Automated and interconnected facility management system: An open IFC cloud-based BIM solution

Anecdotal evidence from industry and research studies acknowledges the shortcomings of current frameworks and tools, such as COBie add-ins made available by major BIM tool vendors. A primary challenge is that such tools heavily rely on manual data entry. Manual input is time-consuming and prone to human errors or omissions. Very few open IFC web-based BIM tools exist to support information exchange for facilities management and eliminate excess data redundancy and manual input. This paper adopts a software development process to create an open web-based prototype to bridge the gap in existing semi-automated tools such as COBie. The prototype created was tested using three case studies. Findings of the prototype test revealed challenges of the prototype's application and highlighted the need for replicating the IFC extracted data to the cloud server via linked servers in SQL. Finally, future work is proposed, delineating the necessity of simplifying the proposed web-based prototype system by integrating the desktop and cloud services into one integrated web-based system.