What is Indoor Map and its Use in Facility Management

Traditionally some organizations in Hong Kong such as Universities would use a kind of software called Computer Aided Facility Management (CAFM) now called Integrated Workspace Management System (IWMS), these software are built on top of CAD, and nowaday BIM. It is said that at that time CAFM was the only software which can help the organization to compile reports of the gloss floor area and usage by departments by deducting the columns area and considering wall thickness in the CAD drawings automatically. Today, it seems like a de facto standards for a BIM software to output the schedule of space inventory. As in BIM, every object has its own family and type, the software has a better understanding on the buildings' space context. Popular CAFM softwares being adopted in Hong Kong including IBM Tririga and Archibus. Linkey, a software developed by a local company, also gains some recognition.

In recent years, with the advancement in IoT technologies, indoor positioning becomes affordable, using beacons hardware or WIFI fingerprint technologies, or even video analytics of camera to track and locate objects like people and assets. Traditional big players such as Esri and Autodesk are entering the market of indoor mapping, bringing the technologies which is originally used for tracking vehicles in the road networks, to now tracking people in the building path networks, thus some call it IndoorGIS. In fact these tracking technologies have been widely adopted in construction Smart Site Safety System (SSSS),  with new policy from Development Bureau to mandate the adoption for capital works projects exceeding HK$30 million. But we think that the indoor map is equally important in Facility Management area, taking buildings maintenance works as an example, assumed the technicians positions are tracked, say if there are an emergency work request or asset breakdown, the system can dispatch the work to the technican which is closest to the incident location (with matching skillsets and availability), in order to minimize overall response time. Facility Manager can also use the indoor path network to perform a travelling salesman analysis to plan the upcoming inspection or patrolling routes, in order to save tranvelling cost and time (and planning time). For site selection, building owner can decide where to put their storerooms or some facilities in the building, in order to maximize the efficiency and accessibility of the people inside the buildings. Not to mention, Augmented Reality applications can also be developed based on the indoor map. Indoor map uses are really limited only by imagination.

There are also local startups such as Mapxus who work in this area. The Lands Department is promoting the use of 3d Indoor Map, and gradually opening the 3d indoor map data of buildings in Hong Kong, they have conducted a pilot project to generate 3d indoor map covering 1,250 buildings of Hong Kong which can be downloaded in the CSDI portal.

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