From handover to value creation: BIM-based operations for investors

The success of a property development does not depend solely on whether the building is completed on time, within the specified budget and to the expected technical specifications. Its true performance becomes apparent in the years following handover: how cost-effectively the property can be operated, how quickly technical problems can be resolved, whether maintenance can be planned, and whether the information needed for informed decisions by the owner is available.

The BIM-based facility operations model developed by AFMTEC Services supports this long-term investor perspective. Its significance is also underlined by the fact that, from the United Kingdom and the United States to Singapore, the digitalisation of the built environment is moving in a similar direction: building-related data is no longer treated as one-off project documentation, but as an asset that can be used throughout the entire life cycle.

International experience shows that the level of savings achieved through BIM-based operations is not a given and does not depend solely on creating the model. Actual results are determined by the model’s data quality, its alignment with operational processes, the depth of system integration, and whether the owner and operator actually use the data in day-to-day decision-making.

Not just a 3D model, but an operational information system

Many people still regard BIM primarily as a three-dimensional design technology. However, the operational BIM model – known internationally as the Asset Information Model, or AIM – means considerably more than this.

An AIM is a structured digital information environment in which the building’s geometric representation can be linked to, among other things:

• the technical data of installed equipment;
• the exact locations of assets and their system connections;
• manufacturer, warranty and supplier information;
• operation and maintenance documentation;
• planned inspection and maintenance cycles;
• room functions and area data;
• and performance data generated during operations.

The investor therefore receives not isolated design files, spreadsheets and document folders, but a unified, searchable information system that can be developed further.

This is also consistent with the approach of the ISO 19650-3 international standard, which treats information management during the operational phase as a controlled and repeatable process. One of the standard’s key messages is that the asset owner and operator must define what information they need, at what level of quality, and in connection with which events.

How much can it save in the long term?

International research and practical projects report differing results because not all BIM-based operational systems have the same depth of functionality. In some cases, the model primarily supports faster access to documents and asset data; in others, it is already connected to CAFM, BMS and IoT systems and actively supports energy optimisation or predictive maintenance.

For preliminary investment calculations, it is therefore advisable to consider several implementation scenarios rather than a single savings percentage.

Conservative implementation: 2–5% savings

In this case, the operational BIM model primarily serves as a reliable digital asset register and documentation resource. It speeds up information searches, helps identify the locations of faults, and reduces losses caused by incomplete or duplicate records.

This level can typically be achieved when:

• a verified asset and room register has been created;
• technical documentation is linked directly to model elements;
• operators have access to the system and use it;
• but full CAFM, BMS or IoT integration is not yet in place.

The main sources of savings at this stage are reduced administrative time, faster access to information, the avoidance of unnecessary site surveys and more precise work coordination.

Integrated implementation: 5–10% savings

The middle range may become realistic when the AIM model does not function as a standalone system, but is connected to facilities management processes. Data from the model is incorporated into the CAFM system, supporting preventive maintenance, fault ticket management, asset replacement planning and the monitoring of service provider performance.

An international business model developed for data-driven facility operations regarded annual operating and maintenance savings of approximately 10% as a conservative possibility for a 10,000-square-metre building. This figure cannot be applied automatically to every building, but it clearly illustrates that structured data and process integration can already deliver tangible business results.

This level generally requires:

• a reliable and verified asset database;
• a data connection between BIM and the CAFM system;
• planned preventive maintenance;
• standardised fault ticket and work order management;
• regular monitoring of operational performance indicators;
• and continuous updating of the model.

Advanced, data-driven operations: 10–20% savings

The higher savings range may be achievable with a mature implementation in which the BIM model, CAFM, BMS and IoT systems operate in a unified information environment. Operational decisions are based on real data, condition-based or predictive maintenance is introduced, and the building’s operation is continuously optimised.

International research examining digital twins in use for building operations has identified, among the quantified cases, HVAC energy savings of 14.5%, heating energy savings of 30% and a 34% reduction in electricity costs. Another case study demonstrated an approximately 22% reduction in annual maintenance costs through the use of a BIM-based predictive maintenance system.

However, these higher percentages typically relate to individual cost categories – such as energy or maintenance – rather than the property’s total operating costs. For long-term investment planning based on the total cost base, the 10–20% range can therefore be considered an appropriately cautious upper scenario for a well-implemented, actively used system.

When are results above 20% possible?

