Journal of Construction Engineering, Management & Innovation
2023 6(4):239-265
DOI 10.31462/jcemi.2023.04239265
RESEARCH ARTICLE
Correspondence Alaeldin Suliman Ala.suliman@Northumbria.ac.uk
eISSN 2630-5771 © 2023 Authors. Publishing services by Golden Light Publishing®.
This is an open access article under the CC BY-NC-ND license (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/).
A conceptual use-cases mapping framework for IoT-based smart
building management
Alaeldin Suliman
1,2,3
, Trevor Hanson
4
, Monica Wachowicz
5
1
Northumbria University, Department of Architecture and Built Environment, Newcastle Upon Tyne, United Kingdom
2
University of New Brunswick, Off-Site Construction Research Centre (ORCR), Fredericton, Canada
3
University of Benghazi, Department of Civil Engineering, Benghazi, Libya
4
University of New Brunswick, Department of Civil Engineering, Fredericton, Canada
5
RMIT University, (STEM) School of Science, Melbourne, Australia
Article History Abstract
Received
Accepted
17 October 2023
06 December 2023
Smart buildings aim to enhance user satisfaction and optimize operations through
efficient facility management, employing IoT technology as a key enabler. IoT relies on
sensors to collect building data, process information, and trigger actions via actuators.
Despite the proliferation of IoT devices, there's a notable absence of a comprehensive
framework for smart building management (SBM) in existing literature. While previous
SBM frameworks focused on software, network, or data collection aspects, none address
the classification of use cases for IoT devices, which form the backbone of these
frameworks. The absence of a framework leads to a lack of standardized descriptions
and contextual awareness of use cases, hindering research on SBM and its goal of
maximizing beneficial outputs. This study addresses this gap by introducing a multi-
dimensional conceptual framework for mapping potential IoT device use cases within the
context of academic buildings. The proposed framework consists of four dimensions: (1)
IoT device name and categorization, (2) building components, (3) building smartness
dimensions, and (4) smart building management objectives. The study provides a
detailed visual and textual representation of the framework, which is validated through
four use cases, demonstrating its promising applicability in SBM. Initial observations from
the framework implementation indicate its effectiveness in mapping existing sensors and
identifying new potential use-cases and providing a tool for understanding and advancing
the integration of IoT devices in smart buildings. This framework has the potential to
serve as a communication tool for fostering collaboration among different research
institutes and universities, contributing to the development of strategic SBM research
programs.
Keywords
Conceptual framework
IoT
Smart building management
Use-case classification
Building systems
Building management
objectives
1. Introduction
Smart buildings are those buildings characterized
by their use of integrated systems of the Internet of
Things (IoT), where IoT technology is “an
ecosystem that contains smart objects equipped
with devices (e.g., sensors and actuators),
networking and processing technologies integrating
and working together to provide an environment in