Digital Handover of Data from Building Projects to Building Operation

The development of computer based facilities management has not developed as rapid as expected by most professionals, mainly due to lack of interoperability between IT sys-tems. This is particularly a problem with the transfer of data between IT systems used on the one side in building design and construction and on the other side in building opera-tion and facilities management.

In Denmark the government has launched a development program called Digital Construction and one of the projects concerns specifying require-ments for building clients in relation to digital handover of data from construction pro-jects to building operation. This project started in 2004 with research and analyses fol-lowed by development of a proposal for client requirements and in 2005 a first test on a real construction project has been carried out.

After revision of the requirements a second test will be started early 2006 and the project will be finished by the end of 2006. The resulting client requirements are expected to be compulsory for all public construction clients in Denmark and the aim is to develop a standard that can be implemented by the whole construction industry.

The project is carried out by a consortium called DACaPo consisting of a building client/facilities manager, a consulting company, a contractor and a university institute. This paper presents some of the results from the project with the main focus on the initial research.