Geographic Information Systems (GIS) for

Facility Management

Stuart Rich Kevin H. Davis

Chief Technology Officer Director of Business Development
PenBay Solutions LLC PenBay Solutions LLC
2010 IFMA Foundation

TABLE OF CONTENTS
Acknowledgements . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1
About the Authors . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2
Foreword
. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .3
Part 1 Executive Summary. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5

Part 2 Introduction. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 6
Part 3 An Overview of Geographic Information Systems . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7
3.1 GIS Basics . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7
3.1.1 GIS Has Layers . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7
3.1.2 GIS Provides Seamless Scaling. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 8
3.1.3 GIS Attribute Data Is Strongly Typed . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 8
3.1.4 Basic Kinds of GIS Feature Classes . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 8
3.1.5 GIS Supports Topologically Rich Data Models . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 9
3.2 GIS Data Storage and Organization. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 9
3.3 Enterprise GIS Framework. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 9
3.4 Spatial Data Infrastructure . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 9
Part 4 GIS in Facility Management. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 11
4.1 Spatial Data Infrastructure for Facilities . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 11
Part 5 GIS Integration With Integrated Workplace Management Systems (IWMS) .
and Others. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 13
5.1 Overview . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 13
5.2 Computer Aided Facility Management (CAFM) and Integrated Workplace Management .
Systems (IWMS). . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 13
5.3 Approaches to Integration . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 14
5.3.1 Open Application Programming Interface . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 14
5.3.2 “Map It” Approach. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 14
5.3.3 Fully Integrated GIS/IWMS . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 14
5.4 Market Organization. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 14
5.4.1 Project Management . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 15
5.4.2 Real Estate and Portfolio Management. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 15
5.4.3 Facility and Space Management . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 16
5.4.4 Maintenance Management . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 16
5.4.5 Environmental Sustainability and Management . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 17
5.5 Market Drivers. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 17
5.5.1 Facility Real Estate Consolidation and Portfolio Rationalization . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 18
5.5.2 Globalization: Requiring a Worldwide Portfolio View . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 18
5.5.3 Life Cycle Approach to Facility and Real Estate Management . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 18
5.5.4 Requirements to Enhance the User Experience . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 18
5.5.5 Business Continuity and Disaster Recovery . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 18
5.5.6 Compliance With US Government Legislation . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 18
5.5.7 GIS and the Future of the IWMS Sector. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 19
5.5.8 Other Enterprise Integrations With GIS. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 19
5.6 Summary. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 20
Part 6 GIS in Emergency Preparedness . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 21

Part 7 GIS Complements Building Information Modeling (BIM) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 23
7.1 Uses of Building Information Models . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 23

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TABLE OF CONTENTS
7.1.1 Data Exchange From the Construction Phase to the Operations and
Maintenance Phase . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 24
7.1.2 Laser Scanners. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 24
7.1.3 Collection and Cataloging of Room Data Information Logistics. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 24
7.2 buidingSMART alliance . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 24
7.3 Open Geospatial Consortium CityGML . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 24
7.4 BIM for Design and Construction. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 25
7.5 BIM for Operations and Maintenance . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 25
Part 8 GIS Data Management. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 27

Part 9 GIS Analysis . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 29
Part 10 GIS Visualization . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 31
Part 11 In-Building GIS. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 37

Part 12 Making the Business Case for GIS in Facility Management. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 39
12.1 Site Selection . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 39
12.2 Market and Customer Analysis . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 40
12.3 Emergency Action Planning: Floods, Fires and Incident Planning . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 40
12.4 Developing Efficient Workflows and Business Processes. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 41
12.5 Visualization of Time-Based Phenomena From the Local to the Global Scale. . . . . . . . . . 41
12.6 Conclusion . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 42
Part 13 Case Studies. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 43
13.1 MacDill Air Force Base, Facility Management Mapping . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 43
13.1.1 Challenge . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 43
13.1.2 Solution . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 44
13.2 Air Combat Command Web Map Viewer and Training Management System. . . . . . . . . . . 44
13.2.1 Challenge. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 44
13.2.2 Solution . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 44
13.3 Sky Harbor International Airport, Phoenix, Arizona, GIS Implementation. . . . . . . . . . . . . . 45
13.3.1 Challenge. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 46
13.3.2 Solution . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 46

13.4 US Army Corps of Engineers GIS for Spatial Allocation . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 47

13.4.1 Challenge. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 47
13.4.2 Solution . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 48
13.5 NASA Optimization and Associated Technology Status and Plan . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 49
13.5.1 LaRC Investment . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 50
13.5.2 Near-Term and Future Tactical Efforts. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 50
13.6 Conclusion . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 51
Part 14 Appendices . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 52
14.1 Appendix A: References . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 52
14.2 Appendix B: Additional Resources. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 53
14.3 Appendix C: Glossary. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 54

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2010 IFMA Foundation

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

‘Expand knowledge of the built environment, in a changing world,

through scholarships, education and research’

The Vision Statement of the IFMA Foundation

We acknowledge the following people and organi-
zations not only for their assistance in the produc-
tion of this white paper, but also for their thought
leadership in the application of geographic infor-
mation systems (GIS) to facility management:
• John Young, ESRI
• Matt Davis, ESRI
• Eric Wittner, ESRI
• Mark Sorensen, GPC, Inc.
• Mike Parkin, Massachusetts Institute of
Technology
• John Przybyla, Woolpert, Inc.
• Neils LaCour, University of Massachusetts
Amherst
• Brad Ball, NASA
• Troy Hergenrader, Teng & Associates, Inc.
• Ray Dinello, University of North Carolina at
Charlotte
We also acknowledge BISDM, the Building Infor-
mation Spatial Data Model committee, and IFMA,
the International Facility Management Association,
for their efforts to influence the application of GIS
to facility management.
The Building Information Spatial Data Model
(BISDM) committee was formed in late 2007 as a
community of interest focused on creating a GIS
data model for buildings. The BISDM committee
is a volunteer organization dedicated to providing
a collection of best practices, case studies and
templates that individuals can adopt or adapt to
specific project needs.
IFMA is the world’s largest and most widely rec-
ognized international association for professional
facility managers, supporting more than 19,000
members in 78 countries. The association’s mem-
bers, represented in 123 chapters and 16 councils
worldwide, manage more than 37 billion square
feet of property and annually purchase more than
$100 billion (US dollars) in products and services.
Formed in 1980, IFMA certifies facility managers,
conducts research, provides educational pro-
grams, recognizes facility management certificate
programs and produces World Workplace, the
world’s largest facility management conference
and exposition.
Finally, we would like to extend our gratitude to
Ann Marie Lynch, marketing communications
manager, PenBay Solutions LLC, for her assis-
tance on this project. Ann Marie edited this publi-
cation, taking the seemingly incoherent notes and
ramblings of the authors and organizing them into
a cohesive paper, which we hope makes a positive
contribution to the discussion of the intersection
between facility management and GIS technology.

Reviewers
Russ Anderson, PMP, MCSD Angela Lewis, PE, LEED AP
Facilities Solutions Group University of Reading; Building Intelligence Group
Troy Hergenrader Paul Teicholz, PhD
Teng & Associates, Inc Founder of CIFE at Stanford University
Eberhard Laepple, PhD, LEED AP Burcu Akinci, PhD
HOK Carnegie Mellon University

Geographic Information Systems (GIS) for Facility Management

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2010 IFMA Foundation

ABOUT THE AUTHORS

Stuart Rich Kevin H. Davis

Stuart Rich is chief technology officer at PenBay
Solutions LLC with more than 15 years’ experience
developing database applications and geographic
information systems (GIS) for government and com-
mercial organizations across the United States and
internationally. He has been a technical pioneer in
bringing GIS inside the building, leading PenBay
in its innovative efforts of providing spatial robotic
data collection and 3D visualization technologies to
a variety of industries around the world. Stuart has
been a leader in the development of the Building
Interior Space Data Model (BISDM), a data model
for creating, storing and sharing information about
structures and their assets. He has several years
of extensive GIS experience, with expertise in ESRI
technology and a focus on project management,
data analysis and modeling, business process
analysis and workflow methodology design.
Kevin H. Davis is the director of business develop-
ment at PenBay Solutions LLC with more than 20
years’ experience in business management within
the enterprise technology market and the real
estate development and construction industries. At
PenBay, he is leading the effort to bring GIS to the
field of facility management. As director of busi-
ness development, Kevin is responsible for account
and channel management, as well as new market
development for products and services related to
the application of GIS technology in facility man-
agement. Kevin focuses on a number of markets,
including health care, higher education and airports.
Kevin also concentrates on partner strategy and re-
lationship management for the integrated workplace
management system and computer aided facility
management (IWMS/CAFM) market, which includes
application vendors and vertical market services
companies.

This Publication is Sponsored by:

Manhattan Software
425 Fortune Boulevard, Suite 200
Milford, MA 01757 USA

www.manhattansoftware.com

ESRI
380 New York Street
Redlands, CA 92373 USA
www.esri.com

Geographic Information Systems (GIS) for Facility Management

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2010 IFMA Foundation

GEOGRAPHIC INFORMATION SYSTEMS

(GIS) FOR FACILITY MANAGEMENT

FOREWORD

In modern society, people spend the vast majority with Disabilities Act (ADA) compliance, safety
of their waking and sleeping hours inside of and security planning, space utilization and
buildings. Buildings are man-made optimization, and more.
ecosystems – vast assemblages of interdependent
GIS can be used throughout the life cycle
living and nonliving components. Facilities have
of a facility – from site selection, design and
become the primary habitat for humans.
construction to use, maintenance and adaptation,
As technology advances at a record pace, our and ultimately through closing, repurposing and
man-made ecosystems are becoming more reclamation. The challenge is to manage each
complex and sophisticated. These intricate step of the process in a way that maximizes the
collections of materials, infrastructure, machinery benefits of the facility to society while minimizing
and people, with countless spatial and temporal short- and long-term impacts on the natural
relationships and dependencies, require environment. As an integrative platform for
progressively more sophisticated tools to design management and analysis of all spatial things, I
and manage them. believe, as the authors of this white paper have
eloquently stated, GIS “is the only technology that
Given the importance of facilities and their place
has the ability to scale across any expanse, from
in society, a revolution in facilities management is
the individual asset within a building to a virtually
occurring. Geographic information systems (GIS)
global context.”
are designed specifically for the management and
analysis of spatial relationships, and offer many
benefits to the facilities management community.
Jack Dangermond
In the past, GIS was commonly used to help President
measure the impact of a facility on a natural ESRI
ecosystem. Today, GIS is increasingly being
used to plan, manage and operate the man-made
ecosystem – the facility. Facilities managers
are finding GIS tools, which have been used
successfully for many years in fields such as
environmental analysis and landscape planning,
support a broad range of applications inside
and outside of buildings, such as operations
planning, emergency management, Americans

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2010 IFMA Foundation
White Paper Editorial and Production Team
Executive Editor: Eric Teicholz, IFMA Fellow,
President, Graphic Systems
Editorial Assistant: Angela Lewis, PE, LEED AP,
PhD Candidate, University of Reading; High
Performance Buildings Engineer, Building
Intelligence Group
Copy Editor: Lisa Berman, Editing and
Writing Consultant
Production: Troy Carpenter, Graphic Design and
Production Layout
International Facility Management Association
Geographic Information Systems (GIS) for Facility Management
4
August 2010
IFMA Foundation
1 E. Greenway Plaza, Suite 1100
Houston, TX 77046-0194
Phone: 713-623-4362
www.ifmafoundation.org
The Mission of the IFMA Foundation is to promote and
support scholarships, educational and research opportunities
for the advancement of facility management worldwide.
Established in 1990 as a nonprofit, 501(c)(3) corporation,
the IFMA Foundation is supported by the generosity of a
community of individuals – IFMA members, chapters,
councils, corporate sponsors and private contributors – and
is proud to be an instrument of information and opportunities
for the profession and its representatives.
A separate entity from IFMA, the IFMA Foundation receives
no funding from annual membership dues to carry out its
mission. Supported by the generosity of the FM commu-
nity, the IFMA Foundation provides education, research and
scholarships for the benefit of FM professionals and students.
Foundation contributors share the belief that education and
research improve the FM profession.
2010 IFMA Foundation

1 EXECUTIVE SUMMARY
Geographic information systems (GIS) are one The paper includes detailed discussion about the
technology that has many practical uses for facility following topics:
managers. A GIS is a system that allows one to • GIS basics
view, understand, question, interpret and visualize • How GIS can be used in facility management
data in many ways that reveal relationships, ○○ Real estate and portfolio
patterns and trends in the form of maps, globes, management
reports and charts. A GIS can be used by facility ○○ Facility and space management
managers for space management, visualization ○○ Maintenance management
and planning, and emergency and disaster ○○ Environmental and sustainability
planning and response, as well as many other management
applications. ○○ Emergency preparedness
○○ Visualization
This white paper provides a detailed overview • How GIS can be integrated with other
about geographic information systems, including applications, such as computer aided
five case studies. The white paper is intended to facility management (CAFM) and integrated
be useful for individuals and leaders within facility workplace management systems (IWMS) and
management, as well as real estate managers, building information modeling (BIM)
property developers, architects, engineers, • Market drivers
consultants and government entities. Students in • Case studies
facility management will also find this white paper ○○ Space management for janitorial
relevant. contracts
○○ Information sharing and decision
making
○○ Spatial data utilization
○○ Space assignment and utilization