Improvements exceeding 20% may occur in certain individual processes. Examples include:

• reductions in search and administrative time;
• reductions in repetitive work;
• optimisation of energy consumption in a poorly controlled building;
• reductions in the number of unplanned breakdowns;
• or the transformation of a previously purely reactive maintenance system.

However, these results should not be automatically extrapolated to total operating costs. A credible business plan must always be based on the particular building’s initial condition, cost structure and defined use cases.

Overall, an investor can factor in approximately 2–20% in potential long-term savings on the relevant operating cost base, depending on implementation maturity. This is not a guaranteed return, but a planning range derived from international results. Actual savings must be verified in every project through measurement and predefined performance indicators.

What can Hungarian investors learn from international practice?

International experience shows that introducing the technology alone does not create BIM’s value. Success depends on whether the model’s content is linked to clear investor and operational objectives.

British experience: operations must be involved from the start of the project

The United Kingdom’s Government Soft Landings approach is based on incorporating the requirements of end users and operators from the very beginning of a development. In British practice, operating costs, maintainability, energy and environmental performance, training, trial operation and handover are not minor details that arise at the end of a project, but aspects that are continuously checked during design.

According to the British infrastructure development strategy, this early involvement and defined information exchange enable the building’s maintainability and performance targets to be assessed as designs evolve.

AFMTEC Services can translate this experience directly into benefits for investors by incorporating operational information requirements into the project when the BIM requirements are defined. In this way, the model does not attempt to reconstruct the building’s data retrospectively, but is built up progressively during design and construction.

European experience: BIM is a management tool for investors

The EU BIM Task Group defines BIM as a strategic tool spanning the entire life cycle. In the European approach, BIM is not a single software product or a model that must be produced, but a shared framework for collaboration, information exchange and decision-making.

The EU BIM Handbook places particular emphasis on the client defining clear requirements, applying standardised processes and linking expected outcomes to the project’s objectives. The EU BIM Task Group has also developed a separate cost-benefit methodology for examining the expenditure and anticipated benefits associated with the use of BIM on individual projects.

Accordingly, developing the AFMTEC Services model is not about accumulating unlimited amounts of data. The aim is to determine which information the investor and operator will actually need. This can reduce unnecessary modelling while ensuring that the data required for decisions is available at the appropriate level of quality.

American experience: data must be open and transferable

The General Services Administration, one of the largest government property management organisations in the United States, recognised as early as its initial BIM and facility operations programmes that the value of an operational model is determined by the transferability of its data and its usability across systems.

The GSA’s BIM guide for facility management therefore highlights the role of open data exchange standards, such as IFC and COBie, and the integration of BIM data with facilities management systems. The aim is to prevent investors from becoming locked into a single software product or service provider, and to ensure that the information remains usable in future systems.

This approach can be applied in AFMTEC Services’ work by prioritising interoperability. The model’s data structure should be designed so that it can connect to the investor’s CAFM, BMS, enterprise resource planning or other operational systems. The investor thus receives not only a model, but a dataset that remains accessible and transferable over the long term.

Singaporean experience: maintainability is a design issue

Singapore’s building regulator, the Building and Construction Authority, treats design, construction and operations as a unified digital value chain. One of the fundamental principles of Singaporean practice is “Design for Maintainability”, or designing with maintainability in mind.

The BCA’s BIM guide for asset information delivery emphasises that geometric and non-geometric data in BIM must be built up continuously from design through construction to operations. The Smart Facilities Management programme regards the integration of technology, processes and people as the foundation of data-driven building operations.

In the model developed by AFMTEC Services, this experience can be reflected in operators being able to check equipment accessibility, maintenance areas, the usability of rooms and the operational relationships between individual technical systems during the design stage. This can help prevent operational problems from being discovered only after the building has been completed.

Why should operations be considered at the very start of a development?

The outcome of BIM-based operations is largely determined long before the building is handed over. The owner and investor must define the information they will need to operate the building as early as the concept development and design brief stages.

The most important operational decisions are made early

The building’s orientation, mechanical services concept, automation system, choice of materials, equipment locations and maintainability are determined during design. Problems involving mechanical equipment that is difficult to access or a poorly designed maintenance access route can only be corrected at considerable expense after handover.

If the operator and BIM specialist become involved in time, these aspects can still be assessed when changes primarily involve design decisions rather than costly alterations.

Data is collected most efficiently when it is generated

Technical, manufacturer and warranty data for equipment is available during procurement and installation. Recording it at that point in a predefined structure is far simpler and more reliable than reconstructing it years later through site surveys, old documents or correspondence with suppliers.

