ABSTRACT
Asset managers are faced with many difficult decisions regarding when and how to repair their building stock. The reasons for these difficult decisions include changing economic situations, lack of solid information for decision-making, and limited availability of sophisticated analysis tools. The Building Envelope Life Cycle Asset Management project (BELCAM) will provide models, methods and tools to meet these needs, and to assist building researchers and scientists in delivering their evaluation of the service life of building envelope components. The BELCAM project will incorporate the following: access to information technology such as the Internet and the World Wide Web; information technology tools such as classification systems and product modelling; life cycle economic principles; service life and durability research; risk analysis and reliability assessment, user functional requirement models, and maintenance management strategies. This type of framework for managing data, information and knowledge could be used to predict the service life of other building or construction systems.