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2010 IFMA Foundation
2 INTRODUCTION
Our world is growing smaller by the day and, as a
result, business processes that just a few decades
ago involved only a relatively small business
footprint now span campus, regional and national
borders. This phenomenon is increasingly evident
in the realm of facility management. Yet the
tools and applications that professional facility
managers use to manage buildings, capital assets,
maintenance, infrastructure – and a dizzying array
of business processes – were not designed to be
truly scalable. Thus, these tools and applications
are not ideally suited to meet the requirements
for managing broadly geographically dispersed
portfolios of physical assets and business
processes.
Out of necessity, the facility management
application industry has adopted architectural
floor plans as the common denominator
for viewing the built environment. This is
understandable because architectural floor plans,
and by extension, computer aided design (CAD),
historically represented the only media available
for understanding and interacting with buildings
and their contents and associated workflows. The
progression from hand-drawn floor plans to CAD
drawings, and now building information models
(BIM), is essentially a progression from single floor
plate views to whole building representations. To
be truly effective across geographies the tools
used to manage these distributed and disparate
assets and workflows need to be able to scale
far beyond individual buildings and individual site
maps.
CAD was conceived as a set of tools and
applications for design and construction. By
contrast, geographic information systems (GIS)
were conceived of and developed as a technology
for managing information related to entities across
the landscape. The value proposition for utilizing
GIS for facility management business processes is
not as a replacement for CAD and other enterprise
facility management applications, like integrated
Geographic Information Systems (GIS) for Facility Management
6
workplace management systems (IWMS). The
true value of GIS to facility management is as a
complementary technology that, when integrated
with the myriad facility management technologies
and applications already in use, provides much
greater benefits than the sum of its parts.
While CAD traditionally was concerned only with
buildings and building interiors, GIS focused on
what is referred to as the landscape or exterior
environment. Neither technology crosses the
boundary of the other, yet business processes
do not have such artificial boundaries. There
are many examples where facility management
processes cross these boundaries:
• Utilities – Power and water would not be of
much use if they stopped at the outside of the
building.
• Maintenance management – Maintenance
workflows require work both inside and outside
buildings and across the entire supply chain.
Before GIS, there has not been a single
technology that provides a holistic view and
supports integrated workflows that place the
material components of these workflows into their
real world, landscape-level context both inside and
outside the built environment. Only GIS can do
this effectively because it is the only technology
that has the ability to scale across any expanse,
from the individual asset within a building to a
virtually global context. This is not to say that
GIS can replace CAD and, more importantly,
BIM. When a workflow calls for interaction with
extremely detailed construction and engineering
information within a structure, these tools are by
far the appropriate choice and can be accessed
(integrated) from the GIS, similar to any other
application. When the workflow calls for managing
assets simultaneously inside and outside of
the built structure, GIS is the only option for a
foundation technology platform that seamlessly
provides “world-to-the-widget” scalability.
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3 AN OVERVIEW OF GEOGRAPHIC INFORMATION SYSTEMS
Modern GIS is an integrated system of computer
software and data and information about the
location and geography of things and phenomena
and the relationships between them. GIS is used
to interact with, manage and display geographic
information.
The map below (Figure 1) is one of the earliest
representations of spatial relationships and
phenomena. The map is of Victorian London,
produced by Dr. John Snow in 1854 (Johnson
2006) to represent the relationship between the
location of cholera deaths and a water pump
that he suspected of being the source of deadly
bacteria during the 1840 London cholera epidemic.
Snow produced this map showing the location of
the Broad Street pump and other water pumps
in the vicinity, as well as the points where each
of the cholera victims died. By establishing that
each of the residences that drew water from the
Broad Street pump was also the location of a
cholera death, Snow proved the source of the
contamination. This is a wonderful early example
of mapping spatial (location) and temporal (timing)
relationships between things, in this case pumps
and residences, and phenomena, deaths and
drawing water.
Figure 1: Dr. John Snow’s map of cholera victims
living near the Broad Street pump in London, 1854
Geographic Information Systems (GIS) for Facility Management
7
GIS was first computerized in the 1960s
(GIS.net 2010) as an effort to automate the
landscape planning process of separating design
influences, such as hydrography, vegetation, soils
and ownership boundaries, into different layers.
The approach before computerization was to draw
each of the layers to scale on a separate page of
acetate and then physically recombine them by
stacking the pages in order to visualize different
aspects of a proposed design. In the ensuing
decades, GIS has matured into an enterprise-class
technology platform that allows users to model the
spatial relationships between and among many
important aspects of our complex world.
GIS has matured into an enterprise-
class technology platform that enables us-
ers to understand spatial relationships that
are helpful to manage the complexities of
facilities.
Before the specifics of how GIS is being applied
to facility management are discussed, it is
important to review some of the core concepts that
define what a GIS is and how it works to better
understand how this technology complements and
extends other technologies that support the needs
of facility managers.
3.1 GIS Basics
There are five basic core concepts of GIS:
• GIS has layers
• GIS provides seamless scaling
• GIS attribute data is strongly typed
• There are several kinds of GIS feature classes
• GIS supports topologically rich data models
Each of these core concepts is further discussed
below.
3.1.1 GIS Has Layers
The layers in a GIS correspond to groups of
features that have similar attributes and/or
behaviors. Road centerlines are a good example
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of a common GIS layer. Each segment in a
road centerline layer might have attributes that
describe pavement width, number of lanes, speed
limit or turn restrictions. A specific layer in a GIS
is called a feature class. All of the features in a
feature class share the same attributes and spatial
reference. Traditional geospatial data layers that
might be of interest to facility managers include:
• Transportation (road centerlines, edge of
pavement, rail lines, airports)
• Hydrography (lakes, ponds, rivers, streams)
• Utilities
• Pedestrian corridors
• Land use
• Zoning
• Parcel ownership
• Aerial imagery
• Digital elevation models
• Demographics
• Facility condition index (FCI)
• Performance measurement by building
• Total cost of occupancy by building
The GIS data layers bulleted above are typical
of traditional applications of GIS. Additional data
layers specifically identifying components of the
built environment, and possibly of greater interest
to the facility management community, will be
discussed in Part 4 GIS in Facility Management
and Part 11 In-Building GIS.
3.1.2 GIS Provides Seamless Scaling
GIS provides seamless scaling from very large-
scale global data to very small-scale local
perspectives. The various scales at which GIS is
useful for facility management include from global,
regional and local to campus and room or space
scales. At the global scale GIS can:
• Visualize patterns in portfolio performance
• Symbolize portfolio elements by a key
performance indicator (KPI) and show them on
a map
At the regional to local scale, GIS can tie facilities,
portfolio elements and customers together into a
geographic context by:
• Providing an understanding of how well
the portfolio is geographically aligned with
customer base
• Supporting site selection based on business
demographics
• Supporting site selection based on proximity to
workforce
• Optimizing work order assignments and
support with routing
Geographic Information Systems (GIS) for Facility Management
8
At the local or campus scale GIS can:
• Provide analysis and visualization of 2.5D
space data across the campus
• Visualize departmental fragmentation across
campuses
• Analyze relationships between office and
parking assignments
• Analyze potential use conflicts
• Visualize spatial and temporal space use
patterns
• Understand work order patterns and asset
locations
• Spatially enable infrastructure asset inventory
2.5D refers to visualization of buildings and other
models in apparent 3D that is derived from a
single averaged measurement of ceiling and/or
floor-to-floor heights and then used to construct
generally representative building models that show
length (on the x axis), width (on the y axis) and
height (on the z axis) of the structure. In contrast,
true 3D is an architecturally accurate building
model in three dimensions. For building and
construction purposes, 3D modeling is sometimes
the required standard. For the vast majority of
maintenance and operations purposes, 2.5D is
typically adequate and it is much less expensive
and time consuming to establish.
At the room and space scale, GIS can visually
interact with assets, inventory and their exact
locations to support regulatory, maintenance and
resourcing.
3.1.3 GIS Attribute Data Is Strongly Typed
GIS attribute data is descriptive data that is linked
to map features. If an attribute in a feature class
is, for example, of a date type, it will only accept
properly formatted dates as inputs, and if it is a
number type, it will not accept text characters.
The result of this is strong data typing, and is
ideally suited for GIS data and analysis. Unlike
CAD attribute blocks where annotation is stored as
all text and annotation is only loosely associated
with a feature, GIS attributes are directly tied to
features and all of the attributes are strongly typed.
3.1.4 Basic Kinds of GIS Feature Classes
A GIS feature class is a homogenous collection
of common features, each having the same
spatial representation. The most basic kinds of
GIS feature classes are points, lines and areas
(polygons). In recent years, however, new kinds
of data have found their way into the GIS platform.
As 3D becomes more important to modeling, new
2010 IFMA Foundation
types of data, such as surfaces and multipatches
(see Glossary), are allowing for more precise
modeling of three-dimensional features.
3.1.5 GIS Supports Topologically Rich Data
Models
As different components of the world were
modeled digitally, it was determined quickly that
things have important relationships to other
things. For example, valves have important
relationships to pipes when modeling how water
can be delivered from one place to another. A GIS
allows relationships to be built between features
in different feature classes. For example, pipes in
a line feature class and valves in a point feature
class create more complex topological structure,
such as geometric networks and transportation
networks.
3.2 GIS Data Storage and Organization
The way GIS data is organized and stored makes
it ideally suited for storage in database systems
and for analysis. As GIS data is typically stored in
a real-world spatial reference system, the analysis
of the data can be applied across a campus,
region, country or the world.
A few of the many different types of geospatial
analyses that are appropriate on facility data might
include:
• Buffer analysis – How many unoccupied
offices are within 1,000 ft. (305 m) of this
parking space?
• Overlay analysis – Which wet labs are within
the proposed project area?
• Find ‘n’ nearest – Find the five closest assets
with open work orders to this particular point.
(where n represents the number sought)
• Line of sight – What can be seen from this
window?
• Way finding – What is the shortest wheelchair
accessible route from room x to room y?
• Travel time – How many employees will have
to travel more than half an hour to get to this
office location?
As the application of GIS has become more
frequently used, particularly in the government
arena, an enormous amount of geospatial data
has been developed at a variety of scales. Much
of this data is freely available over the Internet
from a variety of GIS data portals like the US
national geospatial data site geodata.gov.
Geographic Information Systems (GIS) for Facility Management
9
Management professionals are becom-
ing acutely aware of the value that geospa-
tial support represents to the enterprisewide
decision-making process.
3.3 Enterprise GIS Framework
In most sizable organizations, information
technology (IT) management has been recognized
as an essential strategic asset. The modern
organization can no longer exist without a secure
network backbone, centralized user authentication
and entitlement control, e-mail administration,
enterprise database management and support
for a variety of enterprise applications, like
accounting, personnel management and an array
of loosely connected Web applications.
Over the past decade, GIS has similarly become
a recognized component of the enterprise IT suite
of capabilities. GIS can now be implemented on
enterprise-class databases, published through
Web services and integrated with a variety of
mobile device platforms. While it is certainly
possible, and in some cases most appropriate,
to create a stand-alone GIS on a laptop or
workstation, it is important to recognize that
enterprise deployment has become available over
the past decade. Enterprise deployment enables
GIS capabilities to be shared with a wide variety of
users throughout the organization.
Furthermore, professionals that manage IT
capabilities of large organizations are becoming
more aware of the value that geospatial support
represents to decision makers across many
different departments. It is very possible that
GIS already exists in an organization and it can
be utilized by facility managers. For example, if
your organization is in telecommunications, your
engineering group may have implemented GIS to
track locations and rights of way. Therefore, this
technology may be only a workstation away from
being available to facility managers. The same
is true in many higher education settings. It is
very likely that there is an academic or research
GIS installation that could be accessed by facility
management.
3.4 Spatial Data Infrastructure
Many geodata portals have been established
over time to enable and support the sharing of
geospatial data and analytical models. As this
activity has become more widespread, certain best
practice patterns have emerged to support this
2010 IFMA Foundation
cooperative approach. One specific example of
such a best practice is spatial data infrastructure
(SDI).
Spatial data infrastructure is a framework of
technologies, policies, standards and human
resources necessary to acquire, process, store,
distribute and improve the use of geospatial data
across multiple public and private organizations.
Therefore, SDI is a framework of connected
spatial data, metadata and tools used to centrally
manage data with tools and services connected
via computer networks to various sources to make
spatial data most efficient. SDI can be thought
of as a shared repository of GIS layers and tools.
Individuals adding data to the repository share
the understanding that the contributions to the
repository that are being made are generally freely
available for the common good, and those who are
closest to a particular layer will retain stewardship
responsibilities for it.
Typically, when an SDI is to be established, the
architects will begin by establishing framework
layers. The landscape level of the framework
will often include road centerlines, hydrography,
parcels, a land use and elevation model, and
some form of aerial imagery. These framework
layers serve as a foundation from which other
layers can be derived and to which many different
kinds of business processes can be attached. For
example, parcels are an important foundation layer
because zoning layers usually are designed to
Geographic Information Systems (GIS) for Facility Management
10
be coincident with parcel boundaries, and parcels
are often an anchor for municipal processes
concerned with taxation, permitting and public
safety. Building footprints are another framework
layer in SDI.
Spatial data infrastructure frameworks all have
some number of similar components as described
above and can be implemented on a range
of scales from the most local level, such as a
small town, to a virtually global scale. The most
complex and comprehensive SDIs are similar
to the United States’ National Spatial Data
Infrastructure and the European Community’s
Infrastructure for Spatial Information in Europe
(INSPIRE) program. Most US states also have
well-developed spatial data infrastructures that are
often commonly used, regardless of community
size. Disaster response and recovery is one such
example. Within disaster response and recovery
situations, SDI can be applied or accessed
and be an invaluable tool. In the event of an
earthquake, the combination of map data can
be used to answer a variety of questions about
where things are, ranging from collapsed bridges
to operational water and sewer lines, to roadways
for evacuation – all of which are components of
an SDI. As demonstrated in this example, one of
the most important aspects of an SDI is that it is a
system for sharing information across functional
boundaries, across jurisdictions and across
geographic boundaries.
2010 IFMA Foundation
4 GIS IN FACILITY MANAGEMENT
For years, facility managers have been using GIS
at the landscape level to manage a number of
the assets in their facility portfolio. Some of the
earliest applications of GIS in facility management
were related to pavement management at airports,
municipal water and wastewater infrastructure,
and electric utility distribution. For example, facility
managers of the US Air Force have developed
a standardized set of GIS layers to support the
management of Air Force bases.
Significant holes have developed in the
world’s geospatial data fabric – holes that
represent the inside of facilities where some
of the most valuable assets exist.
The spatial data that exists in a facility
geodatabase has often been developed from
aerial imagery or global positioning system-
enabled (GPS) field data collection practices.
The limitation of these data collection techniques
is that they are blind to building interiors. Aerial
photography cannot see through the roof. GPS
signals are not available inside buildings. The
result of these constraints has been that significant
holes have developed in the rich geospatial data
fabric that describes our facilities. These holes
correspond to our most concentrated financial
investments and the places where people spend
most of their time – inside buildings.
New technologies and techniques have become
available to register existing information about
the insides of a building, such as CAD floor plans
or building information models (BIM), with the
surrounding landscape-level geospatial data
framework. This integration is making it possible
to apply geospatial analysis and visualization to
business processes that occur inside buildings.
Today, it is becoming possible with GIS to think
about and analyze the spatial aspects of every
Geographic Information Systems (GIS) for Facility Management
11
component of facility management workflows to
decrease cost and increase productivity. None of
the enterprise applications used within the arena
of facility management have advanced spatial
analytic capabilities to support business processes
that span geographic areas or provide complex
scenario modeling that includes multidimensional
visualization including 3D (space), 4D (time) and
5D (money).
GIS is a platform that supports the integration
of information from all of these spatial, temporal
and informational dimensions. Examples of such
integrations include:
• Combining cost data with the visualization of
space and occupancy across the campus
• Analyzing routing barriers for disabled persons
for use during evacuation planning and
emergency action planning
• Conducting visualization of energy
consumption data at the room level while
simultaneously managing maintenance
workflows for mechanical, electrical and
plumbing systems for a nationwide facility
infrastructure
• Managing security concerns both inside
and outside buildings, across regions
and continents, simultaneously (4D) and
contiguously (3D)
4.1 Spatial Data Infrastructure for Facilities
As GIS is becoming more widely used inside
buildings, facility managers are applying the
insights gained from spatial data infrastructures to
the spaces inside buildings. There are framework
levels inside the building, just as there are
framework levels at the landscape level, such as
roads and parcels. A few examples of framework
layers inside a building include floor levels, walls,
windows, doors and the spaces that are defined
by architectural structures (Figure 2).
Once the core architectural elements of the
2010 IFMA Foundation
Figure 2: Spatial data infrastructure can spatially enable
many enterprise systems
building have been established in the GIS, it is
possible for many other layers to be derived from
this foundation. Some of the layers that can be
derived from basic floor plans include:
• Space use and type definitions
• Lease areas
• Security zones
• Management zones
• Asset locations
• Evacuation collection areas
• Navigable routes
Once this basic data has been added to the GIS,
it is possible to provide geospatial support to a
wide variety of information systems and business
processes for the facility management community:
• Grouping multibuilding and multisite work
orders by location to reduce transportation and
logistics costs
• Visualizing energy consumption data at the
room, building and/or enterprise level over
time
Figure 3: Conceptual data model diagram for BISDM
Geographic Information Systems (GIS) for Facility Management
12
• Analyzing space use, space availability and
space optimization across campus or regional
extents
• Conducting building condition assessments,
fire safety inspections and asset inventories
using handheld, location-aware (GPS-
enabled) devices. These devices provide
rapid data capture and precise location
of issues, items and assets, supporting
visualization, analysis and reporting.
• Analyzing and visualizing lease performance
metrics across the portfolio, regardless of
geographic extent
• Analyzing, route mapping and reporting
of Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA)
compliance and/or ADA facility and fixture
availability across the campus or portfolio
• Visualizing the impact of proposed building
projects on the campus environment
• Conducting line of sight analysis for special
events
• Modeling the impact of proposed use changes
on the supporting utility infrastructure
• Visualizing proposed space planning
scenarios
In order to provide best practices guidance
and support for facility managers interested
in establishing facility GIS capabilities, an
independent committee made up of software
vendors, government users, higher education
facility managers and facility managers from
various levels of government formed the Building
Information Spatial Data Model (BISDM)
committee in 2007. This committee has published
several versions of the Building Information Spatial
Data Model and continues to enhance and extend
the model and its tools, making them available
to the community. A diagram of the conceptual
BISDM is shown in Figure 3. Further information
and materials are available for download at the
following Web site: resources.arcgis.com/content/
building-interior-space-data-model.
2010 IFMA Foundation

5 GIS INTERGRATION WITH INTEGRATED WORKPLACE MANAGEMENT

SYSTEMS (IWMS) AND OTHERS
5.1 Overview
Most of this section will discuss GIS and
integrated workplace management systems
(IWMS) integration as IWMS most specifically
apply and most often relate directly to the job
functions of facility managers. GIS and IWMS
are complementary technologies that, when
integrated, have the ability to support the
broadest range of facility management activities
more efficiently and effectively than either one
independently. However, the discussion is also
applicable to other enterprise applications. Many
of the examples given to illustrate bidirectional GIS
to IWMS integration are applicable to business
processes and workflows involving integration
between GIS and enterprise asset management
(EAM), enterprise resource planning (ERP),
customer relationship management (CRM) and
supply chain management (SCM) applications.
These applications can all be critical to spatial data
infrastructure discussed previously, and are an
important part of any discussion of GIS for facility
management.
is an increasing adoption of a comprehensive
and life cycle approach to facility management.
Historically, most of the functionality within IWMS
applications existed as stand-alone applications
focused on very few and often only one business
process or set of processes. Over time,
functions such as project management, project
accounting, space management, maintenance
management, lease management and portfolio
management have been logically integrated as
natural extensions of one another to become
today’s IWMS (Figure 4). The primary thread
that connects these functions is spatial data, or
location information associated with the area of
interest of each function.

