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Investigating human and technological requirements for successful implementation of a BIM-based mobile augmented reality environment in facility management practices

Masoud Gheisari (Mississippi State University, Starkville, Mississippi, United States)
Javier Irizarry (School of Building Construction, Georgia Institute Of Technology, Atlanta, Georgia, United States)

Facilities

ISSN: 0263-2772

Article publication date: 1 February 2016

3431

Abstract

Purpose

With the facility management industry increasingly adopting building information modeling (BIM) technologies, there is a need to investigate where this industry stands in its application. Moreover, studies on efficient and cost-effective solutions to integrate BIM and mobile augmented reality (MAR) present an environment where facility managers can experience an intuitive natural interaction with their mobile interfaces to efficiently access needed information. The industry’s view on this new approach of accessing information from BIM models should also be investigated, and its feedback should be considered for future phases of this avenue of research.

Design/methodology/approach

This paper explores not only how BIM can be beneficial to facility management practitioners, but also how its integration with MAR and making the data accessible through handheld mobile devices can enhance current facility management practices. An online survey was conducted to assess professional facility managers’ characteristics, technology use and working environment as well as the current status of BIM application in their practices. An online video scenario has also been used to illustrate to facility managers how an ideal BIM-MAR-integrated environment could provide them with mobile access to their required information. Facility managers’ feedback on usability, applicability and challenges of such environment has also been investigated through a follow-up survey.

Findings

With this paper, industry practitioners as well as academic researchers will be able to understand the current status of BIM and mobile computing application in facility management along with the benefits and challenges of implementing these technologies in an augmented reality (AR) environment.

Originality/value

Understanding facility managers’ requirements, characteristics and the way they do their tasks would be of great value for development of tools or systems that would facilitate their practices.

Keywords

Acknowledgements

The authors would like to thank Kathy Roper from the School of Building Construction at Georgia Tech; Bruce Walker from the School of Psychology and the School of Interactive Computing at Georgia Tech; Henry Bukard from Shepherd Center; Samuel Williams from Grady Hospital for their advice and help throughout this project. Special thanks to International Facility Management Association (IFMA) and American Society for Healthcare Engineers (ASHE) for providing support to conduct this research.

Citation

Gheisari, M. and Irizarry, J. (2016), "Investigating human and technological requirements for successful implementation of a BIM-based mobile augmented reality environment in facility management practices", Facilities, Vol. 34 No. 1/2, pp. 69-84. https://doi.org/10.1108/F-04-2014-0040

Publisher

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Emerald Group Publishing Limited

Copyright © 2016, Emerald Group Publishing Limited

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