An approach to capture design and construction lessons learned from facility managers

The prevailing silo-way of working in the construction industry makes it difficult to incorporate valuable lessons learned from facility managers into the design stage of new projects. Some previous research in the lean community has studied methods to improve end-user satisfaction and lean principles to incorporate operations knowledge into design. However, studies focusing on problems during operation and maintenance (O&M) due to design and construction errors and the learning loops into the design stage are still lacking. This is an ongoing research project which aims to develop an open-source tool that can be used by design teams to incorporate knowledge from previous projects. This paper reports on a taxonomy of lessons learned and a preliminary tool structure. To achieve this, post-occupancy evaluation data were collected from office buildings in Lima. Ten facility managers were interviewed to describe the main challenges during O&M. It was found that lessons learned can be categorized as wrong design assumptions, design flaws, poor specifications, constructions flaws, and maintainability issues. Moreover, facility managers face with high maintenance costs and substantive building rework. A preliminary database structure to capture and retrieve O&M lessons learned is presented. Further research includes the validation of the tool with clients, project managers, and design teams; and the development of an online tool for industry engagement.