5.2 Computer Aided Facility Management

(CAFM) and Integrated Workplace
Management Systems (IWMS)
Many facility management professionals are
familiar with the acronym CAFM, which stands for
computer aided facility management. Over the
past few years, CAFM has become understood
as a subset of an IWMS and is often described as
space and occupancy. The primary driver in the
growing discussion of GIS as a partner technology
to enterprise applications, like IWMS, is a direct
result of the market influences that drive the
delineation between CAFM and IWMS: there
Spatial data is the primary thread that
holds together functions such as project,
space, maintenance, lease and portfolio
management.
Figure 4: GIS as a complementary technology for
managing location data
If the users of an IWMS are concerned with
constructing, managing, maintaining and/
or leasing a space, the common denominator
is the space. A space is defined at the most
basic level by its boundaries and its location.
However, each function must have access to a
slightly different interpretation of the space. The
potential for deriving benefit from combining the
various perspectives on the space is substantial.
Combining building automation systems (BAS)

Geographic Information Systems (GIS) for Facility Management

13
2010 IFMA Foundation
with cost accounting (ERP) can yield tremendous
insights and efficiencies. Combining maintenance
records in the enterprise asset management
(EAM) system with space and occupancy
information from the IWMS can support more
cost-effective procurement decisions, such as the
selection of materials or custodial options.
The visualization and data management
capabilities of GIS and the geodatabase provide
landscape-level visualization and the tools and
technical infrastructure to generate and manage
location data, including very precise locations,
which are required for truly comprehensive and
integrated management. These two components,
landscape-level visualization and spatial data
storage and management, in the geodatabase
are core GIS functions. They are the glue used to
precisely integrate disparate systems because, at
its core, each enterprise system has some set of
functions related to a location.
The current paradigm for interacting with building
data in IWMS/CAFM applications is a combination
of tabular information and a CAD-based, two-
dimensional, single floor plate view. Core GIS
technology adds to the IWMS/CAFM by extending
beyond the individual floor plate to a visual
interaction with information across multiple floors,
multiple buildings, campuses, regions, countries
and even globally, both within and outside of the
building. Three-dimensional representations of
data also become achievable with the integration
of GIS.
5.3 Approaches to Integration
There are three primary GIS integration
methodologies with the IWMS market: open
application programming interface, the “map it”
approach and fully integrated GIS/IWMS.
5.3.1 Open Application Programming Interface
Within an open application programming interface
(API) model, the data within the IWMS application
is made available for use and integration with
the GIS through an open API. This is essentially
a “here it is, come and get it” approach. This
approach requires custom GIS application
development in order to take advantage of the
data in both the GIS and IWMS applications. This
requirement generally requires the end user to
develop the interface and tools for interacting with
the IWMS data from within the GIS framework.
The primary advantage of this approach is that it is
infinitely flexible.
Geographic Information Systems (GIS) for Facility Management
14
5.3.2 “Map It” Approach
The next model is the “map it” approach, in which
the GIS data is made available to the IWMS user
through a separate but semi-integrated window
launched from the IWMS application. The
window is designed to look and feel like the host
application, but does not appear to be a part of the
core IWMS application. The map viewer launches
as a separate window when the user asks to see
the map, instead of as part of the core application
as a single integrated interface. Typically, this
approach is used only for visualization of a point
on the map representing facility locations and
is not a true application of GIS capability to drill
down into layers of information. Furthermore, this
approach does not generally support bidirectional
transfer of information between the IWMS and the
GIS.
5.3.3 Fully Integrated GIS/IWMS
A fully integrated GIS/IWMS solution provides
geographic information within native application
windows so users do not recognize that they
are interacting with a GIS. Rather, they simply
have access to location data and a geography-
based user interface (a map) that seamlessly
ties together tabular and location data to provide
a comprehensive view. There are many levels
at which the map interface supports traditional
workflows, such as maintenance management,
space management, asset management and
others, to take advantage of the landscape-level
context provided by the GIS.
5.4 Market Organization
While functionality within IWMS applications varies
widely among vendors, it is helpful to frame this
discussion with an understanding of Gartner,
Inc’s Magic Quadrant for Integrated Workplace
Management Systems (2008) (Figure 5) within
which Gartner cited four broad categories of
functionality provided by IWMS applications:
construction project management, real estate
and portfolio management, facility and space
management, and maintenance management.
Since 2008, the IWMS market has started to place
substantial emphasis on sustainability. We will
therefore include environmental sustainability and
management as a fifth category in our discussion.
Gartner cites the phenomena discussed in
Sections 5.3 to 5.5 as driving growth, competition
and functionality within the IWMS market. GIS
technology has a great deal to offer each of the
five general categories of functionality, as well as
2010 IFMA Foundation
Figure 5: The Gartner Magic Quadrant framework
the market drivers identified by Gartner.
The extension of the IWMS interface from
a tabular, flat, single floor perspective into
a graphically rich, multidimensional and
geographically distributed model has implications
on usability, reach and general usefulness for
the IWMS platform that directly addresses the
majority of the market drivers identified by Gartner
for the IWMS market. Each of these areas of
functionality can specifically be enhanced through
GIS integration.
5.4.1 Project Management
Within the Magic Quadrant, Gartner calls project
management “construction project management.”
For the purposes of this discussion, the more
generic term “project management” will be used
to avoid any confusion of terminology. While
construction project management is obviously a
topic worthy of in-depth consideration, and GIS
can add value to construction project management
when multiple projects are being managed
simultaneously at multiple sites, this paper is
focused more on the type of project management
that occurs throughout the facility life cycle
after construction is complete and the owner or
manager has taken control of the property. This
makes sense because approximately 80 percent
of the total cost of ownership of any facility lies
in operations and maintenance, which is post
construction.
GIS adds value to the CAFM/IWMS portfolio
when businesses are undertaking comprehensive
management of the facility life cycle. GIS can
add value in the process from site selection to
decommissioning, including renovation, scenarios
and studies, moves, acquisitions, disposals and
Geographic Information Systems (GIS) for Facility Management
15
other applications. GIS provides a permanent
repository of building data, originating in CAD and
BIM files developed during construction, which can
be vital for efficient management of the hundreds
and thousands of projects that take place each
year across the asset portfolio. GIS is unique
because it has the ability to consume spatial data
from a multitude of sources, including CAD/BIM
data, and integrate it with the IWMS application
for efficient, highly productive and cost-effective
workflows.
One example of how GIS can be used for
project management is a retailer with a rapid
construction or renovation program with multiple,
geographically dispersed facilities. GIS can
provide value in determining which regions can
logistically support the variety of workflows that are
critical to maximizing revenue through streamlined
and efficient construction, while maintaining quality
standards and minimizing the risks associated
with materials and other resource logistics,
thereby determining which regions are suitable for
expansion. Three other common uses of GIS for
project management include:
• Analysis and planning for impact of
construction, materials warehousing and traffic
interruptions
• Efficient resource allocation and materials
sourcing
• Regional, national and global logistics
management
5.4.2 Real Estate and Portfolio Management
As with the examples above, real estate and
portfolio management for a geographically
distributed portfolio presents unique challenges
that can be addressed, at least in part, by the
application of GIS technologies. An excellent
example of this is the integration of sophisticated
site selection workflows utilizing demographic
data, like gender, income level and spending
patterns, as well as infrastructure analysis, to
determine consumer and/or employee drive
times or competitor locations relative to proposed
locations. GIS for real estate and portfolio
management can be used at the campus, regional
or global portfolio level, or for site selection. This
GIS query, analysis and reporting capability is an
excellent resource for managing cannibalization
and analyzing competitive footprint.
Another of the unique ways to understand what
geographically distributed means is in the vertical
2010 IFMA Foundation
plane. Traditionally, maps and GIS are thought
of as horizontally distributed landscapes. Yet,
for multistory buildings included in real estate
portfolios today, the GIS capability of managing
and organizing multilocation information for
analysis and decision making in a combined
interface of 2D, 3D and 4D interaction provides
a unique understanding and empowers effective
management for maximizing portfolio value.
CoreNet Global, a professional association for
corporate real estate and workplace professionals,
service providers and economic developers, has
a community of practice focused on strategy and
portfolio planning. In spring 2010, this group
conducted a survey of the 80 members of the
community about what technologies they use for
portfolio planning. Twenty-two percent indicated
that they utilized GIS. This outcome was higher
than the technology subcommittee, the group
who created the survey, expected. While 22
percent may not be a very large number, many of
the organizations represented on the committee
are global organizations with complex, dispersed
real estate portfolios, and the members of the
committee tend to be progressive adopters of
new and highly effective technologies. This
group of industry trendsetters indicates that GIS
is becoming a core component of their facility
management strategies.
5.4.3 Facility and Space Management
Facility and space management application user
interfaces have traditionally been conceived as
containing single floors represented as a flat, two-
dimensional floor plate from which information is
derived and on which various business processes
or workflows are applied. This floor plate
perspective of facility management made sense:
• When the only technology that IWMS
applications could draw base building
geometry data from was CAD applications
• Within a technology framework that could
not support the visualization of, or the
manipulation of, more than a single floor in a
single building at a time
For workflows that span multiple buildings,
campuses, regions or beyond, the single floor
plate view with associated tables of data is
inadequate for the purpose of understanding,
analyzing and managing these distributed
geographic views, also called extents in GIS
parlance.
Geographic Information Systems (GIS) for Facility Management
16
Space and occupancy management, space
optimization and rationalization, departmental
grouping and/or distribution are all business
processes that are best served by a visual
interface that spans the landscape. In a campus
environment, the ability to see the distribution
of departmental staff in three dimensions
across multiple buildings can greatly enhance
a manager’s ability to organize resources for
the greatest productivity. In city- or regionwide
corporate environments, where there is a
requirement for facility consolidation, the ability
to thoroughly analyze the attributes of various
locations can be a competitive advantage. A
competitive advantage can result by ensuring
that the new location best serves the needs of
customers, employees and suppliers. In addition,
GIS or IWMS/GIS can be used as a facility and
space management tool for space optimization,
facility rationalization and move management.
5.4.4 Maintenance Management
The value of GIS for maximizing efficiency,
productivity and cost savings has long been
proven in the areas of delivery, routing and
logistics for services and transportation across
a variety of industries. Both within and among
buildings the same efficiencies can be achieved
in the area of maintenance management with an
integrated IWMS/GIS solution. The IWMS can
track and notify maintenance staff about weekly,
monthly or annual schedules. The GIS tracks
the location of the items to be maintained and
helps staff combine work orders from different
schedules with identical or proximal locations.
This can help to drastically reduce the time and
resources expended to complete maintenance
and work orders. In addition, GIS routing analysis
and recommendation reduce both the time and
resources wasted in transit by optimizing travel
routes between and within structures for more
efficient, cost-effective work order completion.
Additionally, GIS can be used for real-time
coordination and dispatch of resources for
maintenance and repair responses that fall outside
of regular schedules. This real-time capability
becomes even more valuable when deployed in
emergency scenarios that require rapid sharing
and dissemination of location-based information.
To summarize, GIS or IWMS/GIS can be used for
routing, visualization of multicalendar workflows
and real-time dispatch based on proximity of
resources, as well as other functions, to improve
maintenance management efficiency.
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5.4.5 Environmental Sustainability and include LEED for Neighborhood Development
Management
Sustainability is generally understood as the
measurement, management and reduction of
energy consumption and carbon emissions/
carbon footprint for reducing environmental impact
and operating expenses. The influences driving
interest in these reduction efforts lie in ever-
increasing energy costs and phenomena, such as
global warming and growing public awareness of
environmental issues, that increasingly motivate
many consumers to favor companies and
institutions with positive environmental records. In
the past few years, some IWMS platforms have
developed specific sustainability and management
functionality in response to these trends. GIS
adds value to these tools, especially when:
• Sustainability interests span multiple buildings
and across portfolios
• Visualization and visualization analysis can
be used to display sustainability metrics,
especially when 3D modeling can be used
Building automation systems (BAS) and energy
management systems (EMS) can be effective
tools to address sustainability issues. They
are also one of the more complicated facility
management systems as they combine an
extremely broad array of data, including energy
usage and cost; mechanical, electrical and lighting
systems operation, including efficiency and device
monitoring for operation, maintenance, energy
consumption and failure; occupancy complaint
monitoring; and lighting controls both inside and
outside of buildings; and usually including an
e-mail and/or phone notification system. This
complex array of data types and sources can
result in a dizzying amount of information that
needs to be assimilated and managed in order
to be an effective system. In this scenario, GIS
can provide a platform for real-time visual access
to information from an intuitively comprehensible
view of the building, campus plan or regional
portfolio map. GIS also supports a variety of
integration points to other systems, such as
triggering a work order in the enterprise asset
management (EAM) system and monitoring
weather patterns or emergency services networks
for information that may affect building systems
operations.
The U.S. Green Building Council (USGBC)
Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design
(LEED) certifications have recently grown to
Geographic Information Systems (GIS) for Facility Management
17
(LEED-ND), which attempts to set standards
for sustainable, environmentally responsible
development of new and in-fill parcels ranging in
size from less than 2 to more than 12,000 acres.
An IWMS may be fully capable of managing
sustainability programming on a single building
basis, but a GIS integrated with an IWMS may
be needed to effectively visualize and manage
the volume and variety of data types that result
when sustainability programming spans multiple
buildings and sites. An integrated GIS/IWMS
allows information about building interiors and
the landscape-level environment to be combined.
Additionally, the visualization capabilities of the
GIS can be harnessed to illustrate an institution’s
environmental sustainability activity as part of an
effective public relations and marketing program to
attract new customers, clients, students and other
interested parties.
In summary, GIS or GIS/IWMS can be used to
help achieve sustainability goals because they
provide a means for:
• Campus- and portfoliowide query, analysis
and reporting on environmental issues for
combined building interior and landscape-level
environments
• Optimization of energy performance by
identifying performance outliers through
integration with BAS and EMS
• Conservation and protection of traditional
environmental resources, such as water, open
space and flora, as part of comprehensive
environmental programming, including
combined building and campuswide energy
consumption
• Reduction of impact of materials and
operations on building sites and the
environment
5.5 Market Drivers
Gartner also defines eight IWMS market drivers
that can be positively impacted by GIS:
• Facility real estate consolidation and portfolio
rationalization
• Globalization
• Life cycle management approaches
• Enhancement of user experience
• Business continuity and disaster recovery
• Compliance with US government legislation
• The future of GIS and IWMS
• Enterprise integration
2010 IFMA Foundation
5.5.1 Facility Real Estate Consolidation and landscape where the facility exists.
Portfolio Rationalization
The use of GIS can help answer questions about
how to best consolidate property portfolios.
Some of the risks involved in large-scale facility
consolidation lie in the potential disconnect
between the seemingly simple numerical analysis
of multiple sites and the thorough understanding
of the applicability of a site for a given function.
GIS can answer questions about drive times
for employees and suppliers; proximity to
infrastructure, such as power, water and/or
transportation; and demographics related to
qualified workforce and/or customer base.
5.5.2 Globalization: Requiring a Worldwide afforded by the GIS is a vastly improved way of
Portfolio View
Landscape-level intuitive presentation of
information is a core feature of GIS. In a business
climate with complex, globally distributed
facility portfolios it is no longer adequate, or
even possible, to manage, analyze and report
on facility yield and productivity without taking
into consideration the ramifications of location.
Intuitive, visual interaction with demographics,
population concentrations, and growth/decline
trends, all of which are core GIS data, support
appropriate distribution of facilities to meet supply
chain and sales models better than tabular
representation of complex numerical models.
5.5.3 Life Cycle Approach to Facility and Real things to ensure that the emergency response
Estate Management
The life cycle approach to facility and real
estate management includes planning, project
management, leasing and operations. The
life cycle approach to facility and real estate
management is the primary influence behind the
other market drivers discussed within this section.
A life cycle management approach is a growing
area of concern, especially in difficult economic
climates where organizations are planning to keep
existing buildings longer, rather than undertake
new capital expansion projects. Site selection;
construction project logistics management;
space and occupancy analysis; accurate lease
representations; and facility maintenance,
redevelopment and decommissioning all have
associated geographic (location) interests.
Facility and real estate management is more
efficient, more easily understood and managed,
and more cost effective when managed within a
comprehensive technology that compares and
contrasts complex data about the environment or
Geographic Information Systems (GIS) for Facility Management
18
5.5.4 Requirements to Enhance the User
Experience
The experience of using an IWMS application
can be enhanced by increasing usability and
accessibility. One of the cornerstones of GIS
is the ability to organize and visually present
information in an intuitive format that provides
users with the ability to efficiently access the
data that is important to them, and then to easily,
iteratively query, analyze and report on an infinite
number of combinations. Whether simply locating
a building, room or asset, or performing complex
analysis of resource allocation, the visual map
interacting with and understanding information
as compared with traditional tabular and two-
dimensional interfaces.
5.5.5 Business Continuity and Disaster
Recovery
Business continuity and disaster recovery require
the identification of backup sites, employee
locations and critical infrastructure in the event of
local or regional business interruption. In many
ways, business continuity and disaster recovery
for business are quite similar to many of the
concerns of public safety professionals. In both
cases, the requirement is for rapid or immediate
access to information about people, places and
team can operate safely and effectively in the face
of events often out of their control. A first order of
business in both situations is to determine where
things are and how to best allocate and relocate
resources to and from the affected locations. GIS
is a primary tool of public safety professionals
because a GIS can be used to prepare “what
if” scenarios, providing a snapshot of all of the
information needed to effectively manage a
situation when it occurs, along with the ability to
rapidly present new combinations of information
as needs arise.
5.5.6 Compliance With US Government
Legislation
Section 404 of the Sarbanes-Oxley Act of 2002
mandates adequate and effective internal control
and procedures for financial reporting. The Act
requires a comprehensive audit and inventory
of assets that must include location data for
verification and validation of asset condition and
accounting. While it is not always necessary
2010 IFMA Foundation
to visually interact with asset-level data (i.e.,
visually mapping the location of assets), having
the ability to exactly locate assets during audits
or fraud investigations is of critical importance.
The geodatabase, which is the core, underlying
component powering the GIS, is the only way
to effectively store and manage this location
data. This is an excellent example of a purely
geolocation data management aspect of GIS
that does not necessarily require a visualization
platform.
5.5.7 GIS and the Future of the IWMS Sector
