Use of augmented reality for efficient building maintenance in Sri Lanka

Abstract

With the advent of technological advancements in the field of building maintenance, attempts have been taken to address the issues confronted by building maintenance technicians in the global context. Augmented Reality (AR) is one such concept which combines real environment with virtual content in 3D space that is experimented and proven to be effective in making the building maintenance activities more efficient by eliminating the causes for such difficulties faced by the technicians. In Sri Lanka, there is very limited use of such technologies in building maintenance practices and it is reasonable to mention that use of AR is minimum in this field. A gap is identified as there is no considerable literature exploring applications of Augmented Reality to ease building maintenance activities in Sri Lanka. Therefore, an effort is made to investigate into this area through a qualitative approach by taking a case into study and conducting interviews among technicians followed by an expert interview. The research highlights the use of AR in making the building maintenance practices in terms of data and instruction visualization leading to more efficient and effective outcomes while discussing on the benefits such as making maintenance tasks efficient, cost and time savings and high customer satisfaction as well as possible barriers for implementation of a similar program such as developing a Building Information Model to an existing building, inconvenience in making technicians adopted into a new system in the context of Sri Lanka.