Giuseppe Moglia

BIM and the construction sector have long been an inseparable pair: in many European Countries it is a consolidated practice while in others there is a big debate about it but. Although there are important signs of a turning point, it still does not seem to be really feasible. In Italy, the leverage for transformation is certainly the public works sector, but this is not enough: to really talk about a whole digitization of the AEC sector, it is necessary to “attract” the private sector, where more than 50% of investments are invested. The chapter will attempt, starting from an Italian framework overview, to assess the main perceived obstacles of the applicability of a BIM model for facility management. The tool chosen by the authors as a preliminary approach to the problem, the SWOT analysis, allows an effective synthesis of the strengths and weaknesses resulting from such implementation.

BIM and the construction sector have long been an inseparable pair: in many European Countries it is a consolidated practice while in others there is a big debate about it but. Although there are important signs of a turning point, it still does not seem to be really feasible. In Italy, the leverage for transformation is certainly the public works sector, but this is not enough: to really talk about a whole digitization of the AEC sector, it is necessary to “attract” the private sector, where more than 50% of investments are invested. The chapter will attempt, starting from an Italian framework overview, to assess the main perceived obstacles of the applicability of a BIM model for facility management. The tool chosen by the authors as a preliminary approach to the problem, the SWOT analysis, allows an effective synthesis of the strengths and weaknesses resulting from such implementation.

By now, it is clear the built environment could play an important role in fighting climate change, since it accounts for around 39% of global energy-related carbon emissions. Generally speaking, Italian residential stock is over 50 years old and around 16% of that needs large interventions due to its poor maintenance condition. So, the maintenance in this context can play a pivotal role in acheiving both energy efficiency and asset valorization. Introduced by a reference framework for the question in the title, this paper presents the case study: a portion of a working-class neighborhoods near the metropolitan city of Turin, marked by very recurrent typologies for the period (early seventies). The local real estate market is discussed to investigate the extraordinary maintenance impact on the property values: the paper considers the market value increase due to the energy class upgrade and the external look improvement. Individual owners putting money on this group of works get a very cost-effective investment and take advantage of Italian legislation supporting these kinds of interventions: the whole is greater than the sum of its parts and in turn greater than the cost assumed for the renovation work.

The Italian way of thinking about maintenance is too often one-sided. Indeed, it is considered not so much as a useful practice to prevent the occurrence of a fault (ex ante), but as an intervention to solve it (ex post). Analyzing the legislation relating to the construction sector, it can be seen that it does not clearly define the responsibilities, timescales and methods in which maintenance interventions must be planned and carried out. For this reason, this practice is still very weak compared, for example, to the industrial sector, where it is an established practice. Currently, the complexity of reading the maintenance plans drawn up by designers and the considerable costs associated with maintenance operations discourage owners and managers from even carrying out preliminary inspection operations. This research aims to stimulate these stakeholders to carry out inspection operations regularly, highlighting their costs and benefits. In particular, working on a case study in Piedmont, the costs of visual inspections carried out in the traditional way are compared with those that would be incurred if unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) were used. Finally, the collateral benefits of inspections carried out with UAVs are highlighted.