In a world where accessibility and speed are paramount to many company’s operations, technology has become a cornerstone of the commercial real estate sector. Business Integration Group, Inc. (BIG) provides cutting edge systems and processes used in the management of real estate portfolios. BIG’s Integrated Workplace Management System (IWMS) delivers strategic insight in every stage of the real estate process.

The IWMS facilitates collaboration and the sharing of resources. The platform provides real time information about properties as well as processes to oversee the management and facilitation of locations around the globe.

BIG’s systems and processes optimize workflow and provide other key benefits to clients, including:

• Process consistency
• Cost optimization
• End user satisfaction
• Ease of implementation
• Real-time business intelligence tools
  • SLA peformance
  • Infrastructure maintenance
  • Global locations and floor plans
  • Occupancy metrics
  • Facility request process

It is vital to carefully select technology that will help the organization, not hinder it with inaccessible or impractical solutions. In addition to the wealth of information it provides, BIG’s Integrated Workplace Management Solution is practical, easy to use and scalable to client’s needs.

In the June 2011 edition of Buildings magazine, Associate Editor, Janelle Penny, discusses how the use of dashboards—in this case, energy tracking dashboards—provide FM personnel a broad view of their portfolios’ activity ("Dashboards Put FMs in the Driver's Seat"). This bird’s eye view aids building managers in the task of quantifying the progress of facilities-related initiatives.

According to Penny, "A dashboard can play many roles, but in a nutshell, the tool allows you to compare usage between campuses, floors, and departments to spot inefficiencies or drive competition…" Furthermore, increased access to IWMS dashboards can help move along building initiatives by demonstrating to occupants their current rates of success and can foster a healthy dose of competition between occupants or company departments in achieving their organization-wide energy consumption/green goals.

It is not only in the world of energy usage tracking where IWMS dashboards can play a major role in achieving FM goals, dashboard tiles can be configured to demonstrate many facilities or real estate-related metrics. Dashboards that monitor critical requests, service provider performance, and overall building activity have become the cornerstone of IWMS technology and look to grow in importance as the integration of smart building solutions and IWMS software continues to advance in both the amount of data that can be presented and multitude ways it can be structured to suit an organizations needs and goals.

This blog revisits some strategic and tactical questions that organizations might utilize to determine the state of readiness of their real estate technology platforms. These questions might be broadly answered along three basic parameters…where the “information” is:

• Immediately available
• Available with some degree of effort
• Not available

1. Based on our portfolio, infrastructure and occupancy levels, are we properly staffed from a facility operations and maintenance standpoint?
2. Are our service providers delivering, according to established SLA’s?
3. Do we have an easy and effective “facility request” process in place for our occupants, and are they pleased with our service execution?
4. Are our respective teams (i.e. Project, Occupancy, Sustainability, Lease and Facility Management) collaborating to the fullest extent, and does our technology facilitate this process?
5. Can we measure and feel confident that a high degree of deferred maintenance is not building up on owned infrastructure assets?
6. Are we maximizing our real estate usage (i.e. high shadow vacancies, missing collocation possibilities, etc.)?
7. Do we have an effective means of measuring and leveraging our current lease positions relative to market forces (i.e. possibility for early renewal or renegotiations based on changing conditions)?
8. Is there an efficient means in place to consolidate our global locations to a common currency and measurement standard, to enable true comparative analysis?
9. Have we optimized our locations and floor plans to minimize cost and support recruitment?
10. Are we offering our clients transparency on the total cost of occupancy (TCO), to enable effective choices regarding their space and location commitments?
11. If a merger or change in business condition rapidly materialized, would we be in a position to report on our locations, density of occupancy, and overlay this data with a possible partner to maximize space, lease and strategic fit?

To be truly effective real estate technology must not only provide a powerful source of information (i.e. opportunities) and readily accessible answers to the aforementioned questions (and a host of others), but be practical and easy to use across disciplines. At times the choice and selection of technology is made in a somewhat one dimensional fashion and fails to account for all the relevant users and constituencies leading to a gap in obtaining the desired results.

For additional information in this regard, please feel free to explore www.bigcenter.com and/or contact us at contactus@bigcenter.com.

For a Facility Professional, growth or contraction of space resulting from changes to supported business units has a significant impact on service provision and resource requirements (e.g. increase in Moves, Adds, Changes, etc.), particularly when supporting disparate geographical facilities.

As depicted in Figure 1, Strategic Space Management technology tools can help Facility Professionals readily identify a) properties that are approaching capacity, b) locations that are in high cost areas and c) under-utilized space.

Potential actions to realize the identified opportunity include reviewing expansion or contraction needs, implementing Alternative Workspace Solutions (AWS), such as work from home or hoteling, and pinpointing portfolio consolidation opportunities.

The savings to be realized in these scenarios include:

• Effective planning (preempting potential issues to ensure best investment value)
• Employee satisfaction from AWS solutions
• Reduced spend through portfolio consolidation  

Continuous improvement, innovation, leadership and teamwork are core focuses of many enterprises. These attributes clearly have an impact on revenue preservation and growth and play a role in attracting and retaining staff.

