Integrating Building Information Modeling and Lifecycle Reliability Assessment for Sustainable Building Infrastructure: A Conceptual Framework

Abstract

Building information models are produced in large numbers during design and construction, yet the information they carry rarely informs how mechanical, electrical and plumbing systems fail, how often they must be maintained, or how much energy they waste as they degrade. This study addresses that disconnect through an integrative review and a conceptual model. Fifty-eight sources spanning building information modeling for facility management, Construction Operations Building information exchange, Industry Foundation Classes, digital twins, model-based energy simulation, life cycle costing and assessment, and reliability engineering of building services were analysed with a structured integrative review protocol. The synthesis shows that facility management research treats asset data as an inventory problem while reliability research treats failure data as a statistical problem, and that the two rarely meet inside the model. The proposed framework links five layers: design, information, reliability, energy and decision. Weibull reliability, hazard, series and parallel system logic, availability, a lifecycle risk index that combines failure probability with weighted consequence, and a net present value life cycle cost are formalised as model-resident functions. Six propositions state testable relationships among information completeness, redundancy, risk ranking and whole-life cost. An illustrative application to a synthetic mid-rise office building shows that risk rankings change with the planning horizon and that redundancy is justified only above an identifiable outage cost. A validation protocol is specified for empirical testing.