In the design phases of modern construction, the assessments made by a private client or by a contracting authority go beyond the realization of the work itself. Starting from the design phase, additional components are considered that influence the design choices, i.e. maintenance, operating costs, and the final residual value of the construction.
Maintainability is one of the design requirements that predominantly enter the design phase as its costs represent a significant share in the expense of managing the real estate assets.
The Life Cycle Cost is an evaluation method that allows you to identify the overall cost of a work, evaluating its integral life cycle. The overall cost of a durable asset consists of the purchase price and all the expenses necessary for its use during its useful life.
If all the costs incurred in its life cycle are observed for a building, we can see that the overall cost is the sum of the following factors: Initial production cost + Usage costs + demolition cost (either positive or negative residual value, that the asset has at the end of its useful life).
This global cost estimate is essential for deciding whether to invest in the construction process by examining all the phases: design, construction, and management of the building.
This approach allows you to optimize construction costs and its use, its use is suggested by DPR 207/2012 and UNI CEI EN 16001 Energy Management Systems (Appendix A).
Today it is possible to estimate the maintenance costs, using the “maintenance plan” that the law envisages as a mandatory draft of the working plan (Articles 33 and 38 of DPR 207/10) for all public and private works.
The definition of maintenance is provided to us by the UNI EN 13306: 2003 standard: “it is the combination of all the technical, administrative and management actions, during the life cycle of an entity, aimed at maintaining it or returning it to a state in which it can perform the requested function “.
According to various illustrious studies on the subject, for every euro spent on the construction of a building, between 5 and 7 are spent on its maintenance, in particular, the English company “Royal Academy of Engineering” has analyzed the typical costs of an office building, over thirty years, and has obtained a ratio of 1: 5: 200 relative to construction costs, maintenance costs and operating costs.
How can construction companies minimize this large cost gap?
LA SIA is facing this challenge using the BIM method, that is, the process of development, growth and analysis of virtual multi-dimensional models generated digitally by means of software.
The BIM method is based on the coordination between the various players involved in the “life” of the work by promoting communication, cooperation, simulation and improvement of processes in all their phases, starting from the design phase, through the realization phase, up to that of use and maintenance.
The digital model, containing all the information necessary for the management of the work, is an extremely effective tool for planning activities related to facility management. In the BIM methodology this activity is called 6D and represents the “smart” use of information allowing to optimize times and costs.
