A Domain-Independent Facility Control Framework

The purpose of our built environment is to provide spaces in which human-designed activities may comfortably occur. An ever-increasing set of technical disciplines, economics, and societal norms place dynamic requirements on those who plan, design, construct, maintain, operate and manage our built environment. In this paper, a domain-independent framework to capture design requirements and then compare those requirements to the actual performance of a facility is presented. The foundations of this framework were five related Industry Foundation Class Model View Definitions that are partially implemented within commercial software and are being balloted within the United States National Building Information Model Standard (NBIMS-US V3). The application of this framework was tested using an algorithm that compares expected data with as-operated sensor telemetry. This algorithm was verified against simulated data and validated against sensor data. The sample models and tool kit developed for this project’s experimental test bed has been adopted by industry and academia to support their missions of streamlining design and construction processes and educating future design and construction professionals. In addition, the initial application of this framework to support wider sustainability, engineering economics, and business process analysis goals is introduced. These applications demonstrate how small additions to standard building information model submission may quantitatively address current and future requirements placed on our engineered environment. CE Database subject headings: Building information models; Design management; Construction management Author keywords: Building information model; BIM; Model view definition; MVD; Industry foundation class; domain-independent; framework; life cycle; building control; control cycle; COBie; HVACie; Sparkie; WSie; BAMie; BPie; resource utilization