BS 8544 - A Key Piece of the Jigsaw for Managing the Maintenance of Buildings

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22 September 2013 | Updated 01 January 1970

This Week in FM saw the launch of British Standard BS 8544 in London last Thursday at an event that was well attended by a range of interested parties across the industry. BS 8544 provides welcome standardised rules and a methodology for the Life-cycle Costing (LCC) for two areas in use - maintenance and renewal. It shows clear methods and examples of structuring and capturing asset data to develop plans for buildings or larger property portfolios.

Whilst this is a significant achievement in itself, it is exciting that this is part of an industry collaboration that sees the RICS New Rules of Measurement NRM 3, CIBSE Guide M and B&ES SFG 20 coming together to provide comprehensive guidance and methods for managing and costing Life-cycle Maintenance.

The event launch was chaired by Andy Green, of Faithful & Gould, who has been instrumental in the production of the standard. He presented an overview and a walkthrough of specific parts of the new document and the thinking behind it’s application.

Bruce Kirton, CEO of B&ES Publications illustrated how the SFG20 Maintenance Specification has been updated and is now more flexible to meet the needs and support a more dynamic approach to maintenance.

Jo Harris who is leading on the updated CIBSE Guide M (Maintenance), discussed the important links with these documents and how they benefit industry.

This was followed by Geoff Prudence, Chairman of CIBSE Facilities Management who demonstrated examples of how and where the standard can be applied in practice and where the benefits of a joined up approach can be achieved.

After a break, a panel discussion, questions and views from the audience pointed to sound support for the standard and the opportunity of this approach to improve this area associated with maintenance going forward.

Key benefits of having new maintenance standards:

• They provide a consistent basis for cost estimating and detailed cost planning of maintenance and the comparison of costs on a like-for like basis
• Target precisely what is being spent on maintenance, against defendable base standards (i.e. minimum legal compliance/fit for function regimes)
• Inform option appraisals during the project development and the in use stages – i.e. minimise lifecycle costs
• Standardise cost data structure for asset surveys and other assessments
• Improve budgetary controls and the accuracy of cost analysis & reporting
• Enabler to achieve more sustainable construction and asset management
• Interoperable cost data to enable robust life cycle information for BIM
• Basis for fairer procurement during tender evaluation/ contract award
• Basis for continual improvements.

Building Information Modelling (BIM) calls for whole life cycle information to be supplied from the BIM model at various stages during the project life cycle.

BS 8544 provides guidance on how data should be made interoperable, for example through COBie data exchange formats, in order to ensure that existing building data is accessible to the Life cycle cost of  maintenance models.

With Clause 8 of the BS 8544 providing guidance on BIM maintenance data and a figure showing the alignment of the COBie data structure /NRM and SFG20

maintenance codes and CIBSE Life data, there is a joining and consistency from an operational/life of mMaintenance. So it makes sense to reflect this and join it with the current ‘construction thinking’ with regard to BIM.

Andy Green, Lead Technical Author of BS 8544 and the RICS NRM3 said: “So ninety years on from the creation of a standardised method of measurement for the cost management of capital building works the first standard for life cycle costing of building maintenance (BS 8544) will help to transform the construction and maintenance industry and provide the fundamental link to enable BIM and more robust life cycle cost management to become the norm.”

Article written by ThisWeekinFM | Published 22 September 2013

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