Hierarchy based information requirements for sustainable operations of buildings in Qatar

Information flows in construction projects are generally focused on the needs of the design and construction phases. This creates disruption of workflows across the project stages and in particular with the information handover to the operation stage. The adherence to the clients' requirements for the operation phase of buildings becomes very challenging. A structured information delivery enabled by BIM protocols, established at the project’s inception phase, can help: 1) prevent information loss during the project development; 2) ensure the coordinated delivery of the clients’ requirements as stated at the pre-design stage, and 3) anticipate the impact of client decisions at early project stages on the operational performance of buildings. This research presents a methodology and a decision support system to help obtaining, categorizing and trading off sustainability and facility management values using subjective driven priorities from top-level management. The decision support system will assist, within digitally enabled projects, in translating these priorities into objective parameters and information categories. These can be subsequently included within the project tender and bidders’ BIM Execution Plans. The tool will also help to monitor the performance of the project design with the national sustainability and the client targets as the project progresses. The proposed tool is presented within the context of Qatar but it could be applied in other countries.