Construction Closeout—These include record documents, addenda, field
orders, change orders, spare parts and maintenance materials, warranties
and commissioning documentation.
The vast majority of the documents created during the design and construc-
tion phases use word processing and CAD programs and are distributed via
office paper and sheets of drawings. Much of this information is distributed
via e-mail or posted on a FTP site but little of it is typically used or in a format
to be used with the facility management or business systems of the owner.
If a building is being designed without the benefit of building information
modeling (BIM) there are still approaches that can be taken to facilitate the
gathering of electronic data. These approaches are not a replacement for
BIM and will not provide the quality and quantity of information that BIM
can but they will provide more information in an electronic format than the
traditional paper plans and specifications. Summaries of such approaches
follow:
n Have the contractors submit their product data electronically such as elec-
tronic copies of the manufacturer’s specification sheets (in Adobe PDF) for
each component delivered, installed, inventoried or made part of construc-
tion. These may not be in a database format but they can be stored in a
data management application which may be a software module in some
of the better facility management systems.
n Have the contractors provide a listing of the product data in electronic
format, such as Microsoft Excel, and have it include item numbers, descrip-
tions, item model numbers, order numbers, skew numbers, unit cost,
preventative maintenance schedule, warranty and life cycle.
n Have the contractors supply the operations and maintenance manuals in
Microsoft Word or Adobe PDF.
n Prior to construction develop a labeling scheme for all equipment and
assets. Have the contractors use the scheme on all submitted drawings
from shop drawings through as-built drawings. Naming conventions are
especially important for campus environments and large real estate
portfolios.
n Require that the administrative software for each building system utilize an
open database, compliant with SQL and ODBC, such that it can share and
retrieve information from other SQL and ODBC databases.
n Use a real-time location system (RTLS) to track the building’s assets. The
“legacy” method of tracking—bar codes—cannot be changed, needs a line
Design, Construction, and Renovations 151