ABSTRACT
Information integration along the entire life-cycle of built environment assets requires effective interoperability. Since the early 1990s, improving information integration during the design phase has been one of the main areas of focus of academic research. According to the Royal Institute of British Architects Plan of Work, achieving high levels of information integration during the design phase requires optimising information flows from concept design to technical design. Information integration and knowledge exchange for asset and maintenance management enables attaining higher quality, which can mean high-performance in safety, security, sustainability or aesthetic value; ideally a combination of these attributes. The chapter explores the use of information and communications technologies tools for more effective life-cycle management and then presents two examples from the Polytechnic University of Milan. Interoperability has to be achieved from both technology and process point of view and has to allow one application to read data from another application as well as share data effectively throughout asset's life-cycle.
