Consequential life cycle oriented solutions for fire protection planning can increase the certainty for scheduling and operations. They can also enhance the flexibility of use, whilst lowering investment cost at the same time when considered early enough during the planning process. Practical experience shows that despite existing control instruments, numerous defects stem during the planning phase which then have an effect on any following phases, and moreover the value-creation potential in relation to the life cycle of a building stays generally untapped.

As a contribution to the quality enhancement of buildings during the facility lifecycle-phases, this research work formulates a holistic process model for preventive fire protection planning. The process model consists of the findings of a comprehensive empirical study based on theory governed results.

First of all, the general requirements for preventive fire protection planning as well as the interdisciplinary and integral interfaces in the process system are documented through an empirical study and undergo a weak-point analysis. From the results, it was found that various methods to improve the process quality are derived and implemented in the developed process model during the research. The process model has a hierarchical structure and describes the process for preventive fire protection planning in detail for the first 7 service phases of the HOAI (Official Scale of Fees for Services by Architects and Engineers). Key aspects are a significant expansion of the scope of services for planning services, the integration and improvement of preventive fire protection demand planning, or the integration of requirements of the operation by selective involvement of know-how bearers of the object phase.

For the first time in Germany, the entire preventive fire protection planning process is drawn up from the point of view of the project management in a detailed process chain, and has been transferred into a guideline for execution with a concrete catalogue of methods and various supporting tools. By utilising the above, planning, control and quality assurance for preventive fire protection in the planning phase, we can experience a significant improvement when considering integral planning for effectiveness and efficiency.