The application vendors who address all of the
categories listed above most comprehensively
are generally the most successful in the market.
Additionally, they are located in the top, right
quadrant within the Gartner Magic Quadrant.
Many of the IWMS vendors, including most of
those clustered in the upper right quadrant, have
begun to address GIS integration. Furthermore,
Gartner appears to be starting to think about
GIS integration as an important value-added
functionality in the IWMS market. The next time
the Gartner Magic Quadrant study is released it
may be quite different. It will be very interesting
to see if and how Gartner describes GIS and how
it might rate each vendor in their approach in the
new Magic Quadrant. It is anticipated it will be
released during the 2010 calendar year.
When the 2008 Magic Quadrant was published
it does not appear that either Gartner of any
of the IWMS vendors were thinking about GIS
integration and functionality as a differentiating
and competitively advantageous product
component. (Note: All statements about the future
of the Magic Quadrant are analysis of the market
by the authors, and should not be assumed to
be representative of any other individual’s or
organization’s opinion or perspective, especially
that of Gartner, Inc. or its analysts).
5.5.8 Other Enterprise Integrations With GIS
While integrated workplace management
systems (IWMS) strive to combine all major
facility functions into a single platform, there are
many organizations that must maintain multiple
facility-related applications. Reasons for this
could include, but are not limited to, that they are
considered best-in-class or because they are
legacy systems. Legacy systems could be too
disruptive or expensive to migrate. As with IWMS,
other enterprise applications are concerned with
Geographic Information Systems (GIS) for Facility Management
19
the management and storage of information about
resources that have a location component. In
this scenario, GIS can help unify multiple facility
systems when all of the functions covered by this
variety of applications cannot be consolidated
into a single IWMS solution. The GIS can be
effectively integrated with other applications to
maintain location data and to support enterprise
business processes, allowing a broader variety of
information and phenomena to be accounted for
than in any one application alone.
There are multiple applications that can be
integrated with GIS through an enterprise
approach:
• Building automation systems (BAS) and
energy management systems (EMS)
• Customer relationship management (CRM)
• Enterprise asset management (EAM)/
computerized maintenance management
systems (CMMS)
• Enterprise resource planning (ERP)
• Supply chain management (SCM)
Building automation systems (BAS) are control
systems that consist of devices used to monitor,
control and manage mechanical and electrical
systems within a building (ASHRAE 2010). Some
integrated BAS include lighting; heating, ventilating
and air conditioning (HVAC); and security and fire
alarm. Many commercial buildings today have
BAS. Most BAS include dynamic graphics of
systems, equipment, valves, meters and sensors,
as well as static graphics of floor plans of areas
serviced. In most cases, the BAS graphics are
not integrated with enterprise facility management
systems. Thus, the data from a BAS is often
inaccessible to other applications. Additionally,
there is not a direct, dynamic link between floor
plan graphics within the BAS and electronic CAD
or BIM files. (It should be noted that linking BIM
files with BAS is a very new application that is still
in development.)
It is possible that GIS could serve as a common
platform for visualization, centralization of data and
analysis for disparate BAS systems with IWMS.
The common denominator would be the location of
spaces and buildings.
In addition to providing control of systems and
equipment, BAS can be used to trend operations
and energy consumption data. Future applications
of GIS could be integrated with BAS to help
2010 IFMA Foundation
visualize building conditions in real time.
Customer relationship management (CRM)
can include customer support and service, in
addition, but not limited, to sales, marketing and
customer retention. When geographic information
is used for customer relations business process
management, the following questions can be
answered:
• Where are my customers?
• What locations should marketing activities
focus on?
• How can the delivery of customer service be
maximized?
• Where should new buildings be located to best
serve the customer base?
The answers to all of these questions are well
supported by the integration of CRM with GIS.
Enterprise asset management (EAM) and
computerized maintenance management
systems (CMMS) integrated with the GIS support
comprehensive work planning for increased
efficiencies by answering questions about
where and when maintenance work needs to be
performed.
Enterprise resource planning (ERP) applications
typically contain information about employees
and suppliers, as well as a variety of corporate
financial information. The GIS can provide data
that defines where inventories are located, where
service personnel are located and which corporate
resources are best applied to business problems
based on proximity.
Supply chain management (SCM) applications
have a connection to geography for just-in-time
logistics for retailers and manufacturers. Reducing
inventory costs and delivery times reap huge
benefits in cost savings and customer satisfaction
by reducing financial commitment to suppliers
and by getting product to customers sooner. This
allows for shorter cash flow cycles. Understanding
the locations of customers, inventories and
manufacturing resources is critical to managing
efficient workflows.
While each of these application types alone benefit
from integration with location data, there are even
greater benefits to be obtained when they are
integrated with one another, sharing location data
related to customers, suppliers, inventories and
employees, as well as other applications.
Geographic Information Systems (GIS) for Facility Management
20
5.6 Summary
This section has discussed how an integrated
approach to GIS and IWMS implementation, as
well as the entire alphabet soup of enterprise
systems, is an area of tremendous opportunity
for facility managers. Certainly there are
circumstances in which either the IWMS or the
GIS is the appropriate stand-alone solution for a
business problem. Yet, given the ever-increasing
emphasis on facility life cycle management and
comprehensive facility portfolio management,
a solution that truly scales from the world to
the widget is extremely effective and at times
invaluable in meeting contemporary facility
management challenges. From space and
occupancy to project, lease, portfolio and
sustainability management, the integration of GIS
with IWMS, and other enterprise applications,
combines intuitive visualization and analysis
with business process-specific functionality at
virtually any scale. These tools can be used
from room-level physical assets to the global real
property portfolios, for truly comprehensive facility
management capability.
It should be emphasized that GIS is not a
replacement for any enterprise application.
Rather, this section seeks to represent the
opportunity to spatially enable all of the things
to be tracked and supported using geospatial
analysis and visualization capabilities. The
analytics, project management, portfolio
management and financial modeling capabilities,
and other core IWMS capabilities, are critical to
effective, comprehensive program management
across the areas discussed above. It is the
position of the authors that when geographic
information systems are integrated with an IWMS,
a level of capability not achieved by any other
application platform alone is achieved.
Hence, any IWMS implementation that spans
multiple buildings, campuses, portfolios or other
geographically distributed real property assets,
entities, workflows and business processes could
benefit from the use of integrated GIS.
2010 IFMA Foundation
6 GIS IN EMERGENCY PREPAREDNESS
One way that GIS for facility management is
being leveraged is to support the public safety
community. In the past decade, there have
been several high-profile incidents that highlight
the critical nature of information about building
interiors for emergency responders. From the
September 11 terrorist attacks and the Virginia
Tech shootings in the United States to the Mumbai
and London underground bombings, and the
Deutsche Bank fire in New York City, the headlines
are replete with examples of how accurate
information about the insides of buildings delivered
to emergency responders in a timely manner can
save lives.
Figure 6 shows a 3D immersive image of the
Philadelphia underground and an enlarged section
of a single point within the underground. This
figure represents an example of how emergencies
can be detected and responded to using real-time
information.
Figure 6: Immersive data survey of the Philadelphia
underground
Another use case for GIS in emergency
preparedness relates to hazardous materials
(HAZMAT) tracking. An integrated GIS and
IWMS solution can be an excellent resource for
visualization, query and analysis of HAZMAT
locations and types for preplanning and response.
Again, this type of information is critical in
Geographic Information Systems (GIS) for Facility Management
21
emergency scenarios for ensuring the safety
of emergency responders, safe evacuation of
building occupants and public safety for the
community at large.
For the public safety community, leveraging GIS
inside buildings yields tremendous benefits. With
accurate, up-to-date building maps, public safety
officials can better identify operational risks in any
given building and be better prepared to respond
in the event of an incident. Today, some public
safety professionals use GIS models to better
understand evacuation plans in public venues.
Others are using GIS for security planning,
management and monitoring. Still others are
using mobile GIS to support in-building inspections
so that their preplanning efforts can be more
effective.
Some key benefits to using GIS for emergency
preparedness are that it:
• Provides a homogenous and non-interrupted
layer of information, whereby decision makers
can easily move between external and internal
environments and different levels or floors
with no hard-break lines to separate the
information, which is beneficial to situational
awareness.
• Supports data interoperability whereby
information can be easily exported into a wide
variety of modeling applications and modeling
results can be imported back to the GIS for
visualization.
• Is a Web-ready and secure technology, a
good solution for systems where data, users
and decision makers are not co-located. This
allows for information to be accessed from
a variety of systems and across a variety of
geographic scales.
• Provides an integrated view of features above
ground as well as underground, and inside
and outside of buildings.
2010 IFMA Foundation
Some jurisdictions, like New York City, are
taking a very proactive and regulatory approach
to developing comprehensive repositories of
information about building interiors to support
emergency preparedness agencies. It is now
a requirement in New York City for the owner of
a building with more than 15 stories to submit
emergency action plans per floor to the New
York Fire Department every six months. Other
cities, like Boston, Philadelphia and Chicago, are
Geographic Information Systems (GIS) for Facility Management
22
taking a less regulatory approach to the same
problem but the trend is clear – the public safety
community needs better information about the
insides of buildings to be effective. It is becoming
imperative that the facility management community
understand this trend and be prepared to tackle
issues of information sharing with public safety
agencies in the very near future.
2010 IFMA Foundation
7 GIS COMPLEMENTS BUILDING INFORMATION MODELING (BIM)
Building information modeling is the process
and technologies that facilitate the development
and use of building information models (BIM)
(Eastman et al 2008). A building information
model is composed of a database of parametric
objects that contain information about their
geometry, relationship to other objects, data
regarding their materials and other properties.
The geometry of the objects is often represented
using 3D attributes. BIM is best thought of as “a
digital representation of physical and functional
characteristics of a facility … and a shared
knowledge resource for information about a facility
forming a reliable basis for decision during its life
cycle; defined as existing from earliest conception
to demolition” (bSa 2010a).
Although BIM is new to many professionals within
the design, construction and facility management
disciplines, the first uses of 3D building modeling
were in the late 1970s and early 1980s. During
this time, several vendor products and university-
based research products were developed
(Eastman et al 2008). In the last decade, several
software vendors have developed products to
implement BIM using three-dimensional and
object-oriented software architectures.
7.1 Uses of Building Information Models
BIM captures information about the geometry,
cost, schedule and attributes (dimensions, color,
capacity, etc.) of a building. BIM can be used for
all phases of the life cycle of a building: design,
construction, operation and demolition (BIMex
2010). To date, the most developed uses of
BIM have been in design and construction. For
example BIM has successfully been used for
(BIMex 2010):
• Project planning
○○ Site selection and analysis
○○ Visualization
○○ Existing conditions modeling
○○ Cost estimating
Geographic Information Systems (GIS) for Facility Management
23
• Design
○○ Design authoring and analysis
○○ Energy analysis
○○ Lighting analysis
○○ Structural analysis
○○ 3D design coordination
• Construction
○○ Digital fabrication
○○ Construction planning (4D CAD)
○○ Constructability analysis
○○ Clash analysis
○○ Site utilization planning
The list of processes and functions above can be
undertaken using BIM by either directly linking
functional applications to or importing information
between the building model and the functional
application.
There is also potential for BIM to be used for
facility management applications. There are many
efforts underway to develop these applications,
such as the Construction Operations Building
Information Exchange (COBie), the Specifiers’
Properties Information Exchange (SPie), the
GIS/BIM ifc Based Information Exchange and
others (bSa 2010b). In supporting integrated
project teams that include facility management
professionals, BIM can help to ensure that facility
planning will meet their needs, and the data
required for facility management applications
will be captured and transferred to downstream
systems.
Some additional uses of BIM for facility
management applications and areas of
development include, but are not limited to:
• Data exchange between the construction
phase and the operations and maintenance
phase
• Use of laser scanners
• Collection and cataloging of room data
information logistics
2010 IFMA Foundation
7.1.1 Data Exchange From the Construction facility management are coordinated by or through
Phase to the Operations and Maintenance the buildingSMART alliance. The buildingSMART
Phase
Efforts, such as COBie, have been developed or
are being developed to help transfer data gathered
during the design and construction phase of a
project into facility management software, such as
computerized maintenance management system
(CMMS) software. COBie provides an avenue
to transfer data about equipment, warranties
and space utilization into CMMS and many
other software applications. Multiple vendors
have publicly demonstrated this data exchange
capability at the COBie Challenge (COBie 2009).
7.1.2 Laser Scanners
Laser scanners can be used to create 3D images
of existing buildings that were not designed
using BIM. The United States General Services
Administration (GSA) has been spearheading the
national 3D-4D BIM program since 2003. The
GSA sees 3D laser scanning and imaging as
a promising tool to enhance the accuracy and
efficiency of documenting existing conditions of
physical assets. Between 2004 and 2007, the
GSA used 3D laser scanning for seven capital
projects, ranging from an entry pavilion to a
campus of federal properties (GSA 2007).
7.1.3 Collection and Cataloging of Room Data disparate software packages (Khemlani 2004;
Information Logistics
Processes and data structures to gather
space and room data for use with BIM and/
or GIS software have been developed for early
project programming through the room data
information logistics project. During early project
programming, room data sheets can be used to
define the intended occupancy and use of each
space, including equipment, utilities and features
(BIM Journal 2009).
In summary, the great opportunity here is that
BIM supports integrated project teams, which
can and should include facility management
representatives, as well as any stakeholders
utilizing GIS as a component of their facility
management tool set. Documentation and capture
of design and construction data from BIM is
critical to ensuring that any new facility will meet
the downstream needs of occupants and facility
managers and the applications they use.
7.2 buidingSMART alliance
Many of the efforts to support the use of BIM in
Geographic Information Systems (GIS) for Facility Management
24
alliance is a council of the National Institute of
Building Sciences (NIBS). NIBS was established
in 1974 by the US Congress to bridge the gap
between industry and government to provide
innovative solutions for the built environment.
The buildngSMART alliance was formed to
spearhead technical, political and financial support
for advanced technology for the real property
industry from predesign through operations
and maintenance. Some of the goals of the
buildingSMART alliance are to:
• Coordinate information sharing between
different project teams across the software
applications development market
• Support the development of interoperability
schema
• Aggregate BIM standards and processes
so that guidelines and standards can be
developed at both national and international
levels
The buildingSMART alliance has published an
International Organization for Standardization
(ISO) data interchange standard called industry
foundation classes (IFC). Industry foundation
classes are nonproprietary data models that
allow information to be exchanged between
bSa 2010c). IFCs allow files to be vendor neutral
and to be used by multiple software applications.
Software applications using IFCs correctly are IFC
compliant, as they follow the required exchange
requirements.
7.3 Open Geospatial Consortium CityGML
The goal of facility managers and others using
GIS and BIM should be to use GIS for what it does
best and to use BIM for what it does best, while
switching between the two applications. The Open
Geospatial Consortium (OGC) has developed
CityGML in conjunction with the buildingSMART
alliance to meet the goal of modeling building
exteriors at a neighborhood to regional scale.
CityGML is an information model used to
represent 3D urban objects. CityGML can be used
to define geometrical, topographical, semantical
and appearance properties within city and regional
models. It is realized as an open data model that
uses an XML-based format to store and exchange
virtual 3D city models. More information can be
found at www.citygml.org (CityGML 2007).
2010 IFMA Foundation
Another GIS and BIM project is the
buildingSMART alliance GIS/BIM ifc Based
Information Exchange project. The project
seeks to help ensure convergence of all spatial
information so that BIM, GIS and other software
products can use spatial data while minimizing
non-value-added effort, to normalize data storage
and to define current workflows between BIM and
GIS tools for the life cycle of facilities. The project
began in March 2010. More information about the
project can be found at www.buildingsmartalliance.
org/index.php/projects/activeprojects/27.
A GIS does not replace or compete with
CAD or BIM, but is used to complement and
extend their capabilities on an enterprise
level.
The good news is that GIS can be used to
complement and extend the capabilities of
BIM. While a GIS implementation may never
be as finely detailed nor semantically rich as a
BIM, a plethora of information can be harvested
from a BIM when available, to create a system
of geographic references to address problems
that face facility managers on a day-to-day
basis. Furthermore, links can be created in the
GIS that reference back to the BIM when highly
detailed information is required. This blending
of technologies allows information systems to
be created that perform well at large geographic
scales, conform to enterprise IT standards for
security, adapt to a wide variety of original data
sources and enterprise applications, and still allow
links back to highly detailed building information
models.
In this view, GIS neither replaces nor competes
with either CAD or BIM. Rather, GIS is used to
complement BIM and CAD in an interoperable
way to harvest information from a variety of data
sources to create systems that perform well at
large geographic scales, and yet link back to the
source systems when highly detailed information
is necessary for specific requirements.
7.4 BIM for Design and Construction
It would be hard to overstate the significance
of BIM to the architecture, engineering and
construction community. BIM allows building
designers to document their projects in a very
detailed way, to detect potential conflicts between
different building systems and to effectively
Geographic Information Systems (GIS) for Facility Management
25
communicate detailed design intention to those
responsible for constructing the building. BIM
is becoming a very widely accepted tool in
the architecture, engineering and construction
communities because of the efficiencies gained
during the design process, implicit cost savings
and decreases in the length of project schedules.
BIM is often required for many government and
higher education building design and construction
projects.
7.5 BIM for Operations and Maintenance
Despite the tremendous value that BIM represents
for building design and construction, there are
some significant limitations to current versions
of the technology that make it less ideal for
supporting the operations and maintenance
phases of the building life cycle. Several of these
limitations are summarized below:
• BIM being primarily file based
• Availability of operations and maintenance
information during design and construction
• Using BIM with existing building stock
• Skill set required to use BIM tools
BIM can be created on a file system, rather than
in a relational database. It is the authors’ opinion
that it may be difficult to maintain and manage a
BIM in a multiuser/concurrent-user environment.
Current solutions for multiuser environments are
lock-based: the BIM is locked for writing while a
user modifies it. Another problem is consolidation
of such models edited by several users, wherein
conflict resolution may be very tedious. Some BIM
software vendors offer the alternative to create
and manage BIMs within an enterprise database
environment. In the authors’ experience, however,
this is not a common implementation pattern as
it complicates the process of sharing information
between the many architecture, engineering and
construction firms that may be involved in a typical
project.
Currently, much of the data that is necessary for
managing and operating buildings is not known
during design and construction. Therefore, it
cannot be included when the original BIM is
created. For example, specific space assignments
and individual occupancy information may be
critical to the building manager, but are almost
never known at the time of design. Therefore, this
data must be created and maintained after the
building is in operation, usually using an integrated
workplace management system (IWMS).
2010 IFMA Foundation