BIM requirements must therefore be set out in design and construction contracts from the outset. If the required data, responsibilities and verification points are not included in the project requirements, making up for these omissions before handover is difficult or costly.

Appropriate system integration must be planned in advance

If the owner intends to connect the BIM model to their CAFM, BMS, IoT or enterprise resource planning system at a later stage, the data structure, asset identifiers and method of data exchange must be clarified at the start of the project.

Without a unified identification system, the same piece of equipment may appear under different names and codes in the designer’s model, the contractor’s records, the BMS and the CAFM system. Reconciling these afterwards can involve substantial manual effort and uncertainty.

Savings require a measurement baseline

The owner can only demonstrate the business results of BIM-based operations if they define in advance what they want to improve and how they will measure the change.

Such indicators may include:

• annual maintenance costs;
• the number of unplanned breakdowns;
• average fault resolution time;
• energy consumption;
• the rate of successful warranty claims;
• the completeness of asset data;
• or the time operators spend searching for information.

The benefits of BIM-based operations do not always emerge at the same time. The effects of improved data quality, preventive maintenance and energy optimisation become measurable gradually, over several years.

“We will sell it or outsource operations anyway” – why is this thinking flawed?

Investors often argue that additional spending on an operational BIM model is not justified because the property will be sold once completed, or its operations will be entrusted to an external service provider.

This may seem understandable from a short-term project perspective, but it is a flawed decision when considered over the property’s entire life cycle.

Operations can be outsourced; their financial consequences cannot

An external facility management provider can take over day-to-day operational tasks, but the financial consequences of poor building performance remain with the owner.

Incomplete documentation, inaccurate asset data and a lack of clarity about the building’s technical condition often require the operator to carry out its own surveys. The cost ultimately falls to the owner, either directly or through the service fee.

The external operator may also price the risk arising from missing information into its offer. Without an accurate asset list, maintenance history and reliable technical documentation, it has to make a larger allowance for unexpected tasks. Lower initial development costs can therefore translate into higher operating fees, more additional work and a poorer standard of service.

Outsourcing operations therefore does not reduce the importance of a unified database under the owner’s control; rather, it increases it. A BIM-based model enables the owner to retain knowledge about the building as a transferable data asset when service providers change, rather than leaving it in the current operator’s system or with its staff.

Selling the property does not eliminate life-cycle costs

An investor intending to sell the property after handover may easily assume that subsequent operating costs are no longer their concern. However, these are precisely the future costs and risks that the buyer will examine during due diligence and price negotiations.

A professional buyer assesses not only the current technical condition, but also:

• what operating and maintenance costs to expect;
• what asset replacements and refurbishments are anticipated;
• whether there are hidden technical or documentation risks;
• how readily area and asset data can be verified;
• what energy and performance data is available;
• and how quickly the property can be integrated into the buyer’s own operational system.

Incomplete information creates uncertainty. Buyers generally account for this uncertainty through a lower offer price, a risk-related deduction, stricter warranty terms or a longer due diligence process.

Saving on initial BIM costs can therefore backfire several times over at the point of sale: the investor may find themselves in a weaker negotiating position and have greater difficulty demonstrating the property’s technical quality, expected operating costs and long-term value.

The BIM model can increase the property’s sale value

A well-structured, up-to-date operational BIM model is not merely a technical appendix, but a digital data asset that supports the property’s value.

The model can increase the sale value and provide stronger support for it by:

• making technical due diligence faster and more transparent;
• reducing the buyer’s information risk;
• making the building’s technical specifications and condition easier to verify;
• enabling expected maintenance and replacement costs to be presented;
• substantiating energy and operational performance;
• facilitating integration into the buyer’s own CAFM or asset management system;
• and supporting the planning of future development, alterations or changes of use.

International research examining the link between BIM and life-cycle costs indicates that structured technical and financial information improves the transparency and robustness of property valuations. The European Union’s work on digital building logbooks is also based on the premise that building data accessible throughout the life cycle strengthens transparency, trust and informed decision-making.

It cannot be claimed that every building with a BIM model automatically achieves the same price premium. The impact on sale value also depends on the property type, its technical condition, the quality of the data and the pool of buyers. However, an auditable, up-to-date model that can be integrated into other systems can significantly strengthen the property’s market position, reduce the risk discount applied by the buyer and support a higher sale value.

The investor’s exit is not the end of the building’s life cycle

The investment’s commercial time horizon may be three, five or ten years, but the facility itself will operate for several decades. The project’s approach to information and operations should therefore not be determined solely by the first owner’s intended holding period.

