Do you live in a condominium or apartment? Are you one of the millions of city dwellers who have to deal with a landlord or building administrator regularly? If you are, you have probably experienced talking to a disgruntled building administrator because of issues on rent, a leak in the ceiling, or another kind of complaint that he or she may also hear from your fellow unit owners or tenants.

While this may be a common scenario in most buildings, it may not be the same for building or facility administrators that use Building Information Model (BIM) software solutions. If you use a smartphone app for managing your budget, facility managers use BIM tools for the following critical services in your building.

Operation and Maintenance

This responsibility may be the most common but it’s also the most challenging for facility managers. It involves repair, renovation, and maintenance of mechanical, electrical, and plumbing (MEP) facilities in a building. These aspects are the most used in a building and are thus most prone to wear and tear. During your condo building’s planning stage, construction project management firms use BIM software to plan the most convenient and efficient pathways for the MEP parts. Your facility manager then carries the responsibility in operating and maintaining these important aspects.

Asset Management

Apart from the MEPs, assets are also a part of facility managers’ accountability. Through BIM tools, they can track the current assets and perhaps assess the need to procure additional supplies or materials depending on the residents’ needs. Monitoring is necessary for financial reporting, too, so your building administrator do care about everything that’s going on in the condo. In relation, they check the spatial requirements within the vicinity to make sure the occupants like you are still comfortable and happy.

Energy Utilization

This is widely applicable in buildings that are approved by the Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design (LEED) system. Green buildings have become widely popular in both residential and commercial buildings, after all. Through BIM software solutions, your building administrator can track the entire property’s usage on electricity and water. This allows him or her to manage the resources and perhaps send out reminders to everyone to conserve the building’s resources and thus cut costs.

Disaster Planning

Architects and engineers used virtual design construction tools like BIM to also address evacuation procedures and government requirements in case of fire or earthquake. It is then your facility manager’s job to make sure there are relevant and updated information posted on prominent or common areas around the condo. This ensures that you and your fellow tenants or unit owners know about the fire exit, the hose, and other emergency details in case of evacuation or disaster.

If you think your facility manager does not use BIM tools, perhaps now’s the time to recommend them so he can better manage your condominium.