Furthermore, most large organizations are likely
to manage this type of assignment and occupancy
data in an IWMS that has mature data structures
and workflows for maintaining this data in the
context of move management and condition
assessment workflows. By definition, this type
of information is created and maintained at a far
removed process from the design and construction
process. To date, there has been no concerted
effort by the IWMS industry to provide tight
integrations with BIM packages that would keep
this type of information fresh in the original BIM.
BIM use requires a highly specialized and highly
technical skill set and BIM modeling produces
data in a format that is not easily consumable
by a large pool of users. In the authors’ opinion,
GIS is a tool much better suited to simplifying and
disseminating information to a large group of users
without sacrificing any of the spatial intelligence of
the original model.

The relational database structure used by GIS

and IWMS software inherently includes enterprise
characteristics such as row- and column-
based security, high availability and automated
replication. While information security is not
often a critical component of building design and
construction, it is very often a requirement for
operations and management.

Within the authors’ experience, BIM practitioners

have reported significant challenges in creating
models of large buildings or collections
of buildings. These challenges are often
performance related because the BIM is being
used to model the built environment at a very high
level of detail and at a very precise scale. As a
result, the overall model can quickly grow to the
point where it may overwhelm available computing
system resources. It is the opinion of the authors
that for many facility managers, this is a critical
problem because responsibilities of facility
managers often span large campuses, cities or
the globe. Facility managers have a need for a
solution that can scale from the world to the widget
and do so without requiring specialized, high-
performance computing environments.

The vast majority of existing building stock was

built before the advent of BIM technology. At
present, the challenges of creating a BIM for an
existing building are significant and expensive
to solve. While the business value proposition
of BIM in the design and construction phase has
now been reasonably well proven, the value of
creating a BIM for existing buildings is so far much
more tenuous, even with the use of tools such
as laser scanners. For the foreseeable future,
technologies deployed for the operations and
maintenance of existing buildings are likely to be
something other than BIM.

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2010 IFMA Foundation
8 GIS DATA MANAGEMENT
As facility managers begin to integrate GIS
support into their information management
strategic plans, one important consideration is
the development, maintenance and management
of the fundamental geospatial data required
for better-informed facility management
decision making. In the past, geospatial data
development and geoprocessing was typically
done offline, with high-end workstations, by a
highly specialized workforce. This stereotypical
model has largely been transformed over the past
decade as geospatial support has become a core
requirement for many different types of information
systems.
Some important points to consider when
contemplating geospatial support for facility
management information systems include:
• Today, GIS is typically deployed on common
enterprise database platforms such as Oracle,
MS SQL Server, DB2 or PostGresSQL. This
means that the organization’s IT department is
likely to have the basic IT support capabilities
in-house to implement the IT requirements for
GIS. It also means that the GIS can readily
scale quickly and easily and take advantage
of common IT standards for authentication,
entitlement and communications.
• One of the most important components of a
GIS, differentiating it from other information
systems, is its ability to manage geospatial
data in a projected coordinate system
(ESRI 2010). There are several important
implications to this. First, GIS systems are
capable of modeling spatial positions and
relationships very accurately at hyper-local
to global scales. Second, data created in
different parts of the world and in different
coordinate systems can all be properly related
to one another. In recent years, the of spatial data formats, from many different
Geographic Information Systems (GIS) for Facility Management
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precision of GIS coordinate systems has
greatly improved to the point where it is
possible today to store measurements at the
submillimeter level for the entire planet in a
single coordinate system.
A projected coordinate system is a two-dimensional
planar surface. However, the Earth’s surface is 3D.
To transform a 3D space onto a 2D surface is called
projection.
Projection formulas are mathematical expressions
that convert data from a geographical location (lati-
tude and longitude) on a sphere or spheroid to a cor-
responding location (x and y) on a flat, 2D surface.
Source: ESRI (2010)
• GIS is a database with location information,
not a graphics application. All features in a
feature class have the same set of attributes
and those attributes are strongly typed. This
means that the data in a number field must be
a number; and the data in a date field must be
a date. This supports search, sort, analysis
and query of the type required for facility
management over time. This data structure is
very unlike annotation in CAD blocks.
• GIS data can participate in elaborate
topologies. The simplest example is the
formation of lines to establish a boundary. The
concept can be taken much further, however,
to describe how pipes can fit together and
can include complex topologies like geometric
networks that allow routing along network
edges.
• GIS data can be harvested from a number
of different formats. There are mature tools
readily available in the market that provide
for conversion between a very wide variety
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software vendors, as well as well as many

generic source formats, such as XML, TIFF,
raster, tabular, PNG, GIF, CityGML and CSV.

All of the above notwithstanding, often the system

of record for as-built (in-building structural,
geometry and spatial) data is, and should continue
to be, CAD and/or BIM for all of the beneficial
aspects discussed above. GIS is unlikely to
become a system to design a building.

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2010 IFMA Foundation

9 GIS ANALYSIS

One of the most powerful capabilities of a GIS is • Route – Display the fastest or shortest
that of geospatial analysis. Geospatial analysis distance between two points along a
can help facility managers answer important transportation network (roads, rail, footpaths).
questions that are otherwise difficult to address. ○○ What is the most direct route from
Geospatial analysis is usually grouped into a room x to room y if I am wheelchair
number of different types. The list below describes bound?
types of geospatial analysis, and how they can be ○○ How long will it take to evacuate
used by facility managers today: building x if stairwell y is blocked?
• Buffer – How many things are within x ○○ How far into building x can I get in two
distance of this location? minutes?
○○ How many offices are there within x • Spatial selection – Select the objects in layer
distance of this lab, classroom or A that are within the boundaries of a feature(s)
parking lot? in layer B.
○○ What are the walk times between a ○○ Select all of the fire extinguishers
parking lot and each facility? on north campus and schedule them
• Overlay – What things are within the for inspection.
boundaries of a specified area? ○○ Select all of the people scheduled to
○○ Which offices are within the space be in the buildings adjacent to building
described by this lease? x and notify them of an emergency
○○ Which security cameras are in this event.
security zone? ○○ Select all of the air handlers within the
• Proximity – What are the nearest x things to footprint of this project and schedule
this location? them for filter replacement.
○○ What are the 10 open work orders ` • Drive time – Show me all the things or areas
nearest to this asset? that can be aggregated within a specified drive
○○ Where are the three soda machines time of location x.
nearest to this dorm room? ○○ What is the cumulative drive time for
• Geocoding – Provide a location that all employees to facility x?
corresponds to a given address. ○○ How many employees of facility x
○○ Where is 123 Main Street? live within 10 minutes drive time of
○○ Where is John Doe’s office? public transportation?
○○ Where is phone number 230-0182? ○○ What is the total retail spending
• Density – Show the density of things typically potential of the population that lives
per square unit, such as feet or acre (meter or within 15 minutes drive time of this
hectare). proposed store?
○○ Where is the highest concentration of • Temporal – Show the geographic relationship
students at 2 p.m. on Wednesdays? between things over time.
○○ Where is the highest concentration of ○○ Display energy consumption per
work orders in the past 30 days? square foot (square meter) for each
○○ Display the concentration of hot/cold building across my portfolio by month.
calls over time. ○○ Display the distribution of trouble
calls across campus before and
after implementing our community

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2010 IFMA Foundation

security program. GIS provides the basic technology platform

○○ Display the footfall traffic across to accomplish all of the analyses listed above
a specific retail mall every 15 minutes and many more. Simply put, without the
throughout the week. geoprocessing framework that is provided by a
• Line of sight – What can I see from location x GIS, sophisticated analysis about the geographic
(3D)? relationships between the various elements that
○○ How large/high can a building be we are responsible for as facility managers is just
constructed on this site without not possible. As described in the Introduction, a
affecting the skyline from location y? clearer understanding of geospatial relationships
○○ If this proposed building is built, allows for better-informed decisions about
at what time of the day will location x facilities at many levels, which can result in more
be in shadow? efficient, more effective and less expensive facility
○○ What locations can be seen from operations.
location x?
○○ What proposed security cameras will
have visibility of location y?

