Cost-oriented tool for life cycle planning

The Industry 4.0 opens to the sector of building constructions a new perspective, especially in relation to the digitalization of information and to the use of Big Data Analytics to manage them. Gathering data on new and existing buildings to provide a more and more complete view on the outcomes of the choices of construction, in order to ideally optimize the designing process, has already been identified as one of the main purposes. Yet, despite the available data are much less, the same vision can also make it possible, by enhancing and emphasizing monitoring activity in this field, to build another kind of database, involving an aspect that is equally crucial for a building and its components: the building management phase, that is to say the planning of maintenance activities, the cost of which cannot be overlooked. Looking ahead to the possibility of developing such database, multiple ways of making use of it to guide designers in the choices related to life cycle planning, unfold. Considering a necessary step that of realizing tools to evaluate such choices according to at least one parameter, in order to guide designers towards choices that are consistent with their purposes, this work investigates the possibilities in this field, and proposes a software tool to elaborate strategies and compare them on the basis of the cost parameter. Finally, hypothesis of inclusion of this kind of software in a BIM platform are suggested, in a view of facility management of BIM 7D.