintenance of common areas in a building are not provided (i.e., lack of accessibility to maintenance areas), it could lead to awkward postures or unsafe behaviors that would endanger the maintenance personnel. Furthermore, if the maintenance personnel who reach building components that lack accessibility face safety risks, the operating costs of the facility can increase (Akanmu et al., 2020). Chew et al. (2019) reported that maintenance accessibility emerged as a key item among the easy-to-maintain design parameters. ...
In this work, design directions and strategies are developed to improve the maintainability of multifamily residential building remodeling projects through simultaneous consideration of their importance in terms of maintainability and applicability to remodeling. Owing to the importance of maintainability, several design items have been suggested in the literature to improve maintainability. However, these designs have limited applicability to remodeling projects, which comprise both existing parts to preserve the structure and newly constructed parts. Therefore, the novel Importance Applicability Analysis is developed to simultaneously assess importance and applicability, and empirical data are collected from building remodeling and maintenance experts. The results indicate that 11 items (e.g., drywall to interior wall ratio) should be considered in the remodeling of multifamily residential buildings. Three items are accorded top priority in terms of improvement efforts (e.g., provision of safe access for maintenance of common areas), whereas five items represent supplementary improvement efforts (e.g., façade design facilitating cleaning, inspection, repair, and replacement). This paper contributes to the body of knowledge by considering the applicability and importance of maintainability by taking into account the unique nature of remodeling projects. Furthermore, it provides practitioners with practical design strategies to improve the maintainability of multifamily residential building remodeling.
... Inconsiderate design decisions without appropriate evaluation of maintenance work requirements could lay a path for severe accidents, especially with regards to accessibility to building components (Akanmu, Olayiwola, & Olatunji, 2020;Olanrewaju & Abdul-Aziz, 2015). Mamin, Kodysh, and Bobrov (2019) suggested that the lack of proper documentation of building defects and/or issues by the building operators result in deteriorating the condition of the problems and increase the chances of accidents to take place during maintenance works. ...
... Challenges that arise from inconsiderate design impose serious safety risks on maintenance personnel on-site. For instance, when the air conditioning compressor is at the outer edge of a building with no proper landing for the workers to stand on, or a lighting fixture is oddly positioned on top of a water closet, the workers may need to use uncommon techniques to reach the unit and therefore put themselves in greater risks (Akanmu et al., 2020) Hon et al. (2010a) stated that BM projects are usually carried out by SMEs and have low contract sums. Therefore, companies lack sufficient resources to allocate for PPE. ...
Despite the recent improvements made to the area of occupational health and safety (OHS) within the construction sector, the Repair, Maintenance, Minor alteration, and Addition (RMAA) works have been given scant attention. In this study, given the significance of the injuries reported in the RMAA sector, a meticulous investigation is conducted into the causal factors contributing to the related accidents by capturing their causal interrelationships together with their importance levels. To this end, first, a comprehensive list of factors contributing to RMAA accidents was obtained through an extensive literature review and experts’ interviews. Then, through the lenses of qualified relevant experts in Hong Kong, the proposed interval-valued intuitionistic fuzzy (IVIF) DEMATEL and IVIF analytic network process were employed to respectively uncover the cause-and-effect relationships among these factors and prioritize them. The findings show that “the lack of assessment and praising of workers’ OHS understanding and performance,” “the high turnover rate of workers resulting in difficulties in providing safety training and education,” and “lack of safety training for workers” are the most critical causes to be given full attention by construction safety managers. The methodological approach proposed in this study brings about two theoretical contributions: unraveling interrelationships existing among the causal factors, and prioritization of them considering their interrelationships. The findings reported in this study also aid decision-makers in improving the critical causal factors in a way to enhance the OHS of RMAA sector.
... While previous studies have highlighted the positive impact of BIM on productivity [1], facility life-cycle data and information captured in BI models during design and construction are critical for assisting and aiding facility managers and owners/operators to better maintain and operate their facilities while enhancing collaboration [11]. Currently, this data and information are delivered using common BIM authoring and analysis platforms (such as Revit and Navisworks). ...
