Do owners care who provides the info?

I attended a local BIM meetup a few weeks ago, the BoBTech (Boulder Building Technologies) Meetup group, and was asked an interesting question. Do owners care who the final model comes from for Facilities Management? Should we?

From a certain perspective, the answer is no, we don't necessarily care. At the end of the day, we need to know where our assets are located and to have all the appropriate asset data associated with it. Whether this comes from the designer, the contractor, or a third party is largely irrelevant as long as it is in the correct format.

However, we also know that we are less likely to get accurate system design information from the contractor, the designer has that. We also aren't going to get as accurate spatial coordination information from the designer unless they coordinate with the contractor. A third party doesn't have any of the correct info to start with, which means redoing the most work and costing the most money.

The responsibility for Record Drawings has traditionally laid with the design team. The information from the built condition for the final Facilities Management model should be reflected in the Record Drawings. That may sound obvious, yet it is rarely the case in practice.

So do owners care who provides the final model? Should we? Yes, we do, and we absolutely should because who we receive that model from is going to effect the accuracy of the information and the cost of providing it. The record drawings and record model are where the Facilities Management model should come from and those are still clearly the responsibility of the design team.