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2010 IFMA Foundation
10 GIS VISUALIZATION
Maps have been used for centuries to describe
the geographic relationships between things. One
of the earliest and most remarkable maps is the
Yu Ji Tu (also known as Yu Chi Fu), or “Map of
the Tracks of Yu.” (Figure 7) (Patrick Foundation
2010). The map is a fully scaled map of China
engraved in stone over 900 years ago by Chinese
cartographers. This set of two 6 square feet
(0.6 square meters) maps features a grid of over
5,000 squares, each equal to approximately 50
kilometers. China’s coastline and river systems
are clearly defined and precisely pinpointed on
the map with an accuracy rivaling contemporary
cartography. In addition, the Yu Ji Tu includes
over 500 geographical labels, including states,
counties, administrative districts, rivers, lakes
and mountains. It is believed that the maps were
engraved in stone to allow for reproduction by
stone rubbing.
Figure 8: Charles Minard’s 1869 map of Napoleon’s march
on Moscow
Figure 7: A portion of Yu Ji Tu, “Map of the Tracks
of Yu,” engraved in stone over 900 years ago by
Chinese cartographers
Geographic Information Systems (GIS) for Facility Management
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Over time, certain map display techniques
have evolved to help communicate geographic
relationships, and other elements have been
integrated into the map to disseminate more
complex sets of data, such as time and information
about circumstances at a specific location. An
excellent example of this, as well as being
one of the more complex early maps showing
multidimensional data, is Charles Minard’s 1869
map of Napoleon’s march on Moscow (CSISS
2009) (Figure 8) that ingeniously shows the
location and number of Napoleon’s troops by
date, as well as the daily low temperature, which
contributed to the decimation of the ranks of
Napoleon’s army.
Patterns and concepts are much easier to
understand when complex and voluminous
information is communicated through geographic
visualization. Literature describing the value
of visualization as it relates to decision making
and creative processes consistently refers to the
potential for better and more rapid intellectual
processing of information when starting with a
complex, sophisticated and, most importantly,
richly expressive visual image. In a 1987 report
by the National Science Foundation (NSF 1987)
the concept of visualization was emphasized as
a primary influence on knowledge creation and
hypothesis generation.
2010 IFMA Foundation
Visualization within GIS provides a common, real-
time platform for interacting with aggregated data
from across numerous disparate systems. A GIS
uniquely enables users to recognize patterns,
discern trends and view real-time conditions at
micro and/or macro scales simply not feasible by
analyzing tabular data and charts.
The application of today’s graphics software
capabilities for displaying complex map-based
information is leading to some truly amazing
visualization possibilities. As computing hardware
and software become ever more powerful,
access to richly complex visualization becomes
ever greater, empowering entire organizations to
discover new insights about their businesses and
Figure 9: 3D buildings on a campus symbolized by space classification
Geographic Information Systems (GIS) for Facility Management
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to make better decisions faster. While the ability to
interactively view and manipulate 3D visualizations
usually still requires an installed desktop
application, many compelling visualizations can
be made available through Web applications.
This ability, as well as the ability to share 3D
information and to work collaboratively in 3D,
will only become a more prevalent and powerful
phenomenon as 3D visualization becomes more
accessible over time via the Internet.
Figures 9 to 17 provide some examples of modern
visualizations related to facility management.
2010 IFMA Foundation

Figure 10: Identifying security threat perimeters using geospatial analysis

Figure 11: Visualization of fire safety asset (equipment) location by floor

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2010 IFMA Foundation

Figure 12: Large campus visualization in 3D

Figure 13: Lederle Graduate Research Center evacuation analysis

Geographic Information Systems (GIS) for Facility Management

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2010 IFMA Foundation

Figure 14: Lederle Graduate Research Center egress routes

Figure 15: Analysis of distances and walking times from parking lots to offices at MIT

Geographic Information Systems (GIS) for Facility Management

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2010 IFMA Foundation

Figure 16: Comparison of day and night populations on MIT campus

Figure 17: 3D site selection analysis at MIT

Geographic Information Systems (GIS) for Facility Management

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2010 IFMA Foundation

11 IN-BUILDING GIS
The capabilities that make GIS a powerful analysis
and visualization tool for the landscape apply
well to the problems facility managers face inside
buildings. In the past, there were a number of
obstacles to leveraging the power of GIS for the
built environment. Until just a few years ago,
coordinate systems commonly used for GIS did
not have the flexibility to scale from architectural
precision to global implementations. It was also
difficult to convert data between CAD and GIS
formats.
The power of GIS is made available
to facility managers, real property ana-
lysts and public safety agencies through
cost-effective collection, management and
maintenance of geographic data inside the
building.
Over the past few years, the major software
vendors have made tremendous strides in solving
these technology problems. Modern software
tools now support coordinate systems that are
capable of scaling from thousandths of an inch
(25.4 millimeters) to global applications. Similarly,
there are products on the market today that make
the problems of converting from one data format
to another very straightforward. It is now possible
to harvest data from CAD and BIM applications
used to design a building into GIS platforms to
support ongoing maintenance and operations
while still maintaining links back to the original
design deliverables. CAD and BIM data is as
easy to export as it is to import. This makes GIS
a feasible centralized data warehouse, from which
data can be packaged into many different formats.
of very rapidly and cost-effectively collecting full
3D LiDAR (light detection and ranging) point
clouds of the insides of a building (Figure 18),
while human operators simultaneously collect
geo-referenced information about space type and
use, occupancy, condition assessment, assets
and many other types of data. Using the same
technology as tripod-mounted LiDAR scanners,
mobile platforms can quickly and cost-effectively
collect enough data to be dimensionally accurate
and detailed enough for space and facility
management requirements without generating
large, unmanageable data sets. The 3D point
clouds are dimensionally accurate and highly
detailed data sets from which BIM and CAD
models can be derived. This new technology
makes BIM for existing buildings a feasible and
cost-effective deliverable for the first time, thus
making 3D building modeling in GIS a reasonable
approach to facility management.
Handheld devices are also a relatively new
technology becoming available to support the
ongoing maintenance of facility data over time.
These new technologies are simultaneously
driving down the cost of very high-quality data
while providing a technology platform for the
ongoing maintenance of that same data.

Furthermore, new technologies are evolving to

allow for rapid data capture and modeling of the
insides of facilities where as-built drawings are
either out of date or missing completely. These
new mobile data collection platforms are capable
Figure 18: A spatially accurate 3D point cloud

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2010 IFMA Foundation

Figure 19: A view of building infrastructure showing detailed floor plans and a 360° view

Figure 20: Enterprise architecture for GIS in facility management

Now that geographic data describing the insides
of buildings can be cost-effectively collected,
managed and maintained, the true power of GIS
can be made available for facility managers, real
property managers and analysts, and the public
safety community. This power can be used to
inform a wide variety of decisions about how
facilities are managed, operated and maintained.
This can result in better informed decisions leading
to safer, more cost-effective and more sustainable
buildings across portfolios of real property assets.
Figure 19 provides an example of how GIS can be
used to show both floor plans and a full 360° view.
In many ways, the progress from facility
management-related applications such as CAFM,
CMMS, lease, asset and construction applications
to the current paradigm of the all-encompassing
IWMS platforms makes further integration of GIS
even more of an imperative (Figure 20). At least
on one level, all of the things – assets, buildings,
leases and materials – previously maintained and
managed by these disparate applications, and
now often maintained and managed by the IWMS
application, have one primary characteristic in
common: location. All of these things exist in or
describe phenomena that have physical locations.
Through managing and interacting with these
things as a cohesive whole, the full magnitude
of the benefits of greater efficiency, greater
productivity and cost savings can be realized.

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2010 IFMA Foundation
12 MAKING THE BUSINESS CASE FOR GIS IN FACILITY MANAGEMENT
Many benefits can be derived from the use of GIS
technology and the integration of GIS technology
with facility management technologies: decreased
project schedules, increased productivity, faster
decision making leading to earlier program
implementation and increased efficiencies. As
with all relatively new applications of existing
technology applied to new business problems, it
can be difficult to determine the business case,
much less the actual return on investment (ROI)
of integrated GIS/FM quantitatively. This section
of the paper provides qualitative information
that facility mangers can use to help make the
business case to implement GIS for several
different applications, including site selection,
market and customer analysis, emergency action
planning, developing efficient workflows, and
business processes and visualization.
12.1 Site Selection
Exact, quantifiable definition and location of
markets and/or facility locations help managers
better mitigate risks associated with major
capital expenditures for new construction and/
or renovation of existing structures. The ability to
visualize and analyze multiple layers of geographic
Table 1: Site selection with and without GIS
Without GIS
“This looks like a good spot…”
“Well, McDonald’s is already here…”
“There are 10,000 cars and pedestrians passing
by each day. A percentage of them are bound
to come in…”
Geographic Information Systems (GIS) for Facility Management
information related to facilities supports effective
decision making for large corporate initiatives,
such as moves and/or renovations. With GIS the
site selection process can be faster, less costly
and more likely to result in successful location
identification because of the amalgamation of
comprehensive data about the site. GIS allows for
more data to be utilized, beyond the traditional use
of traffic counts and population statistics, providing
the ability to visualize and analyze data in more
meaningful ways. One example is travel time
analysis to make location decisions based on the
distances from employees’ homes or the available
workforce. Another example is spatial competitive
analysis to visually present competitor proximity
and available consumer spending capacity within a
market around a proposed location, which is very
useful in the retail arena. Table 1 contrasts high-
level decision making with and without GIS for site
selection.
Several areas of facility
management processes and workflows can
gain considerable value from using GIS to
positively affect outcomes.
With GIS
Incorporation of business and demographic data
sets to develop detailed customer profiles and sup-
port overlay analyses of those profiles with popu-
lation densities and growth/decline trends, crime
trends/history, competitive landscapes, supporting
and ancillary services (e.g., police, fire, hospital,
transportation) and high-level search for available
parcels.
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12.2 Market and Customer Analysis 12.3 Emergency Action Planning: Floods,
Utilizing GIS delivers a better understanding of
market potential before undertaking expensive
on-site evaluations and investigations, sav-
ing time and money in initial stages of project
development. An accurate understanding of the
market potential of a location increases the like-
lihood of attaining revenue goals or determining
expenses for a location. Table 2 contrasts high-
level decision making with and without GIS for
market and customer analysis.
Fires and Incident Planning
More accurate planning for emergencies results
in decreased likelihood of loss of life and prop-
erty damage. Faster response times result from
more accurate representation of the situation
on the ground. Storing all data in a centralized
geodatabase in a server environment provides
faster, more coordinated distribution of accu-
rate data to multiple emergency agencies. This
results in safer, more effective and more coordi-
nated interagency emergency response. Table
3 contrasts emergency action planning process-
es with and without GIS.

Table 2: Market and customer analysis with and without GIS

Without GIS With GIS

Transportation and infrastructure modeling, includ-
ing drive time and physical proximity of existing
stores and/or facility location to competitors, other
On-site, time-consuming manual surveys, focus services and population densities representing po-
groups and analysis tential customers
Comparison of existing store/market/customer pro-
High-cost physical visits to multiple locations to file with potential locations for new construction or
initially determine viability renovation using dozens of demographic variables

Table 3: Emergency action planning with and without GIS

Without GIS With GIS

Terrain models and hydrography for natural and hu-

Planning with outdated paper maps man threat modeling
No ability to do iterative “what if” scenario mod- Campus environment modeling, including combined
eling of different types of threats or emergen- natural, built environment and building interiors for
cies incident modeling, planning and prevention
Lack of accurate, shared information between Routing and access, obstacle, choke point and as-
agencies sembly point modeling
Modeling with real-time data feeds and services
No dynamic mapping to account for present such as weather, traffic and accident/emergency
environmental conditions conditions

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12.4 Developing Efficient Workflows and 12.5 Visualization of Time-Based Phenomena

Business Processes
The use of GIS can increase workflow and
business process efficiencies. Benefits from
efficiency include reduced costs and greater
productivity. Productivity is gained by:
• Grouping tasks by location
• Allocating resources in real time based on
best or nearest available personnel and/or
inventory
• Modeling and understanding of spatial
distribution of resources by department
• Increasing communication and collaboration
For example, instead of grouping maintenance
workflows by calendar (monthly, quarterly, annual
schedules), GIS can be used to group tasks
by co-location. The application of geospatial
intelligence to these tasks and workflows is
particularly valuable in multibuilding and macro-
scale analysis and workflows. Location data can
be cross-referenced with such criteria as quantity
and location of resources, including personnel or
contractor skill set, tools, inventory, vehicles and
cost data, to create efficient and cost-effective
facility management solutions. Table 4 contrasts
the development of workflows and business
processes with the use and without the use of GIS.
Table 4: Workflows and business processes
From the Local to the Global Scale
The use of GIS provides a better understanding
of temporal (time-based) trends to support better
decision making. Better-informed decisions lead
to cost and time savings (Table 5). One example
of how GIS can be used for visualization is energy
consumption. Temporal visualization in GIS can
provide the facility manager with the ability to view
and understand the influences of campuswide –
or regionwide – energy consumption over time.
Energy consumption and/or demand can be
compared to different factors, such as building
occupancy, building schedules or different seasons
of the year. This type of analysis could be used
to influence resource allocation decisions, such
as alternative energy investments for buildings
that are the largest electricity consumers during
periods of peak demand. A second example is
maintenance workflow. Temporal visualization
of staff resource expenditure, such as overtime,
maintenance vehicles and inventories, could be
compared to client or guest occupancy of spaces
over weeks, months, seasons or years. This type
of visualization can lead to rightsizing decisions
that both improve customer satisfaction and save
money.

Without GIS WITH GIS

With GIS
Geospatial analysis and workflow optimization
based on location intelligence for routing, buffer,
Tabular data used to derive processes without line of sight, overlay analysis and proximity analysis
taking into account complete, landscape-level for geographic grouping and routing of work orders/
analysis of spatial phenomena, such as proxim- assignments to dispatch maintenance management
ity of resources to one another and fleet vehicles
Increased facility and occupancy yield in projects
Functions/departments within an organization related to space utilization, facility rationalization,
are often fragmented across the physical loca- adjacencies and fragmentation by space and facility
tion based on space available and assignments use and type
Real time access to data for visualization, query
and analysis for workflow optimization (e.g., work
assignment, dispatch, fleet management, inventory
and resource allocation)
Table 5: Visualization of time-based phenomena

Without GIS With GIS

Got a mainframe and about a year and a half to Visualization in 2D and 3D for growth/decline or
process the data? project progression analysis
Dynamic trends analysis over time for intuitive
visual interaction with phenomena, such as regional
growth patterns, numerical trends analysis by geog-
raphy, multivariable analysis and visualization

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2010 IFMA Foundation
There is a multitude of potential visualization of
time-based phenomena use cases that can be
imagined for the integrated facility management/
GIS environment. In fact, it is a testament to the
flexibility and capability of the GIS platform that
one can simply imagine how technology might
support a cross-spatial boundary workflow in order
to start determining how to apply GIS to business
problems. Here are just a few workflows that are
possible with GIS as an integrated component of
an enterprise facility management infrastructure:
• GIS can be the core of a real-time visualization
platform to provide live information feeds to
a map-based visual interface, not only with
IWMS but also with other facility systems,
such as building automation systems (BAS),
energy systems, metering, security, parking
and many more.
• GIS can support physical security monitoring
and analyses, both inside and outside of
buildings, utilizing proximity analyses, staffing
allocation and routing, especially when
integrated with real-time data feeds from video
or other monitoring equipment.
• GIS can provide utilities/telecom/IT
infrastructure network analysis for redundancy
and service interruption at the building, site
and regional levels.
• GIS can help support parking (structured and
unstructured, on-site, off-site) visualization
and analyses, potentially in real time, to ease
campus congestion and increase customer
satisfaction.
• GIS is a powerful tool for analyzing foot and
vehicle traffic on site roads and sidewalks to
ease congestion and/or support retail market
analyses.
• GIS provides tremendous potential for
analyzing in-building foot traffic or movement
of individuals (e.g., in a detainment facility
or hospital). It is possible that GIS could be
integrated with security or cardkey systems,
or video monitoring equipment to enable
visualization of temporal movement of
individuals through space for security, space
planning and dispatch scenarios.
Geographic Information Systems (GIS) for Facility Management
42
12.6 Conclusion
As noted previously, without the benefit of years
of experience from which to analyze the cost
savings vis-à-vis the expense of a solution in the
market, it can be quite difficult, if not impossible,
to demonstrate specific ROI for the application
of new technologies to old business problems.
This is certainly the case for the application of
GIS technology to facility management. On the
other hand, ROI is a measure of value based
on a few generally accepted concepts, such as
efficiency, productivity, financial performance
and cost savings. The application of GIS within
facility management has all the underpinnings of a
valuable solution that can save time, save money
and increase customer satisfaction. In the site
selection process, how quickly and thoroughly a
prospective site can be analyzed will often make
the difference between beating the competition
to acquiring a premium parcel at that location. In
market and customer analysis, developing an in-
depth understanding of market forces can lead
to the right decision about same-site renovation
and new product mix, which will lead to more
profitable locations. Developing new, more
efficient workflows and business processes for
maintenance and repair projects can help projects
to be completed faster, allowing organizations
to be kept small and efficient. All of these
components of measured ROI can be greatly
improved through the use of GIS.
In business and project management, the first step
in any new analysis is to collect information about
the situation at hand and to project solutions about
the problem or situation. Often, the deciding factor
of selecting one option over another results from
looking at a familiar situation through a different
lens – not one previously employed on similar
problems. The application of GIS to business
problems can provide such a view into new ways
of seeing and deciding how to address business
issues, and coming up with better solutions that
result in faster, more effective and more efficient
workflows that directly affect productivity and
increase return on investment.
2010 IFMA Foundation