... The lack of knowledge and skills of most facility managers regarding interaction with BIM authoring and analysis platforms [11] discourages the use of these platforms by facility staff and hinders their ability to access critical life-cycle information embedded in the models. To facilitate the use and access of this critical information, software used to visualize and navigate model geometry and data should be more user-friendly and customized based on the needs of the user to enhance usability and support the adoption of the software selected [12,13]. ...
Facility lifecycle data captured in BIM during design and construction are very valuable for effective facility operations and maintenance. Traditionally, model authoring and analysis tools have been used to search and query model information. These tools are not well designed to search and display needed data and they require a steep learning curve. In this paper, the authors propose the use of Power BI dashboards to facilitate easy access and display of lifecycle data embedded in the model. The implementation and use of dashboards for facility management are discussed using a case study. The effectiveness and usability of the dashboards are validated using a focus group of six industry experts that were first interviewed then asked to complete a questionnaire. Feedback from interviews indicated that customized dashboards are effective tools to view, analyze and draw insights on data from various sources and can improve facility operations and management. Numerical results from the PSSUQ using fourteen questions indicated positive responses overall with an average score of four or five from the majority of respondents. Finally, the authors tested integration of the Power BI dashboards with the HoloLens 2 to deliver relevant up-to-date facility lifecycle data in near real-time to field staff.
... That is, the impact of the building material configuration on the building facilities (including durability and replaceability) must be considered in the building design. If these factors are considered in detail in the design stage, a building can be maintained and managed at low cost [33]. ...
The facility safety is a highly important issue in educational institutions and public facilities, where the safety and health of the occupants (students, educational and public service staff) is a high-order priority. The research hypothesizes that a synergy exists between the maintenance and safety of public facilities. Analytical–empirical research methods were aimed at the development of an integrated maintenance–safety framework. The framework was validated through inferential statistics and a case study. A correlation (R2) of 0.74 between the level of maintenance and the safety level of 24 educational facilities was found using the Pearson correlation coefficient. The levels of maintenance and of safety observed were marginal. An innovative Integrated Safety–maintenance performance framework was developed for synergetic safety–maintenance monitoring, control and management. The framework proposes a cycle loop of safety–maintenance–performance audits of facilities as a key tool for advanced maintenance and safety management in public facilities. The framework was validated in a case study of public facility. The time history of maintenance performance and safety shows a high level of fitness (R2 = 0.8865, p-Value < 0.05). These research findings stress that integrated safety and maintenance should be implemented as a unified procedure to enhance the advanced maintenance performance and safety climate in public facilities management.
... The authors in [28] claim that although the Oculus Rift is an affordable device, it is characterized by a wide field of view, stereoscopic viewing, and physical rotation. In another approach, [34] highlighted that the use of HTC vive provides efficient visual reliability and input solutions. Furthermore, the BIM-based VR approaches have been applied in several application domains related to the construction project such as the facility management field [34]. ...
... In another approach, [34] highlighted that the use of HTC vive provides efficient visual reliability and input solutions. Furthermore, the BIM-based VR approaches have been applied in several application domains related to the construction project such as the facility management field [34]. ...
... In the study of [34], VR has been implemented and integrated with BIM in order to allow maintenance personnel, facility managers and stakeholders to communicate effectively and to share comments, notes, lessons learned from the project execution and advice providing constructive feedback and database to enhance future designs. In another case, Petrova et al. [27] proposed a BIM-based VR solution applied in the building furnishing field. ...
