Author: Ho, Man Ying
Title: Development of an analytic method for assessing the performance of retrofits for commercial buildings
Advisors: Lai, Hung Kit Joseph (BEEE)
Degree: Ph.D.
Year: 2022
Subject: Buildings -- Retrofitting -- Evaluation
Commercial buildings -- Maintenance and repair
Hong Kong Polytechnic University -- Dissertations
Department: Department of Building Environment and Energy Engineering
Pages: xx, 429 pages : color illustrations
Language: English
Abstract: Facility management (FM) embraces multiple disciplines of practice to ensure the functionality, comfort, safety, and the efficiency of the built environment by integrating people, place, process, and technology. During the FM stage of a building, the building's facilities inevitably deteriorate. By implementing building retrofits, the performance of the facilities and hence the work environment of the building can be significantly improved. Many studies have been undertaken to help building owners and facilities managers make decisions on building retrofit projects. But there is still limited research on developing an analytic method for evaluating the holistic performance of commercial building retrofits. To address this research gap, a study was initiated.
This study, consisting of four stages, aims to develop a credible assessment method for evaluating building retrofit in commercial buildings and validate the applicability of the assessment method so developed. Through a systematic literature review in Stage 1 of the study, a total of 52 performance indicators were identified as applicable to assessing the performance of building retrofits. After consolidation and refinement, the indicators were grouped into four aspects, namely, environmental, economic, health and safety, and users' perspective. In Stage 2, a focus group study was conducted with participation from FM experts, resulting in a preliminary shortlist of 19 key performance indicators (KPIs) for assessing building retrofits performance.
In Stage 3, an industry-wide online survey was conducted to solicit the opinions of building practitioners on the importance levels of the 19 KPIs. Eight KPIs were finally shortlisted, which are: energy savings (%), payback period (year), investment cost ($), ratio of actual to target number of statutory orders removed (%), ratio of actual to target number of accidents reduced (%), target indoor air temperature (℃), target indoor air quality (IAQ) class, and target workplane illuminance (lux). In general, agreement on the rankings of the KPIs was reached among the industry participants, despite their differences in gender, academic qualification, and job level.
In Stage 4, 12 in-depth interviews were conducted to find out the relative importance weights of the eight selected KPIs using the Analytic Network Process (ANP). The applicability of the developed assessment method was then validated with individual sets of importance weights for the KPIs and empirical building data of ten case studies.
Each of the case studies had unique building characteristics (age of buildings ranged from 5 to 44 years; no. of storeys ranged from 6 to 39; total gross floor areas of the buildings ranged from 2,800m² to 115293m²; and retrofit project costs varied from $0.63M to $81M). Self-evaluations were conducted by the interviewed FM professionals, where they indicated the levels of expectation fulfilment of the retrofit projects. The results show that the established analytic assessment method is feasible and useful for evaluating the performance of building retrofits for real-world commercial buildings.
Rights: All rights reserved
Access: open access

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Please use this identifier to cite or link to this item: https://theses.lib.polyu.edu.hk/handle/200/11764