Highlighting a lack of communication and information between building construction and maintenance, Michael Glass of Asbuilt states the case for good building documentation in providing a sustainable link between design, construction and operations.

• How can building documentation help save time, money and risk?
• What elements should comprehensive building documentation cover?

From 1884 an iconic structure has 'bridged the gap' between north and south London.

It took 432 construction workers from five major contractors over eight years to build. But more than that, Tower Bridge stands as an example for two great professions to follow.

With the bridge up, no road traffic passes, and pedestrians need to take hours climbing one tower and descending another.

The bridge is a symbol of where we are with construction and facilities.

It is now proven beyond any doubt that any plant or structure needs planned preventative maintenance to avoid both huge repair costs and damaging downtime.

We also know that if a building costs £10m to construct, in 20 years the building will have cost £20m to operate and maintain.

The bridge is good building documentation

Our problem is that there are two clear parties with such diverse objectives that on many occasions that bridge is up and the result is wasted money, shortened life for assets and increased risk for users.

As Peter Cordy, Chair of BIFM, states in FM World, "Great buildings and settings do not necessarily result in great experiences for the people who use them."[1]

Let us examine the two parties: the construction manager and facilities manager.

The construction manager has a design handed to him, has to stay within cost, has a deadline to complete by; to get paid he needs a tick in a box for building documentation.

His lifespan connected to the building is fixed and probably no longer than three years.

The facilities manager is there for life, needs to offer a service, has to be sustainable, has a long duty of care, has to minimise cost for years and years, has to ensure building continuity of use, requires access to building documentation 24/7 anytime from anywhere... and quickly.

"Construction firms love a 'christening' but it's toddlers, teenagers and old-timers that grab the facilities manager's attention," Alan Soper, MD of building maintenance firm Ian Williams, told FM World. "A building is for life, not just for 'christening'- that's the key message."[2]

The building life process is not rocket science: design, plan, construct, fit out, lease and occupy.

But it is so rare to see the people involved in the same room or around the same table. We need to consider what is available in creating a building: knowledge, experience, relationships, trust, accountability, sustainability and reference.

Figure 1a. The building knowledge base

Figure 1b. Where is there a gap?

Figure 1c. Quality documents and communication lead to an iconic experience.

The Founding Chair of Global FM Stan Mitchell admits in FM World: "We can use one voice but we never speak the same language."[2]

Even Ian Fielder, CEO of BIFM, stated at a recent talk shop, "Why don't institutes collaborate to produce one standard of reporting?"

I am sure that if I had had a map of the mains water pipes, we would have identified that a 30cm diameter hole by a road in the Channel Tunnel Village was not slight subsidence but a huge cavern washed away by mains pressure water, like we did when a security guard fell down the hole one night.

Having an electrical drawing and load factors available would have been handy to specify to the local electricians in Kazakhstan when they replaced some overloading fuses, instead of waking up one morning to the sound of fire engines rushing to the Druzba Restaurant that burnt down in Tengiz.

An operation manual, I am sure, would have helped the waste disposal team in Mount Pleasant, Falkland Islands, to work out how to increase the temperature in the incinerator when we were asked to burn the amputated leg of a Polish sailor. Instead, it took three days to cremate.

If the designers had involved the facilities manager in an office block layout by understanding the desk configuration that was planned, it would have saved the complete redesign of the air conditioning system at fit-out costing money but also saving the environment potentially two wastes...

These are just a few examples from my own experiences where building documentation can save money, time and risk.

I was told by a managing director of a development firm in the Midlands that he had searched for 10 days for a letter from his client in his building paper records of a warehouse.

The letter, from the client, had instructed him to reduce the number of floor heaters at the dock leveller doors to save money.

But save money it did not as the concrete was cracked in the first winter and he wanted to avoid a legal case.

A similar search for a variation order took just eight seconds to find in an electronic system of building records that we demonstrated.
 
Roderic Bunn, in the introduction of the Building Services Research Information Association (BSRIA) handbook Handover, O&M Manuals and Project Feedback BG1/2007, explains, "The construction industry is unique in the way that million-pound products can change hands with very little in the way of formal handover and customer care.”

“Even the humble £5,000 hatchback is subject to a stringent pre-delivery inspection followed by a free, five-year manufacturer's warranty,” he adds.

“The £20m office, on the other hand, can last 10 times longer, is arguably far more complex and fragile, and can rarely be counted on to work first time. Cars come with well-written and scrupulously illustrated owners' manuals. Buildings come with a hotchpotch of drawings, product literature and jargon-rich technical documents packed in the ring binders," says Bunn.

How hard is it to correct this situation? BSRIA should be the first step.

We need owners, developers and organisations who let construction contracts to refer to what building handover documents should not only consist of but how they should be presented to achieve practical completion.

The BSRIA guide Handover, O&M Manuals and Project Feedback BG1/2007 is a starting point to take reference from, but why don't we involve the users - the facilities managers - to define what and how they need it?

They will say we need it: complete, comprehensive, jargon-free, with drawings, pictures and schematics, certification, permissions and planning should all be there. In the design section the architect/designer should cover how they have designed the building to be used - from the escape routes in a fire to how to keep people warm in winter and cool in summer without ruining the environment.

It should be searchable, indexed, credible, electronic and addable too. The handover documents should be a start point in which to record all building documents, building log, energy performance, alterations and modifications as the life of the building extends.

The journey's bridge is good building documentation providing a sustainable link between design, construction and operations.

The journey to that iconic experience Peter Cordy speaks of starts on a drawing board with an architect and ends with a facilities manager opening the door for you.

But as all travellers know and respect, every journey needs a route map and the better the map the smoother and more risk-free the journey is.

The same applies to buildings: documentation is the key to a well-run, well-serviced building.

It need not be paper documentation; in this age of digital, a database of 2 tier OCR documents gives the facilities manager their route map, stop-off points and destination, complying with duty of care with minimum risk, minimum expense and most of all happy and satisfied users in a sustainable building as per design.

To achieve that destination with a painless journey, when your CEO says, "We are moving," start by saying you would like to define your route map of building handover documentation.

References
1. FM World. 29 May 2008.
2. FM World. 17 April 2008.

About the author

With 26 years in the service industry and 14 years in FM, Michael Glass has taken over some iconic structures in which to provide services, from the Mount Pleasant Airport in the Falklands to the Channel Tunnel Construction Village.

After being a past Chair of Midland Region of the BIFM, he is now Sales Manager for Asbuilt Ltd, providing electronic building documentation for the construction industry - bridging that gap.