2023-05-24

2022 Results for the IFMA ITC's Digital Twin Survey

IFMA Survey Summary: State of Digital Deliverables

Last year, R.O.I. partnered with IFMA’s ITC and Autodesk to run our first annual survey on the state of electronic documentation for building owners and operators. Autodesk recently published a whitepaper revealing the highlights of that survey, demonstrating current state and desired future state. Please download this document and see what the industry has to say!

The 2023 IFMA ITC Annual Digital Twin Survey is running now. Please take a couple of minutes to chime in with information about your facility. The IMFA survey has closed, please keep an eye out for results.

To prepare you for the next run of that survey, we would like to go over the first year’s questions and results more in-depth:

  • What is your industry?
  • How much of your records are available digitally?
  • Do you require BIM for project deliverables?
  • Why haven’t you adopted Digital Twin yet?
  • What are the essential elements of a Digital Twin?
  • What are the most important use cases you have for Digital Twin?
  • What benefits are you expecting from your Digital Twin adoption?
  • Where are you in the process of digitizing your portfolio and asset records?
  • How are you planning to maintain your Digital Twin?
  • Do you have support from Senior Leadership?
  • Do you believe a single vendor can provide adequate features for your needs? 

Who Participated

The responses to this survey came from a variety of job roles across the industry, however, the majority came from Facilities Management and Corporate Real Estate Professionals. More than twice as many building systems (MEP/FP) AEC Professionals participated compared to Architectural.



To give you an idea of the type of work those roles specialize in, see the chart below.

Industry representation covers a wide variety of market specialties. Financial Services had the highest level of participation (16.8%), but Education (14.3%) and Commercial Real Estate (13.7%) were not far behind.


Current Electronic Records

Whatever goals we set for the future; it is important to assess where we are currently. The chart below illustrates what percentage of respondents reported having 50-100% of their documentation available electronically.


BIM Requirements

If applicable, do you require BIM deliverables for your new construction and/or renovation projects?

The answer is yes!

If you are wondering why BIM might be required on some projects, but not others, within the same facility, there can be a variety of reasons. Some might be budgetary, any projects over X amount will have room for documentation, but smaller ones may not. Renovations that only involve finishes but not MEP or structural components would also be a reasonable exception.


Long Term Digital Twin Management

When assessing whether or not a single software vendor was capable of providing a solution platform, 73% of respondents stated that they think it is possible.

Once a platform is selected, one needs to determine who will be responsible for maintaining their records over the long term. A majority (66%) of Owners intend to manage their Digital Twin in-house, whether than means utilizing an existing resource or expanding a team to hire specifically for those skills. Only 17% of respondents intend to outsource that work to a consultant at this point.

Please come back and read our next article on what facility owners and operators expect from a Digital Twin initiative, and where they currently stand with the various components of their smart buildings.


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