The right approach is for the investor to take the facility’s entire life cycle as the starting point and create a digital foundation that:

• can be used immediately by the first operator;
• can be handed over when service providers change;
• has value when ownership changes;
• can be reused during refurbishment and alterations;
• and can be updated as the building changes.

The initial amount invested in a BIM-based operational model is therefore not a wasted additional expense. It is a life-cycle investment whose value can be realised through subsequent operating savings, lower risks, easier changes of operator and improved marketability of the property.

How does all this translate into benefits for investors?

More transparent and verifiable handover

The transition from construction to operations is one of the most critical periods in many developments. This is when as-built documentation, data on installed assets, warranties, operating instructions and maintenance requirements must be handed over.

If the requirements for these are established at the start of the project, the information does not have to be gathered retrospectively from different formats. AFMTEC Services can support the handover and acceptance process by checking the completeness, structure and compliance of the data.

The investor can thus verify not only that the building has been physically completed, but also that the digital information resources required to operate it have been created.

More predictable operating costs

Accurate knowledge of the asset inventory, maintenance cycles and technical relationships can provide a stronger basis for annual operating plans, refurbishment programmes and long-term investment decisions.

Data extracted from the model can help prioritise maintenance needs, forecast asset replacements and monitor service provider performance. The owner can thus gradually move away from reactive fault management towards more planned, preventive operations.

Faster fault resolution

When a breakdown occurs, the operator can identify the affected asset in the model, along with its exact location, technical parameters, connected systems and documentation. This can reduce the time spent searching for information and investigating on site.

If BIM and the CAFM system are connected, asset data can also be linked to work orders, fault tickets and maintenance histories. Over time, this can create an increasingly valuable dataset on the building’s operation that can support decision-making.

Better portfolio-level decisions

A unified data structure is particularly important for investors and owners with multiple properties. If assets, rooms and technical systems are recorded according to the same logic in every building, it becomes possible to compare operating costs, faults, energy consumption and asset condition.

This provides an opportunity to support not only facility operations, but also ownership-level and investment decision-making. It can help determine where refurbishment, asset replacement, a change of use or further development is justified.

From model to digital twin

The next stage of international development involves connecting the BIM model to the building’s live systems. The operational model created by AFMTEC Services can be integrated with CAFM, BMS and IoT solutions, allowing information generated by building operations to be used alongside static technical data.

Such a digital twin can make it possible to track, for example:

• the operational status of individual pieces of equipment;
• energy and utility consumption;
• temperature and environmental values;
• changes in loads and performance indicators;
• and maintenance and breakdown histories.

However, the business value of a digital twin is only realised when it addresses real decision-making problems. It is therefore advisable to begin implementing the technology with specific use cases – such as energy optimisation, monitoring critical equipment or preventive maintenance – and then develop it further on the basis of measurable results.

How does AFMTEC apply international lessons?

International experience points to five principles that can be applied directly:

1. Operational needs must be defined at the start of the project.
2. Only data with a known intended use should be produced.
3. The quality and completeness of information must be verified before handover.
4. The model must connect to the investor’s existing and future systems.
5. The performance of the digital solution must be evaluated using measurable operational indicators.

AFMTEC Services’ role as a BIM integrator becomes important precisely in coordinating these elements. The company translates investor objectives into information requirements, supports their fulfilment during design and construction, checks the resulting data, and then develops the AIM model for use in operations and the necessary system connections.

A future-proof development is built on data, too

International practice sends a clear message to investors and owners: if operations only enter the agenda at handover, many of the most important decisions have already been made, and some valuable data may have been lost or become difficult to retrieve.

The foundation of long-term savings is therefore not another software package installed after handover, but an information process planned in advance. At the start of the development, it is necessary to define what data must be created, who is responsible for it, how it will be checked, which systems will be able to use it, and which indicators can be used to measure the results.

The BIM-based facility operations model created by AFMTEC Services bridges the gap between development and operations. It helps preserve the value of information generated during the project and supports transparent handover, maintenance planning and informed decisions by owners.

The investor thus receives not only a completed building, but also its digital knowledge base, which can be used and transferred over the long term. Depending on implementation maturity, there may be potential to save 2–20% on the relevant operating costs, while the building’s availability, transparency and long-term value retention may improve.

The question, then, is not whether the current investor will operate the building for decades. The question is whether they will create a facility whose long-term operational value remains intact after handover, the outsourcing of operations or sale.