13 CASE STUDIES

Geographic information systems can be used services contract needed to maintain over 100
for many different applications. This part of the high-traffic buildings. The CES houses the base
white paper features five case studies. The first geographic information system, or GeoBase,
case study, MacDill Air Force Base, provides making the geographic information collected very
an example of how GIS can be used for space useful for facility management (PenBay 2008).
management and how the data can be used to
calculate a cost estimate for a large janitorial
contract. The second case study, the United
States Air Combat Command, demonstrates how
GIS can be used for information sharing and
decision making. The Sky Harbor International
Airport case study showcases how spatial data
can be used across a large organization by
employees with many different job responsibilities.
The fourth case study features an example of
space allocation at the US Army Corp. The final
case study provides a detailed example of the
use of GIS for the assignment and optimization
of space assigned to employees at the National
Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA).
Figure 21: Map of MacDill Air Force Base, Florida
13.1 MacDill Air Force Base, Facility
Management Mapping 13.1.1 Challenge
MacDill Air Force Base is an active military base The challenge for the CES was evident in the lack
located on over 5,700 acres (2,307 hectare) in of accurate in-building data that existed to support
Florida, with several hundred facilities (Figure an informed decision for the contract. They had
21). In late 2008, the MacDill Air Force Base Civil outdated, unsubstantiated floor plans that lacked
Engineering Squadron (CES) found it necessary the information necessary to understand the
to gather accurate in-building data to support the space and floor materials within each building. In
estimating and budgeting for a large janitorial planning for the contract decision, it was clear that
the CES needed to complete an in-building data
MACDILL AFB, FACILITY LOCATION collection effort that would provide precise space
MANAGEMENT MAPPING 6th Civil Engineer Squadron
MacDill AFB, Florida
measurements, along with attributes associated
RELEVANT FACILITY with that space. A further challenge was that many
MANAGEMENT SERVICES PROJECT DATES of the MacDill facilities in question are in active
PROVIDED: 2008 – 2013
►► Cost savings with fast, Building data for several MacDill facilities was col-
unobtrusive data col- lected using a spatial robotic platform.
lection
►► Reducing project time operation with designated secure and classified
►► Maintenance manage- sections, making it important for the CES to collect
ment efficiency
►► Interior data collec-
the facility data in a quick, minimally disruptive
tion, vectorization and approach than traditional methods would allow.
visualization

Geographic Information Systems (GIS) for Facility Management

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13.1.2 Solution a better understanding of their facilities to support

A GIS solutions company was contracted by the the current GIS.
CES to provide facility management mapping
services. This service included interior data 13.2 Air Combat Command Web Map Viewer
collection utilizing an innovative robotic platform and Training Management System
to develop vector floor map data with space The United States Air Combat Command (ACC)
attribution. These data acquisition services were has the role of serving as the single management
conducted for a prioritized list of over 100 MacDill point for hundreds of map services within the
facilities. The GIS solutions company provided United States Air Force for an average of 30,000
critical deliverables that were used to support the users worldwide. One of their top priorities is
MacDill facility management initiative, including information sharing and decision processing for
creating space definitions within the CES GIS; successful mission management with enterprise-
capturing floor plan data to represent interior level authentication and fast processing from a
space and structure accurately; and performing secure network (PenBay 2007).
facility surveys quickly, safely and cost effectively.
These space plans, created in a geodatabase, are
valuable because of their unique ability to manage AIR COMBAT COMMAND LOCATION
WEB MAP VIEWER AND HQ ACC Geospatial Info
a large amount of geospatial data.
TRAINING MANAGEMENT Office
SYSTEM Langley Air Force Base,
In total, the GIS solutions company collected Virginia
information for over 1.7 million square feet RELEVANT FACILITY
MANAGEMENT SERVICES PROJECT DATES
(157,930 square meters) of MacDill’s designated
PROVIDED: Oct 2007 – Dec 2008
buildings in nine days. Using a combination of ►► Business systems
GIS and robotics, they were able to measure integration for large
pertinent space and materials data in a fraction international user base
►► Effective information
of the time it takes with traditional collection
sharing and decision
methods. Since many of MacDill’s facilities have processing for success-
secure and classified areas, minimal survey time ful mission manage-
and disruption to operations was a critical factor ment
►► Enterprise-level authen-
achieved with this highly efficient spatial data
tication
collection method. ►► Fast geoprocessing of
complex data from a
The floor maps, or geo-referenced space secure network
►► Implementation of a
plans, created by the in-building data collection
training management
methodology have given the CES an accurate solution
understanding of their current building space and
the floor materials within them (Figure 22). This
information has empowered the CES to make 13.2.1 Challenge
informed business decisions about their janitorial Given the wide distribution of information, and the
contract for the buildings in question, and to have potential sensitivity of the data, the ACC needed to
be sure the correct application was selected. The
application needed to be able to provide critical,
often complex, information to a large international
user base quickly and efficiently from a secure
network. In addition, the application also needed
to maintain authentication when appropriate.

Figure 22: Building interiors, providing an accurate
understanding of current space and floor materials
13.2.2 Solution
Using its expertise in software development
and integration, as well as training and program
management, a GIS solutions company worked
closely with ACC to implement a Web map
viewer application (Figure 23) and online training
management system that supported the vision of
the ACC technology leadership. The applications
were designed to take advantage of evolving

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2010 IFMA Foundation
technologies, and to be sustainable and scalable,
as these were important to the ACC, whose
mission and application requirements will continue
to grow and change over time.
Figure 23: Screen shot of map viewer used by Air Combat
Command with GIS data via dynamic map delivery
The Web map viewer application is served from
within the Air Force secure network via a portal
application. This promotes effective information
sharing and decision processing for successful
mission management and responsive combat
support by providing a single, accurate, secure
and authoritative mapping information service.
The application provides GIS data in both dynamic
and pre-rendered vector and raster formats, taking
advantage of the benefits of dynamic map delivery
and data via the Web with software services from
a Web-enabled environment.
Unique aspects of the Web map viewer include:
• A worldwide user base of 30,000 users
• Pre-rendered dynamic map delivery system
designed and implemented to provide fast and
dependable map-based content
• Business logic written for the application
to allow for minimal hits to the server,
significantly cutting Web performance times
• Built with an open source Web application
software
The Web map viewer provides the ACC with fast
performance, dependable security and the ability
to complete complex Web geo-coding tasks such
as buffering and redline markups.
To accommodate the existing architecture of the
Air Force, a customized training management
application was created. The training
management application was built using the
Geographic Information Systems (GIS) for Facility Management
45
ASP.NET 2.0 framework, to integrate with the
Global Combat Support System – Air Force
(GCSS-AF) portal. The training management
system incorporates existing ACC user
interface standards, including the look and
feel. Additionally, the training management
solution is a secure Web-enabled learning
content management system (LCMS). The core
technologies of the LCMS are Oracle 10g and
Microsoft ASP.NET 2.0. The LCMS has system
security features installed within the geobase
portal, requiring a physical computer access
card combined with a PIN for authentication and
authorization.
Unique features of the training management
solution include:
• Custom-built LCMS solution that works within
the unique security framework of the Air Force
portal
• Training materials through the Air Force portal
authentication system
• Course materials created and assembled
through simple-to-use, Web-deployed tools,
familiar to anyone who has used a word
processor
• Capability to track student completion of
offline traditional courses, and other third-party
online courses, as part of their overall training
program
The training management solution provides central
access to training materials for geobase trainees,
tracking and management control to administrators
and training mangers, and content creation to
administrators. In addition, this solution effectively
provides training to the trainers at ACC on the
technical and business processes of the new
LCMS.
13.3 Sky Harbor International Airport, Phoenix,
Arizona, GIS Implementation
The City of Phoenix is implementing an enterprise
GIS at Sky Harbor International Airport – the
ninth busiest airport in the United States. The
city needed a spatial portal that would combine
information locked in existing information systems
into a single user interface and serve over 200
simultaneous users (Figure 24). The nearly four-
year project included data development of all GIS
data above ground, on the surface, underground
and inside the buildings in and around the airport.
In addition, it was also necessary to integrate the
GIS with the existing enterprise resource planning
2010 IFMA Foundation

(ERP) system for maintenance management
and development of a number of other business
applications, including sign management and
aerial photo management.
extensive information repository of spatial data.
The portal also provided a platform for airport staff
across the organization to collaborate on tasks –
including daily operations issues and configuration
changes, as well as planning and managing
the $3 billion (US dollars) airport development
program. The portal was developed with three-tier
architecture using Web services to separate the
presentation layer from the database (Figure 25).

Figure 24: GIS portal provides end users the ability to

view, manage and plot a variety of data from a single user
interface

SKY HARBOR INTERNA- CLIENT

TIONAL AIRPORT, GIS Sky Harbor International
IMPLEMENTATION Airport
Phoenix, Arizona
RELEVANT FACILITY
MANAGEMENT SERVICES PROJECT DATES
PROVIDED: 2006 - 2010
►► Comprehensive GIS
developed for entire
airport campus
►► Spatial portal with
single user interface for
200-plus users
►► Integration with ERP for
maintenance manage- Figure 25: GIS Web portal is an extensive information
ment repository of spatial data with three-tier architecture
►► Customized business
application develop- The portal provides a rich end-user experience
ment for facility man- that includes the ability to view, manage and plot
agement data from above ground, on the ground, under the
ground and inside facilities from a single interface.
13.3.1 Challenge It incorporates an innovative building navigator
Before 2007, the airport had no unified system graphical interface that allows users to intuitively
for planning and managing exterior or interior access interior data in many buildings and on
assets. Without an accurate inventory of their many floors by zooming to the desired building
facilities, a process to maintain airport data did not and floor in one mouse click.
seem to exist. Therefore, when the planning and
management process for the airport development To provide the performance and reliability needed
program began, it was acknowledged that there to maintain a high-availability solution, including
was a need for an enterprise-class information a redundant failover system at a remote location,
system to support the changes soon to be coming 10 servers in multiple clustered environments are
from new planned development (Woolpert 2006). used. This provides nearly seamless business
continuity in case of system outages.
13.3.2 Solution
A GIS Web portal was developed to act as an

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2010 IFMA Foundation

Use of GIS Portal

120 users per week within 10 divisions use the por- 13.4 US Army Corps of Engineers GIS for
tal to: Spatial Allocation
• Review and plan maintenance work orders
The US Army Corps of Engineers, Fort
Worth District, was established in 1950 after
• Check interior space measurements and calcu-
late rates and charges for tenants disastrous floods in the area. Today, the district
is responsible for water resource development
• Create area maps with updated aerial images
using existing conditions and/or planned
in two-thirds of Texas, and military design and
improvement data construction at US Army and US Air Force
• Create area maps and/or updated aerial images
installations in Texas and parts of Louisiana and
for use in slide presentations used by manage- New Mexico. Design and construction projects
ment include family housing, training and aircraft
• Generate maps and data for both internal and facilities, schools, childcare centers, clinics and
external reporting hospitals. The district covers 410,000 square
To complete the project, the GIS system was miles (1,062,000 square kilometers) and employs
integrated with the existing enterprise resource more than 900 team members (Dewberry 2008).
planning (ERP) system. This enabled searching
and retrieval of asset and work order data from US ARMY CORPS OF CLIENT
the ERP system through the GIS system, and ENGINEERS, GIS FOR US Army Corps of Engineers
also provided links to ERP data through the GIS. SPACE ALLOCATION Fort Worth, Texas
The permissions used to set up the system allow
RELEVANT FACILITY PROJECT DATES
many workers to access read-only data from the MANAGEMENT SERVICES 2008 - 2010
ERP, helping to make maintenance and operations PROVIDED:
tasks more efficient. ►► Query and analysis for
improved space man-
agement
For example, the GIS group created new ►► More effective person-
emergency evacuation maps for all three airport nel moves
terminals, as they had been difficult to update and ►► Accessible and user-
reproduce in the past. The maps, which included friendly facility data
available
the locations of exits, assembly areas and ►► Data integrity with
markings indicating “you are here,” were saved as multiuser access and
PDF files and burned on DVDs so airport tenants simultaneous data
could print and post relevant maps and make them editing
►► Application Report-
available to their employees (Figure 26). ing Function for US
DoD forms, decreas-
As a second example, to assist fiscal ing errors and saving
management, the GIS group recently completed 10,000+ man-hours
a space accounting and reconciliation project.
Maps and reports were generated to identify 13.4.1 Challenge
discrepancies in actual versus leased unit areas in Increased demands on federal operations and
units of square feet (square meters). maintenance (O&M) budgets are keeping real
property managers under pressure to provide
additional space to their clients with minimal
funding. This fundamental conflict not only affects
the space allocated to users but also directly
affects the amount of O&M dollars an installation
receives for the upkeep of its facilities. To address
the allocation of space, validation of assets and
verification of organizations and related personnel,
the Fort Worth District, including White Sands
Missile Range (WSMR) and Fort Bliss, needed an
automated system to track and update facility floor
Figure 26: Visualization of the airport terminals helps plans and related room utilization data.
operations create features, like new evacuation maps and
lease management reports

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2010 IFMA Foundation
13.4.2 Solution
A vendor was contracted to provide the data
collection and program development services
for the Fort Worth District and each of the
installations. The firm deployed 26 staff members
for 12 weeks to redline floor plans and collect
room utilization information for WSMR and Fort
Bliss military installations. Analysts collected
facility utilization information, including the number
of personnel and workstations, room conditions
and organization, and room types. After the
information was collected, it was stored in a
geodatabase.
The building floor plans can be viewed as basic
outlines or shaded by any descriptive information,
such as category code, unit identification code
(UIC) or room condition (Figure 27). As well as
viewing data, managers can dynamically update
the utilization data in real time individually, in a
set selected through the map or queried via the
database. Editing data in this manner significantly
cuts down on the time and resources necessary
to update information. The tool allows quick
Figure 27: Floor plans can be viewed as basic outlines or shaded to designate a specific attribute
Geographic Information Systems (GIS) for Facility Management
48
access to the information needed. For example,
an attribute for multiple rooms can be updated
all at once. This simple change will save each
installation hundreds of hours in data processing,
surveying and reporting. The tool can also
calculate the number of personnel who can occupy
a room or the usable area of the room, excluding
corridors, closets and other unusable areas.
The tool has made Fort Worth District’s data more
accessible, easier to use and more accurate. Data
is stored in one location, the geodatabase, leaving
less room for error. The tool server employs
geodatabase versioning, making multiple-user
access and simultaneous data editing possible
while preserving data integrity (Figure 28). Spatial
calculations, such as finding usable area as
opposed to total area, are based on the actual
room dimensions, which are stored directly in the
geodatabase. Having this information readily
available for querying and analysis has improved
the management of Fort Worth District’s space
and made personnel moves easier.
2010 IFMA Foundation

