The contextual information requirements for collection and use of occupant feedback in BIM-enabled FM

Abstract

Purpose: Occupant feedback is crucial for healthy, comfortable and productive offices. Existing facility management (FM) systems are limited in effective use of occupant feedback, as they fail to collect the vital contextual information (e.g. related building element, space) associated with the feedback. The purpose of this study is to formalise the contextual information requirements for structured collection of occupant feedback for rapid diagnosis and resolution of problems and integrating occupant feedback with building information modelling (BIM) for making use of its visualisation and analysis capabilities, and eventually for effective use of occupant feedback in FM operations. Design/methodology/approach: A mixed-methods approach was conducted in four steps: (1) identifying occupant feedback types (e.g. echo in meeting room) in office buildings, (2) examining the current practice in collecting and processing occupant feedback via use cases, (3) determining the contextual information requirements via expert interviews and (4) validation of the information requirements via a BIM-integrated prototype. Findings: The findings present the contextual information requirements for 107 occupant feedback types grouped under thermal comfort, indoor air quality, acoustic comfort, visual comfort, building design and facility services. Practical implications: Feedback-specific contextual information items enable structured data collection and help to avoid missing data and minimise the time lost in manual data entry and recursive interaction with the occupants during FM operations. Originality/value: The contextual information requirements determined are expected to enhance occupant satisfaction and FM performance in office buildings by better use of the occupant feedback and integration into BIM-enabled FM and can be extended to other building types in future studies by using the proposed methodology.