Advancing BIM implementation in facilities management to drive sustainability in the Malaysian construction industry

Facilities management (FM) is a profession that encompass various disciplines to ensure functionality of the built environment through integration of people, place, process and technology. Conventional FM practices that focus on manual procedures and reactive maintenance approaches often lead to inefficiency and higher operational cost. Inefficiency at the operational phase could contribute to excessive energy use and waste generation, requiring the implementation of Building Information Modelling (BIM) in FM to address these sustainability issues. However, the adoption of BIM in FM is not widespread and its application in FM is still vaguely explored. The objective of this research is to identify the challenges faced by Malaysian construction industry stakeholders in implementing BIM in FM and to determine their readiness level in implementing BIM in FM. For this research, a quantitative research method is employed in which the questionnaire will be distributed to the selected respondents consisting of the facility managers, professionals working in FM industry, engineers and quantity surveyors who are experienced in FM processes. The questionnaire is designed with closed-ended questions, and it is separated into three sections. Then, the descriptive and inferential analysis will be used to examine and interpret the primary data obtained from the questionnaire. For descriptive analysis, frequency distribution and mean analysis will be employed while the inferential analysis will be performed through normality test and non-parametric test which are one-way ANOVA test or Kruskal-Wallis test, depending on the data distribution. This research provides insight into challenges relating to BIM implementation in FM which can encourage improved facilities management practices. The findings are crucial in assessing the landscape of BIM-enabled FM in Malaysian construction industry context. Meanwhile, the role of BIM-FM in advancing sustainability within the built environment can also be explored from the research findings.