After several rounds in court, Bodø Municipality won the dispute related to the completion of Mørkvedbukta School and Kindergarten. Artificial intelligence helped them prove that the FDV documentation was insufficient.
Mørkvedbukta School and Kindergarten was supposed to be completed in the fall of 2021. When the necessary occupancy permit allowing the municipality to use the building for its intended purpose was not granted, Bodø Municipality refused to take over the building. Among other issues, the municipality claimed that the FDV documentation they had received was not satisfactory.
It took a couple of rounds in court and the help of artificial intelligence to gain the upper hand.
"This case is primarily about liquidated damages. One of our arguments was that the FDV documentation was not satisfactory," says Sissel Olga Pettersen, the project manager at Bodø Municipality.
When the case was first brought before the district court in the spring of 2023, the municipality did not succeed in proving that the FDV documentation was incomplete.
"In the district court, they read out the documentation that had been delivered. You have to be particularly skilled in this field to judge whether everything that should have been included was actually there or not," explains Pettersen.
She believes that the lack of expertise led to the delivery being judged as sufficient in the district court.
"We know from experience that getting the FDV documentation delivered on time, and getting an overview of what has been delivered, has always been a problem," says Pettersen.
When the contractor appealed the district court's ruling, the municipality took the opportunity to appeal the issue of delayed FDV documentation to the court of appeal. They then brought in Findable to get an overview of what had really happened.
Findable is a Norwegian startup that uses artificial intelligence to sort, categorize, and manage FDV documentation.
The company also provides a deficiency report, which proved to be very important for Bodø Municipality.
"With Findable, we got a visual overview that showed us exactly what percentage of the documentation had been delivered and approved at four different points in the process," explains Pettersen.
When artificial intelligence read all the documents, it became clear to both the municipality and the court that the submitted documentation did not meet the required standards.
"For example, operation manuals for the heat pump and ventilation were submitted, but they contained no useful information. They simply couldn't be used to operate the building," she explains.
Without the new technology, the alternative would have been to manually read around 12,000 documents.
"That would not have been possible," Pettersen emphasizes.
Reflecting on the case, Pettersen considers the demands that the building owner places on the contractor.
"As a building owner, we are often too lenient with the contractor. We are eager to take over the building immediately, even though we have the opportunity to set stricter requirements," she believes.
Referring to Norwegian Standards and defining the feedback that the building owner should receive throughout the project could be effective measures.
"The contractor should use services like Findable, so that from the start, we can define and clarify what important documentation needs to be in place. The FDV documentation must be followed up throughout the entire construction process," she concludes.