For a Facility Professional, innovative and fit for purpose technologies enable users to focus on core skills and organizational business drivers. Technology should not be a burden that adds to the administration of a Facility, but a resource that improves productivity, strategic planning, execution and capital allocation.

As depicted in Figure 1 below, workflow and wireless technologies can help a Facilities Professional identify a) duplication of effort (e.g. many hands touching a work order with no value add), b) procedural delays such as approval processes or a need to acquire parts and c) limited information on how work was completed that impacts the ability to do root cause and failure analysis. 

Potential actions to realize the identified opportunity include providing instant access to data through real time tools (e.g. automatic dispatch of work, tracking of SLAs against completion etc.), enabling resources to be mobile via wireless devices that improve service delivery and facilitating data accuracy and richer content through closeout upon physical completion of work.

The savings that could be realized in these scenarios are:

• Time savings resulting from streamlining the process
• Improved customer satisfaction afforded by a removal of procedural burdens
• Enhanced analytics when identifying equipment or service needs

Scheduling of resources is a critical element in ensuring that Facility teams properly respond to requests, maintain assets against prescribed guidelines, deliver customer satisfaction while also focusing on organizational goals to maximize head count and reduce overtime costs.

For a Facility Professional, resource scheduling technologies provide answers to questions such as who is doing what, where, when and why are they doing it. These technologies are a core component in ensuring that day-to-day tactical work is handled appropriately and in a timely fashion, while also planning for strategically important work that is needed to improve facilities and maintain business operations.

As depicted in Figure 1 below, Resource Scheduling technologies can help a Facilities Professional identify a) trip duplications (e.g. a rise in internal lighting requests against a defined baseline could evidence a need to engage in a re-lamp program or stage resources, b) resource over-allocation and c) highlight redundant work that is being carried out as part of the process.

Potential actions to realize the identified opportunity include scheduling of work (e.g. excessive demand requests can point to a deficiency in planned maintenance activities), proactively staging labor resources (e.g. spreading known work across a measured period while allowing time for priority activities) and eliminating non-value add (e.g. resources are making return trips as required parts are not stocked).

The savings that could be realized in these scenarios from taking appropriate actions are:

• Reduction in demand work (e.g. schedule tuning for maximum benefit)
• Labor optimization along with the side benefits of increased employee satisfaction
• Minimizing travel time and associated costs (e.g. maintaining an inventory of required parts on site derived from historic use)

The work request process typically drives the performance of all maintenance related activities in a Facility. These processes evolve over time, and can become disparate, inconsistent and burdensome absent regular reviews. In order to maximize allocated resources whilst ensuring customer satisfaction the process should be continually evaluated for improvements.

For a Facility Professional, work order management technologies are a core element of ensuring appropriate and cost justified maintenance across various industries and locations. These technologies can be utilized to properly justify increases in resources, infrastructure investment and aide in the continuous education of employees.

As depicted in Figure 1 below, work management technologies can help a Facilities Professional identify a) inefficiencies in workflow and associated processes such as multiple non-value add touch points, b) under utilization of labor (e.g. a 9-5 Call Center capability that is only operating at 75% of capacity) and c) inconsistency in process (e.g. west coast operations call Facility Manager directly while east coast employees email a central support team).

Potential actions to realize the identified opportunity include investing in enabling technologies for workflow management, optimizing both spend and skills by seeking alternative sources of labor that offer per unit based pricing, and enacting consistent standards (without a consistent process, it is difficult to track performance against a baseline).

The savings and improvements that could be realized in these scenarios are:

• Workflow optimization (e.g. auto-dispatching directly to the responsible provider)
• Reduction in costs (e.g. unit based models versus financing under-utilized resources)
• Process improvement (e.g. consistent and measurable standards)

Asset Optimization from a facility perspective centers on formulating strategies for capital investment, infrastructure replacement programs and utilization of Preventive, Reliability Centered and Condition Based Maintenance to achieve prescribed goals. Asset based analytical technologies that take into consideration data elements such as asset condition, criticality, useful life, installation, salvage and maintenance costs etc. enable Facility Professionals to determine core strategic imperatives.

As depicted in Figure 1 below, technology can help identify a) useful life and condition metrics of critical assets core to a business operation, b) actual asset condition taking into consideration purpose and use and c) capital replacement costs required to maintain the operation at optimal performance.

Actions that might be considered to capitalize on the identified opportunity include optimization of maintenance procedures to reduce the risk associated with critical asset failure, evaluating alternatives for non-impactful, low cost or easy to replace assets to maximize potential, and investing where needed in core assets.

