Lewis, A and Elmualim, A (2011) Development of a decision support system for proactive energy and maintenance management decisions. In: Egbu, C and Lou, E C W (eds.) Proceedings of 27th Annual ARCOM Conference, 5-7 September 2011, Bristol, UK.
Abstract
Energy efficiency of commercial and institutional buildings is a topic that has continued to gain interest as sustainability, green and high performance buildings gain the attention of building owners, facility managers, engineers, architects and other professionals within the built environment. To support this area of interest, tools are needed. The aim of this paper is to summarize the development and testing of a decision support system that links energy and maintenance management to help facility managers make proactive energy and maintenance management decisions to help achieve sustainability and energy efficiency goals for heating, ventilating and air-conditioning (HVAC) systems. The decision support system was developed using a multimethodlogy, mixed methods approach. Three case studies and a questionnaire were used as the foundation to develop the rules to code the decision support system. The decision support system was tested by 56 industry participants and evaluated by 38 of the test participants. Overall, the evaluations revealed that the decision support system was helpful to very helpful and useful to very useful. It is concluded that the decision support system can be an effective tool to help facility managers make combined energy and maintenance management decisions to meet sustainability goals and transition more proactive energy and maintenance management practices.
| Item Type: | Conference Paper (Paper) |
|---|---|
| Uncontrolled Keywords: | action research; decision support; energy efficiency; facility management; maintenance |
| Index terms: | built environment, architect, questionnaire, testing, institutional building, manager, energy efficiency, maintenance management, case study, decision support, action research, mixed method, engineer, owner |
| Subjects: | maintenance engineering, decision analysis, sociology, infrastructure and transport systems, profession, construction type, data collection methods, practitioner, sustainability and energy, professional practice |
| Topics: | Business Strategy, Research Practice, Engineering Principles, Roles and Professions, Stakeholder Management, Risk Management, Construction Technology, Sustainability, Urban Studies |
| Descriptive scope: | 4 PCEA |
N.B. Descriptive scope is a count of how many of the five facets of empirical research are indicated by the words used in title, abstract and keywords. It is not intended as a judgement on the research; merely a count of the kind of word we would expect to indicate Phenomenon, Concepts, Theoretical framing, Empirical techniques, Analytical techniques. If all five are present, then a code of “5 PCTEA” will indicate this. If you feel the coding for this record is questionable, we welcome discussion around the terms we matched or the way we categorized them. The facet you would expect may not be coded, or a facet may be coded inappropriately. This can also bear on a larger question, of which facets should be treated as defining in construction management research. Please get in touch, and we will look at it. More details here