Case Study: Higher Education

The University Realizes New Efficiencies in Facility Management

Facilities:
120 buildings, totaling 4.2 million square feet

Client Since: 2003

“FM:Systems software  significantly cut the amount of time required for routine tasks in facility planning, enabling us to be more strategic.  Reports that would have taken me a week now take less than ten minutes.”

 - Facilities Planning

Background:
Established in 1960, The University’s campus sits on 1,237 acres and includes 120 buildings.  Chartered by the state legislature in 1960, The University was created in response to the need for a public, four-year college in the state's second largest metropolitan region. The University’s mission is to educate students to shape their lives, their professions, and their societies. The University contributes to the enrichment of society through excellent teaching, active scholarship, and public service.

Facilities and Property Overview
The University consists of 120 buildings in four locations, totaling
approximately 4.2 million square feet.  A new building is under construction and will come online as soon as it is completed.  The facilities group that manages the property is divided into two groups; the facility planning group, which consists of nine people, and the facility services group, which is made up of numerous full and part-time custodial workers.    

Challenges
While The University is growing quickly in terms of students and space, the facilities staff isn’t, and they are constantly challenged to keep up with the growing demands of the increasing enrollment.  Also, because they are a University, they try to not do what they call “shuffles”, or office and room changes, during an academic semester.  Instead, these are scheduled before a semester begins – all at the same time.  While necessary, it puts a huge strain on the resources needed to plan and implement moves.  The facilities group needed one central place to retrieve data, and an easy way to share it, all in a solution that could easily integrate with AutoCAD and other systems already in place. 

Solution
A committee was formed with employees from various administrative departments of The University to ensure essential criteria and guidelines were met.  To find a solution, they first took to the Internet to do research, but in the end relied heavily on the testimonials of existing users of FM:Systems and various other competing facility management systems in the market.  FM:Systems customers consistently gave the products and the company’s focus on its customers’ high marks. 

Results/Accomplishments
Since implementing FM:Systems products, The University has made huge strides in the efficiency of their department, such as:

• “Shuffles”, or moves, are handled quickly and efficiently. Now all space information for The University is centralized in one location, enabling better tracking of space and renovations.  Vacant workspaces are easily identified making campus moves a small project rather than a large headache.

• Faster and more accurate planning and reporting.  Space needs and assignments change every semester – or about every four months – and must be communicated and posted.  The facilities planning coordinator for The University says, “FM:Systems software significantly cuts the amount of time required for the routine tasks of facility planning, enabling us to be more strategic.  Reports that would have taken me a week now take less than ten minutes.”  
  
  With the AutoCAD integration, space in the system is in real-time – very important to a bustling University.  “Because of FM:Systems,  I only have to do updates to the system for a few hours two days a week,” says the facilities assistant for The University .  “And when someone requests a report – it’s there.”   

• Users learn the system quickly and easily.  The facilities department doesn’t have IT support, and there is no one person dedicated to use the system.  However, all users are able to get up to speed on the system fairly quickly due to its intuitive and easy-to-use interface. 

• There is one location for all facilities information.  As the facilities planning coordinator illustrates, “When there are changes in administration, as there have been recently, there is a more urgent need for information as new people try to get up to speed.  It helps to have one place to go to find the answers.”

• Other University departments enjoy increased efficiencies.  “The mailroom was ecstatic when we told them we were going to an automated system,” says the facilities planning coordinator.   “Because the employee data base is kept up to date, all campus employees receive their mail on time now, and the mail carriers don’t have to waste time tracking down employees.”    

Prior to implementing FM:Systems, facilities projects were done manually – reports, moves, even colored floor plans were filled in by hand, making the more routine tasks in facility management extremely time-consuming.  The facilities team and The University are extremely happy with the time-saving results of the new system.  And as the facilities planning coordinator points out, “Almost all departments at the University have experienced benefits from our new automated solution.”  

Next Steps
The University wants to bring one more building online as soon as construction is complete, and plans to expand its use of FM:Systems products to help share information with other groups on campus and further improve productivity and customer service.