Thanks to the digital revolution, the construction industry has seen a recognizable evolution, where the world has been heading towards modern constructions based on the use of Building Information Modeling (BIM). This evolution was marked by the integration of this paradigm with immersive technologies like Virtual Reality (VR), Augmented Reality (AR), and Mixed Reality (MR). During the last few years, the development of BIM started to emerge. This paper proposes a Systematic Literature Review (SLR) of recent studies about the integration of BIM with immersive environments using VR/AR/MR technologies. Four electronic databases were exploited to search for eligible studies, namely: Google Scholar, ACM Digital Library, IEEE Xplore, and Science direct. From an initial cohort of 239 studies, 28 were retained for analysis. The main findings of this review have been focused on stages of the projects’ life cycle in which the immersive technologies are being implemented, approaches/techniques used to ensure the integration of BIM with the three immersive technologies, along with the current limitations and perspectives.
... VR simulations have already proven effective in maintainability design, supporting the evaluation of ergonomics, accessibility of components, environment factors such as heat or radiation, workers' fatigue, and other human factors [62,63]. For instance, Akanmu et al. [64] presented an automated system that integrated BIM models, Microsoft Azure, and VR to engage facility managers in the design phase regarding the accessibility of building components for maintenance. The system provided a platform for mining and extracting knowledge from feedback provided by facility managers to improve building design tools. ...
The operation and maintenance (O&M) of buildings and infrastructure represent a strategic activity to ensure they perform as expected over time and to reduce energy consumption and maintenance costs at the urban and building scale. With the increasing diffusion of BIM, IoT devices, and AI, the future of O&M is represented by digital twin technology. To effectively take advantage of this digital revolution, thus enabling data-driven energy control, proactive maintenance, and predictive daily operations, it is vital that smart building management exploits the opportunities offered by the extended reality (XR) technologies. Nevertheless, in consideration of the novelty of XR in the AECO sector and its rapid and ongoing evolution, knowledge of the specific possibilities and the methods of integration into the building process workflow is still piecemeal and sparse. With the goal to bridge this gap, the article presents a thorough review of virtual reality (VR), augmented reality (AR), and mixed reality (MR) technologies and applications for smart building operation and maintenance. After defining VR, AR, and MR, the article provides a detailed review that analyzes, categorizes, and summarizes state-of-the-art XR technologies and their possible applications for building O&M along with their relative advantages and disadvantages. The article concludes that the application of XR in building and city management is showing promising results in enhancing human performance in technical O&M tasks, in understanding and controlling the energy efficiency, comfort, and safety of building and infrastructures, and in supporting strategic decision making for the future smart city.
... Building maintenance: The maintainability of a building is one of the features that should be considered in the pre-and post-construction phases. This has not traditionally been considered in design, however, because no technology or tools were available for it (Akanmu, Olayiwola, and Olatunji 2020). With the advancement of BIM, it is more convenient to include maintainability considerations. ...
... VR can help improve the visualization of facilities and verify their maintainability in advance. An example of incorporating VR and BIM for building maintenance is a study by Akanmu, Olayiwola, and Olatunji (2020). They developed an automated system to consider the facility manager's input regarding the accessibility of building components for maintenance. ...
... The visualization of BIM Information can support, for instance, facility management before conducting a visit in person. Akanmu, Olayiwola, and Olatunji (2020) note that future work should evaluate VR support for reviewing designs for maintainability. ...
The field of architecture, engineering, and construction (AEC) is continually striving to use resources efficiently and manage complex processes. Now more than ever, there is a strong need for digital transformation in AEC. The improvement in the accessibility of consumer-based head-mounted displays (HMD) is attracting different entertainment and research fields to immersive virtual reality (VR) applications. Building Information Modeling (BIM) is known as a promising technology in AEC. The full potential of BIM is not yet employed to empower this field, however, and this could be a result of some barriers still to be surmounted by BIM in both technological and management perspectives. One of these barriers is the communication and collaboration between design, construction, operation, and maintenance phases. VR can fill this gap by providing additional capabilities for BIM which either were not available before or were not possible to employ in practical ways. In this paper, we systematically review recent research around the application of VR in BIM and discuss the results using the PRISMA flowchart. We discuss the most commonly used technologies, software, and evaluation methods and the various applications of VR in the reviewed papers. Finally, we extend the discussion by summarizing the potential future work in this area.
