Business from technology

Use and service ability of properties

Competence

VTT promotes the user ability, service ability and the creation of new service business of properties. Service solutions should provide excellent indoor environment conditions for end-users and life cycle advantage for other stakeholders. VTT develops management and operating systems for properties and spaces, user interfaces, solutions for user, facility and property management services, and methods for the procurement of services. User orientation and new business opportunities are central in the development work. VTT,s competence is based on strong knowledge of building automation, information and communication technology, equipment and structural systems, and information and process management of real estate, and on versatile analysis competence in indoor environment and total building performance in different phases of a building’s life cycle. VTT utilises strong international collaboration networks in its work.

Challenges

The competitiveness of the property business is created by the performance characteristics of building services. Environment-conscious and user-driven performance characteristics are the most crucial ones. One per cent of the building stock is renewed annually. The rest of the building stock requires preventive maintenance, maintenance and updating. Solutions need to be developed that can be applied to update the building stock both in a life cycle economic and in a user-driven way. Long-term client-ships, quality issues and service ability will then be increasingly emphasised.

Procurement and service provision models will be changed as well. New methods will then be required for the management of processes, guaranteed performance and long-term risks. Building information models will be taken into use until the year 2020 in life cycle management of properties and in processes correspondingly. Competence in the property business, organisational behaviour and a wide spectrum of enabling technologies is a prerequisite in research and development.

Solutions

• Information systems that improve the property management and real estate services (building information models, interfaces of information transfer, visualisation, service manuals/user guidance, reporting models)
  
• Real-time monitoring, information processing and distribution of building performance utilising advanced information and communication technology effectively
  
• Service ability of properties and spaces, implications for added value
  
• Control and diagnosis solutions for technical building services systems
  
• Life cycle assessment methods supporting refurbishment and retrofit measures (life cycle positioning methods)
  
• Procurement methods for services and new service concepts (indoor environment services, life cycle services, safety services, and so on)
  

Benefits

User-driven services (technologies), operational models and support systems for decision making

• Systematic property management based on life cycle competence
  
• Requirements management through the life cycle of properties, requirements management tools linked with process management
  
• Effective utilisation of information and communication technologies in the property business
  
• Methods for information transfer and delivery, building information model servers
  
• Standardisation of software interfaces in the real estate sector and implementation of standards (IFC, ifcXML) in software tools
  
• Total optimisation of property operation and space use
  
• Incentive mechanisms and contract models based on verified added value
  
• Implementation of advanced and efficient technologies into the market
  

References and merits

• Co-ordination of several EU projects (I3CON, INTUBE, Success Families...) and participation to around 5 other EU projects. In projects, there are all together several tens of partners from real estate and construction sector and product industry.
  
• Bilateral research collaboration with organizations from countries like China, Republic ofKorea, USA, Japan and Russia.
  
• Memberships of international organisations, networks and expert/advisory boards:
  
• European Cooperation in the field of Scientific and Technical Research (COST), European Committee for Standardization (CEN), International Council for Research and Innovation in Building and Construction (CIB), International Energy Agency (IEA), International Organization for Standardization (ISO), European Construction Technology Platform (ECTP), LowExNet.
  
• Management and leadership of several Finnish national energy related research and technology programmes over 20 year (LVIS2000, ETRR, RAKET, CUBE)
  
• 1 research professor, 1 adjunct professorship, 4 doctors