The use of a BIM-based framework to support safe facility management processes

According to the United States Bureau of Labor Statistics, 293 people lost their life from 2008-2012 in the field of Facility Management (FM). In that same timeframe, private employers recorded 98,420 cases of occupational injuries and illness, with 26,190 cases requiring a minimum of 31 days away from work. Workers in this field are at constant risk of electrical shock, falls, crushing, cuts, and bruises and as a result, have a much higher rate of injury and illness than the national average. Case study analysis confirms that many of the recorded accidents could have been avoided had the victim followed appropriate hazard mitigation steps to safely execute a facility repair and maintenance task, defined in this research as safety protocol. Currently, safety related information is conveyed to FM staff through training seminars, OandM manuals, plans and specifications, database storage, safety meetings, and safety literature. This information, although comprehensive, often remains fragmented among multiple resources and is left up to the worker's discretion whether the information is relevant. Research has shown that the more time and effort, known as inconvenience, an individual must spend obtaining information, the less likely they are to retrieve the information and obey the stated warnings. This research focuses on the identification, categorization, transference, and delivery of safety related information applicable to facility management staff. This is executed by, obtaining safety inputs through various mechanisms of data collection, categorizing the safety inputs, transferring the information utilizing existing BIM-based software and research methods into a data storage repository, and designing a data retrieval and processing system (DRPS), integrated into the repository to interact with the data. The DRPS adds structure and relationships through a UML Class Diagram and Sequence Diagram. Additionally, standardized safety properties are developed for asset groups using the Asset Safety Identification Tool (ASIT). Finally, a conceptual graphical user interface (GUI) is developed to represent the interaction between the DRPS and the FM Worker. By combining the DRPS with a GUI, a FM worker can efficiently interact with a singular repository for safety information, eliminating the need to reference multiple resources in order to obtain comprehensive safety information. The goal of this research is to mitigate the fragmentation and timing inefficiencies within safety related information retrieval by developing a BIM-based framework to categorize, consolidate, and deliver job specific safety information, eliminating the need to reference multiple documents in order to develop a comprehensive, task specific safety plan.