The tool has an application reporting function
that generates standard U.S. Department of
Defense (DoD) forms, such as the DD1354 Real
Property Transfer Form and DD805 Storage
Space Management Report. The ability to input
data directly into the geodatabase and derive
calculations from the data stored has saved more
than 10,000 man-hours for the buildings surveyed
to date, decreased errors and made moves more
efficient. Instead of each form taking up to 30
minutes per building to fill out, staff members are
able to do the same work in only a few minutes for
all buildings.
13.5 NASA Optimization and Associated
Technology Status and Plan
Langley Research Center (LaRC) periodically
goes through a realignment and space adjustment
process to cope with changing mission
requirements. During this activity in 2004, the
LaRC GIS team recognized the need for an
objective tool to streamline the process, while
providing solutions that would better optimize the
results. Nearing the end of the reorganization
effort, the LaRC GIS team developed a prototype
capability that demonstrated significant potential

Figure 28: The system allows managers to dynamically update data, significantly reducing time and resources necessary
to make well-informed decisions

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2010 IFMA Foundation

benefit. Unfortunately, far too much work had Center (JSC) in Houston, Texas, also invested in
already been done to justify starting over with this the project. This allowed the project to expand the
new process (ESRI 2006). optimization capabilities to include:
• Refinements in the optimization algorithm to
The LaRC GIS team subsequently created a plan produce better results faster
for development of a space utilization optimization • A Web interface to allow viewing of proposed
capability for LaRC, and the National Aeronautics solutions in a dashboard format
and Space Administration (NASA) in general. This • Drag and drop manual adjustment capability
plan outlined a development effort to span five • Gap analysis tools to reduce data preparation
years with an estimated cost of $1 million (US time for optimization runs
dollars) per year. • Purchase of equipment to support a dedicated
server for optimization and next generation
NASA, OPTIMIZATION AND CLIENT Web services
ASSOCIATED TECHNOL- Langley Research Center • Dramatic improvements in the spatial
OGY STATUS AND PLAN Hampton, Virginia
NASA’s Johnson Space subdivision diagram, including density, labeling
RELEVANT FACILITY Center and speed
MANAGEMENT SERVICES Houston, Texas
PROVIDED: To demonstrate capabilities as efficiently as
►► Space utilization opti- PROJECT DATES
mization 2006 - 2011 possible, the LaRC optimization model was
►► Web interface for adapted for preliminary use at JSC. Optimization
viewing solutions in a runs were conducted for their most densely
dashboard populated administrative facilities, as well
►► Gap analysis tools
►► Better understanding as an optimization for the entire LaRC. This
of rooms, buildings and solution resulted in offices matched to various
personnel management levels, more equitable distribution
►► Improvements in level of space, enhanced organizational synergy and
of spatial details visual-
ized doubling of open offices. Figure 29 demonstrates
how an optimization model was used for densely
populated administrative facilities. Using this
13.5.1 LaRC Investment model, NASA was able to determine that space
The initial LaRC investment resulted in several usage was not effective and was able to develop
critical accomplishments, which can dramatically an optimal strategy for space management.
mitigate the risk associated with ambitious space
utilization optimization efforts: As a result of optimization work to date, LaRC’s
• Development of a model of constraints and GIS Team has received an exclusive invitation to
metrics to address administrative moves present their work at a Department of Defense
• Optimization of an algorithm that produces briefing and NASA Academic Planning gatherings,
very good solutions in a quick and efficient as well as inquiries from several companies
manner interested in leveraging or adapting the technology
• Development of an abstract overview of all being developed.
buildings, rooms and personnel across LaRC
• Development of ability to produce layouts of 13.5.2 Near-Term and Future Tactical Efforts
personnel within rooms Currently, the team is working on Web tools to
• Advancement of symbolization and labeling gather and maintain proposed changes down
capabilities to the lowest level with roll up to the highest-
• Development of an XQuery interface to level organization. A separate server will be
describe optimization criteria implemented to support Web-enabled services, as
one of the major goals for the project is to make
Additionally, preliminary plans were developed for the desktop analysis capabilities available over the
a companion technical space tool that could be Internet. Additionally, ways to extend information
used to help plan the most efficient adjustments density into visualization schemes while still
to existing laboratory facilities to support proposed providing an intuitive interface are being explored.
projects. This investment allowed a more focused This technology is expected to be adapted for
development effort. many spatial data analysis capabilities for LaRC,
Given the efforts at LaRC, the Johnson Space NASA and across the industry.

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2010 IFMA Foundation

Figure 29: Use of GIS tools allowed NASA to find

ineffective uses of office space and make changes
to optimize space use resulting in 50 percent more
available office space

13.6 Conclusion
Managing facilities is a complex challenge
that requires information from a wide variety of
sources. Using accurate data about the locations
of facilities, and the assets within them, supports
better decision making about site selection, capital
planning, project coordination, work order logistics,
security planning and many other aspects of
facility management. This white paper has
provided an overview of how GIS technology can
be integrated with, and extends the capabilities of,
CAD, BIM and IWMS to provide facility managers
with insight into the “where” questions facility
managers ask on a daily basis.

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14 APPENDICIES
14.1 Appendix A: References

ASHRAE (2010). Fundamentals of Building Operation, Maintenance and Management Self Learning
Course. American Society of Heating Ventilating and Air-Conditioning Engineers. Atlanta, Georgia. Docu-
ment in press.

BIMex (2010). BIM Project Execution Planning Guide. bimex.wikispaces.com. Accessed July 14, 2010.

BIM Journal (2009). “Room Data Information Logistics.” BIM Journal, Issue 9 (October 2009).
www.bimjournal.com/art.asp?art=27&issue=9.

bSa (2010a). About the National BIM Standard®. www.buildingsmartalliance.org/index.php/nbims/about.

Accessed August 4, 2010.

bSa (2010b). Active Projects, buildingSMARTalliance. www.buildingsmartalliance.org/index.php/projects/

activeprojects. Accessed July 14, 2010.

bSa (2010c). Model – Industry Foundation Classes (IFC). www.buildingsmart.com/bim.

Accessed July 14, 2010.

CityGML (2007). What is CityGML? www.citygml.org/1523. Accessed July 14, 2010.

COBie (2009). The COBIE Challenge. www.buildingsmartalliance.org/index.php/newsevents/

meetingspresentations/cobiechallenge. Accessed July 14, 2010.

CSISS (2009). Charles Joseph Minard: Mapping Napoleon’s March, 1861.

www.csiss.org/classics/content/58

Dewberry, Davis (2008). Case Study: US Army Corps of Engineers, GIS for Space Allocation. ESRI,
2008 – 2010.

Eastman, C.; P. Teicholz; R. Sacks; K. Liston (2008). BIM Handbook, A Guide to Building Information
Modeling for Owners, Managers, Designers, Engineers and Contractors. John Wiley & Sons, Inc.:
Hoboken, N.J.

ESRI (2010). Projected Coordinate System, ESRI Developer Network.

edndoc.esri.com/arcsde/9.2/concepts/geometry/coordref/coordsys/projected/projected.htm

ESRI (2006). Case Study: NASA Optimization and Associated Technology Status and Plan 2006 – 2011.

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52
2010 IFMA Foundation

Fallon, K. (2008). Interoperability: Critical to Achieving BIM Benefits.

Gartner, Inc. (2008). Magic Quadrant.

GIS.net (2010). History of GIS Development. www.gisdevelopment.net/history/1960-1970.htm

GSA (2007). GSA’s National 3D-4D BIM Program. www.gsa.gov/graphics/pbs/Flyer_2007_01_15_laser_

scanning.pdf. Accessed July 14, 2010.

Johnson, S. (2006). John Snow’s 1854 Broad Street Pump Outbreak Map. www.theghostmap.com

Khemlani, L. (2004). “The IFC Building Model: A Look Under the Hood.” AECbytes.
www.aecbytes.com/feature/2004/IFCmodel.html

NSF (1987). National Science Foundation, Visualization in Scientific Computing.

www.nsf.gov/about/history/nsf0050/visualization/worth.htm

NBIM (2007). National BIM Standard, National Institute of Building Sciences.

Patrick Foundation (2010). Map of the Tracks of Yu. www.goldenageproject.org.uk/255yuchi.php

PenBay (2008). Case Study: MacDill AFB: Facility Management Mapping. PenBay Solutions.
2008 – 2013.

PenBay (2007). Case Study: Air Combat Command: Web Map Viewer and Training Management
System. PenBay Solutions. 2007 – 2008.

Sarbanes-Oxley Act (2002), Sarbanes-Oxley Act, Section 404. www.soxlaw.com/s404.htm

Wade, T. and Sommer, S. (2006). A to Z GIS: An illustrated dictionary of geographic information systems.
p. 187. Redlands, Calif.: ESRI Press.

Woolpert (2006). Case Study: Sky Harbor International Airport: GIS Implementation. Woolpert Inc.
2006 – 2010.

14.2 Appendix B: Additional Resources

Building Information Spatial Data Model: bisdm.org

buildingSmart alliance: www.buildingsmartalliance.org

Open Geospatial Consortium for CityGML: www.opengeospatial.org/standards/citygml

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14.3 Appendix C: Glossary

Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA): The Americans with Disabilities Act of 1990 is a wide-ranging
civil rights law within the United States that prohibits, under certain circumstances, discrimination based
on disability.

Application programming interface (API): A description of the way a piece of software asks another
piece of software to perform a service.

Building automation system (BAS): Building automation system (BAS) is a control system that consists
of devices used to monitor, control and manage mechanical and electrical systems within a building
(ASHRAE 2010).

Building Information Spatial Data Model (BISDM): A committee was formed in late 2007 as a
community of interest focused on creating a GIS data model for buildings. BISDM is a volunteer
organization dedicated to providing a collection of best practices, case studies and templates that
individuals can adopt or adapt to their specific project needs.

Building information model (BIM): Building information modeling is a structured data set that describes
a building (NBIM 2007). The data within a BIM often includes a three-dimensional computer model and a
database (Fallon 2008).

Computer aided design (CAD): Use of computer technology for the design of real or virtual objects. It
is an industrial art used in a wide range of applications and mainly used for detailed engineering of 2D
drawings of physical components, as well as conceptual design and layout of objects.

Computerized maintenance management system (CMMS): A piece of software that includes a

database used to manage information about maintenance management for an organization. Information
managed within a CMMS can include, but is not limited to, work orders, asset histories, parts inventories,
maintenance personnel records and metrics to measure productivity of the maintenance organization.

Customer relationship management (CRM): Processes implemented by an organization to handle

contact with customers.

Enterprise asset management (EAM): Management of the physical assets of an organization

to maximize value, including design, construction, commissioning, operations, maintenance and
decommissioning or replacement of a plant, equipment and/or facility.

Enterprise resource planning (ERP): An integration of three components, business management

practices, information technology and specific business objectives, with a well-managed, centralized data
repository.

Extensible markup language (XML): A set of rules for encoding documents electronically.

Facility information infrastructure (FII): A central repository of all the spatial data, inside and out, that
exists about a building, campus or portfolio.

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Gartner, Inc.’s Magic Quadrant: A methodology for analyzing vendors to document their relative market
position based on two primary metrics: ability to execute and completeness of vision. Gartner uses these
two metrics to categorize each vendor into one of four quadrants: niche players, visionaries, challengers
and leaders.

Geographic information system (GIS): A system that allows one to view, understand, question, interpret
and visualize data in many ways that reveal relationships, patterns and trends in the form of maps,
globes, reports and charts.

Global positioning system (GPS): A space-based radio navigation system that provides reliable
positioning, navigation and timing services to civilian users on a continuous worldwide basis.

Integrated project team: A team that includes all major players and is formed at the beginning of a
project with the intent to work together over the entire scope of the project.

Integrated workplace management system (IWMS): An enterprise platform that supports the planning,
design, management, utilization and disposal of an organization’s location-based assets.

International Organization for Standardization (ISO): An organization that is responsible for

international management standards, such as ISO 9000, ISO 14000, ISO 27000, ISO 22000 and others.

Light detection and ranging (LiDAR): An optical remote sensing system used to collect topographic
data by measuring properties of scattered light to find range and/or other information of a distant target.

Multipatch: A 3D geometry used to represent the outer surface or shell of features that occupy a discrete
area or volume in three-dimensional space. Multipatches can be used to represent simple objects such
as spheres and cubes or complex objects such as buildings and trees.

Return on investment (ROI): A performance measure used to evaluate the efficiency of an investment or
to compare the efficiency of a number of different investments. To calculate ROI, the benefit (return) of an
investment is divided by the cost of the investment. The result is expressed as a percentage or a ratio.

Spatial data infrastructure (SDI): A framework of technologies, policies, standards and human
resources necessary to acquire, process, store, distribute and improve the use of geospatial data across
multiple public and private organizations.

Supply chain management (SCM): The management of a network of interconnected businesses

involved in the provision of product and services packages for end customers.

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If you find this publication useful, there is something you should know…
This publication was made possible by the support
of people like you through the IFMA Foundation.
Established in 1990 as a nonprofit, 501(c)(3)
corporation, and separate entity from IFMA,
the IFMA Foundation works for the public good
to promote priority research and educational
opportunities for the advancement of facility
management. The IFMA Foundation is supported
by the generosity of the facility management
community including IFMA members, chapters,
councils, corporate sponsors and private
contributors who share the belief that education
and research improve the facility management
profession.
By increasing the body of knowledge available
to facility professionals, the IFMA Foundation
advances the profession and potential career
opportunity.
IFMA Foundation contributions are used to:
• Underwrite research — to generate knowledge
that directly benefits the profession
• Fund educational programs — to keep facility
managers up-to-date on the latest techniques
and technology
• Provide scholarships — to educate the future of
the facility management profession
Without the support of workplace professionals,
the IFMA Foundation would be unable to
contribute to the future development and direction
of facility management. That is why we need
your help. If you are interested in improving
the profession and your career potential, we
encourage you to make a donation or get involved
in a fundraising event. To learn more about the
good works of the IFMA Foundation, visit
www.ifmafoundation.org.

2009 – 2010 IFMA Foundation

Major Benefactors
Bentley Prince Street

Silver Sponsors
Platinum Sponsors Central Pennsylvania Chapter of IFMA - Scholarship Sponsor
LA Chapter of IFMA Dallas Fort Worth Chapter of IFMA - Scholarship Sponsor
Greater Philadelphia Chapter of IFMA East Bay Chapter of IFMA
Corporate Facilities Council of IFMA Kent Miller, FMP
Steelcase Inc. Kimball Office Furniture Co.
Utilities Council of IFMA NW Energy Efficiency Alliance
San Francisco Chapter of IFMA
Gold Sponsors San Diego Chapter of IFMA
ARAMARK Management Services SoCal Office Technologies
Acuity Brands Sodexo Inc. - Scholarship Sponsor
Greater New York Chapter of IFMA West Michigan Chapter of IFMA - Scholarship Sponsor
Graphic Systems, Inc.
Denver Chapter of IFMA
Kayhan International Limited
Facility Engineering Associates, P.C.
Greater Triangle Chapter of IFMA - Scholarship Sponsor

This white paper can be downloaded, free of charge, on the IFMA Foundation Web site
1 E. Greenway Plaza, Suite 1100 | Houston, Texas 77046 USA | +1.281.974.5600 | www.ifmafoundation.org

© IFMA Foundation 2010 All Rights Reserved

Geographic Information Systems (GIS) for Facility Management

2010 IFMA Foundation

The IFMA Foundation would like to thank its Corporate Contributors, the IFMA chapters, councils and
members, as well as other organizations and individuals for their sponsorship. Your generous support
helps to make the foundation’s education, research and scholarship initiatives possible.

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