Developing COBie dataset management system (CDMS) to enhance usability of building information model-facilities management information exchange standard

To deal with barriers associated with BIM to FM data transfer such as data interoperability, data integration, reliance on recapturing of data into FM system from the paper-based manuals, COBie (Construction Operations Building information exchange) has been developed. COBie is a vendor-neutral data exchange format, which can be delivered in various open file formats such as STEP, XML, and Spreadsheet. Currently, the most commonly used data transfer file format is spreadsheets due to its familiarity with most of the professionals in the construction industry.However, various published articles highlighted multiple issues with COBie related data handling, such as issues in interpreting, capturing, querying, and finding the data inside the COBie sheet. This study aims to identify the key benefits and issues associated with COBie handling and propose a COBie Dataset Management System (CDMS), which can help in solving these issues.In the process of development of the proposed CDMS system, a critical review of the published articles related to the COBie datasheet has been carried out. Along with the literature review, an exploratory study using a BIM Model was conducted to understand the key issues highlighted in the reviewed articles. Based on the identified benefits and key issues, underlying reasons were recognized, and key ideas were developed, which can potentially solve these key issues. After the identification of the benefits, issues, and key ideas, a questionnaire survey was conducted among professionals who are well versed in handling COBie datasheets to verify their agreement on the benefits, issues, and key ideas identified through literature review. It was acknowledged that all the key benefits, issues, and ideas were significantly important, and there was an agreement over the key benefits, issues, and ideas to mitigate these issues, among the surveyed professionals.Based on these ideas, a conceptual framework for the proposed CDMS system was developed using the graph model (graph theory) as its core. This proposed system is designed to tackle those key issues which need technical development (like tools) to be mitigated. The proposed CDMS system consists of four modules: COBie Automator, COBie Evaluator, COBie Visualizer, and COBie for Recycling. The system has been developed using an open-source programming language (Python) and the OrientDB community edition (as the database platform).COBie Automator is the first module, which helps in the automatic creation of COBie required attributes inside the BIM model and capturing of required parameter values by simple assignment of product to element inside the BIM model. This module also proposes a methodology to automatically extract COBie required product specifications from Product Data Sheets (PDS) based on Product Data Templates (PDT) issued by NBS and CIBSE. Such automatic extraction and assignment of data have not been explored before.COBie Evaluator is the second module, which helps in evaluating the COBie datasheet to gain useful insight over the project. Its “verifier component,” verifies the data inside the COBie sheet on a more semantic level while its “compare component,” compares two COBie sheet to understand how COBie data has changed and what are the underlying reasons for such changes.