Handover is supposed to be the finish line. The building is done, the punch list is closed, and the Owner takes the keys. In practice, for far too many projects, handover is where the real costs begin.
If your project hasn't been run through a Common Data Environment (CDE), a single, structured, accessible source of truth shared by every stakeholder from design through construction, Owners don’t just inherit a building. They inherit a mess: fragmented documentation, conflicting versions of drawings, missing asset data, and years of institutional knowledge that walked out the door with the last subcontractor's project manager.
Here's what that actually costs, according to the industry's own data.
Billions Lost to Bad Data, and Owners Pay Most of It
The most cited figure in this space comes from a 2004 U.S. National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) study, which put the annual cost of inadequate interoperability in the U.S. capital facilities industry at $15.8 billion [1]. The breakdown of who absorbs that cost is the part that should get an Owner's attention: architects and engineers bore about $1.2 billion of it, general contractors about $1.8 billion, and specialty fabricators and suppliers about $2.2 billion. However, Owners and operators carried $10.6 billion, roughly two-thirds of the total burden, equivalent to nearly 3% of the annual value of construction put in place for them [1]. Every other stakeholder in the delivery chain absorbs a comparatively small hit, with Owners absorbing the rest, mostly during operations and maintenance.
What Poor Handover Data Costs the Facilities Team
The NIST finding that two-thirds of interoperability costs land on Owners and operators isn't an accident of accounting. Rather, it reflects where the pain actually shows up: after handover, when the facilities team has to operate a building it doesn't have accurate data about.
Academic research on BIM-based handover backs this up with more specific numbers. A study published in Applied Sciences (MDPI) found that delivering structured, standardized asset data at handover, rather than the traditional fragmented paper and PDF handoff, could reduce work order processing time by 8.7%, since maintenance staff no longer have to hunt for basic information like equipment location, model numbers, or service history [2]. Separate industry guidance on BIM and COBie-based facility data estimates that operations and maintenance
contracting costs could be reduced by 3–6% simply by having accurate, trackable records of facility equipment and square footage from day one, the kind of foundational asset data that's supposed to accumulate in a CDE throughout the project, not get reconstructed after the fact [3]. Broader estimates of the potential savings from better BIM-driven facilities data put the number even higher: a 2018 analysis by Broadbent, cited in subsequent research on BIM's whole-lifecycle benefits, estimated the FM industry could achieve 5–10% savings in annual operating expenditure through improved data continuity from design through operations [4].
These percentages sound modest until you apply them to a real operating budget. For an Owner running a large hospital, university campus, or airport, even the lower end of these ranges represents a material, recurring cost that a CDE would have prevented from the outset.
Why the Cost Concentrates at Handover
It's worth being precise about why this cost lands specifically at the Owner's door, rather than being absorbed evenly across the project team. Design and construction phase costs are visible, negotiated, and time-limited. Operating costs are quiet, distributed, and permanent; a building's operations and maintenance phase runs for decades, while design and construction typically last only a few years. When information isn't structured and validated continuously through a CDE, the gap between "what was built” and "what the Owner's systems know about what was built" doesn't get cheaper to close over time. It gets more expensive, because the people who knew the answers have moved on to their next project.
The Alternative: Data as a Continuous Deliverable
A CDE flips this model. Instead of looking at information management as a scramble at the end of the project, it treats structured, validated, accessible data as a continuous deliverable. An asset that is created once and used by everyone downstream, including the Owner's facilities and operations teams.
Done well, a CDE means:
- As-built information is validated and updated throughout construction, not reconstructed after the fact.
- O&M data, warranties, and asset information are captured in structured formats the Owner's systems can actually use.
- Every decision, approval, and change has a clear, auditable record.
- Handover becomes a formality instead of a chaotic, disconnected experience.
The Real Question for Owners
The research is consistent across sources, methodologies, and countries: Owners and operators absorb the largest share of the cost created by fragmented, poorly managed project data, and that share is measured in billions of dollars a year at the industry level.
The cost of a CDE is visible and upfront. The cost of not having one is invisible until handover, and then it compounds for years - in facilities management inefficiency, disputed claims, compliance exposure, and knowledge that simply isn't there when you need it.
The question Owners should be asking isn't "can we afford to implement a common data environment?" It's "can we afford to keep paying the two-thirds share the data shows we're already paying?"
References
[1] Gallaher, M. P., O'Connor, A. C., Dettbarn, J. L., & Gilday, L. T. (2004). Cost Analysis of Inadequate Interoperability in the U.S. Capital Facilities Industry (NIST GCR 04-867). National Institute of Standards and Technology. https://doi.org/10.6028/NIST.GCR.04-867
[2] Lavikka, R., et al. (2022). BIM for Facilities Management: An Investigation into the Asset Information Delivery Process and the Associated Challenges. Applied Sciences, 12(19), 9542. MDPI. https://www.mdpi.com/2076-3417/12/19/9542
[3] IFMA Knowledge Library. (n.d.). Quantifying the Effect of BIM and COBie for FM. International Facility Management Association. https://knowledgelibrary.ifma.org/quantifying-the-effect-of-bim-and-cobie-for-fm/
[4] Broadbent, M. (2018), as cited in: The Benefits of Building Information Modelling (BIM) to Facility Management (FM) Over Built Assets' Whole Lifecycle. (2019). ResearchGate. https://www.researchgate.net/publication/334045744