The saving and improvements that could be realized in these scenarios include:

• Continuity of critical core business operations

• Reduction and/or deferral of funds required for replacements costs

• ROI optimization

Technology delivers insight that enables Facility Professionals to achieve greater efficiencies, cost savings, process improvements and improved customer satisfaction. This blog will focus on six key areas:

• KPI’s & Metrics
• Asset Optimization
• Work Request Efficiency
• Resource Scheduling
• Operational Excellence
• Portfolio & Space Utilization

We will tackle these areas in six segments over the ensuing weeks demonstrating how a Facility Professional can utilize technology to IDENTIFY opportunities…prepare and take ACTION…resulting in SAVINGS and Productivity Gains (see Figure 1):  

In our initial post we’ll address the first area KPI’s (Key Performance Indicators), which  provide focus, drive behavior and guide practitioners toward achievement of organizational goals. A KPI is a pre-determined measure, which can be quantified, is realistic and achievable, and provides insight into the actual performance of an activity against a set baseline. For a KPI to be useful, it needs to be tied to an overarching target, such as reducing maintenance spend, minimizing costs, improving quality or enhancing customer satisfaction. For a Facility Professional, Business Intelligence technology, such as dashboards, enable quick and accurate access to the state of their facility “nation;” what is occurring now, what has occurred (tactical) and projecting what will occur in the future (strategic).

As depicted in Figure 2 below, a real time technology dashboard can help a Facilities Professional analyze and identify a) anomalies in service (e.g. an engineer’s completion metrics are significantly below target), b) deviations against plan (e.g. measurement of actual results relative to expectations) and c) inconsistent contractual performance (e.g. a particular service provider missing their key performance targets).

Potential actions to realize the identified opportunity include real time adjustment of resources; perhaps the engineer is missing targets this week due to colleagues being out (vacation, sick, etc.). If the targets are consistently being missed, the Facility Professional may consider further training or guidance as the remedy. Finally, if a Service Provider is falling short of target performance, this could necessitate a review of contractual obligations.

The saving and process improvements that could be obtained in the aforementioned scenarios include:

• Improved labor allocation (e.g. vacation/sick coverage from other sites)
• Increased performance (e.g. identification and provision of training to reduce completion time and motivate the resource in question)
• Enhanced Service Provider management (i.e. importance of visibility on deviations and expectations to assist discussion and collaborative action)

One of the most important, and sometimes overlooked, pieces of any on-going FM project is the implementation, coordination, and management of the facilities help desk.  Similar to service desks utilized for human resources or technical support, a facilities help desk is on standby to assist clients with issues affecting their workplace environment.  The types of issues raised through a facilities help desk can range from the mundane (replacing a light bulb) to highly prioritized situations (power failure).   Regardless of the type of request or the nature of the call, service to the customer and a speedy resolution to their issue should always be paramount. 

Business Integration Group, Inc.’s (i.e. BIG) Facilities Help Desk serves as one of the chief components of our Professional Services.  Managing the needs of customers while ensuring the client-specific processes are adhered to is a fast-paced and ever-evolving process.  For over 10 years BIG has been providing technology and services for a wide-range of customers; diverse in size, culture, industry, and geography. 

Along with a strong commitment to customer service and quality assurance, BIG’s Facilities Help Desk incorporates a number of practices to adapt to changes in the workplace and the challenges they present:

• Exceeding Client Expectations: No two customers are the same and, as such, their needs and expectations will vary.  A well-managed facilities help desk is one that ensures that each client is given the level and style of service that delivers effective results.  In many cases, clients will seek to have standard language and greetings in place to synchronize all their service platforms (whether they are in-house or managed by a 3rd party).  BIG’s Facilities Service Desk creates a seamless methodology by employing customized messages, scripts, and processes that are in line with the customer’s expectations and incorporated into the BIGCenter application.  This customization ensures that each customer‘s request is carried out in accordance with each client’s specifications.
• Managing Externalities:  Often customers will call into the Facilities Help Desk with requests that are outside of the facilities management purview.  In such events, the Facilities Help Desk attempts to provide the caller with the information they need or point them in the appropriate direction.  By maintaining up-to-date process documents, the Facilities Help Desk agents have the ability to provide callers with relevant information and provide them with quality service, even though the issue is not regarding facilities management.  As internal client policies change, BIG’s Facilities Help Desk continually collaborates with clients to maintain accurate referral information. 
• Handling Prioritized Issues: Prior to going live with the Facilities Help Desk, each client establishes a set of priorities for each type of facilities-related issue.  Beyond processing the call and dispatching the request out to the appropriate service provider, BIG’s Facilities Help Desk personnel work to ensure that issues are channeled appropriately and escalated as directed. Much like the referral process, the escalation process requires regular review in order to ensure that calls are correctly dispatched in a timely manner. A further step in the service methodology comes from Facilities Help Desk agents seeing prioritized calls through to acknowledgment; providing updates to the request and notifications to the customer when necessary.
• Facilities Management is Customer Service:  The most fundamental component of a Facilities Help Desk is service to the customer.  Each caller dialing into the Help Desk is looking for a resolution for a particular issue.  BIG’s Facilities Help Desk agents approach each call with a customer-first approach.  This means ensuring that the appropriate information is gathered, probing questions are asked in order flesh out any information that will be helpful in remedying the issue, and that the customer is provided with a friendly and knowledgeable voice on the other end of the line.