FM Innovations Tools help East Gippsland Tafe to uplift Facility Management Systems
East Gippsland Tafe campus at eastern Victoria
In 2002, East Gippsland Tafe began a process to map out their FM solution requirements to effectively manage their campuses across eastern Victoria. East Gippsland Tafe wanted to utilize their underperforming Facility Management systems in a cost effective way.
Working closely with East Gippsland Institute of Tafe, FM Innovations identified five distinct areas in need of improvement. The five distinct areas are:
- Alterations to their buildings were a costly and time consuming activity
- Room Management - Ad hoc bookings resulted in double bookings, unavailability of equipment and a lack of reporting
- Outlying buildings were cut off resulting in an overload of paperwork and second hand recording of data, such as maintenance requests
- Problematic itemizing, monitoring and reporting on “equipment request”
- Implementing all these in a cost effective way
FM Innovations directly linked EG Tafe's facility management and property objectives to their KPI’s so that all targets were measurable. They also worked closely with East Gippsland Institute of Tafe to customize a package tailored to their needs that would migrate into their everyday work lives.
The five distinct areas in need for improvement identified by FM Innovations were enhanced through
- Installing and implementing Aperture, Space and Personnel Management
- Purchasing the Room Event Management (REM) module, to accompany WSM Works and Asset Management
- Introducing WSMplannet, which provides a web interface with WSM Works and Asset Management, and REM
- Working closely with the FM Innovations team testing the functionality and modifying WSM to track equipment requests
- Developing measurable key performance indicators around the facility management objectives that measurably helped them achieve their targets
FM Innovations provided East Gippsland Institute of Tafe with the tools to manage their facilities in a cost effective way. Through the use of FM Innovations product Aperture, Space and Personnel Management, they have the ability to access electronic plans for all the buildings and to do ‘mock ups’ of potential alterations. Once they ascertain if alterations are functional they have detailed plans that can be used for quoting purposes, therefore minimizing the chance of misquoting by suppliers. This saves EG Tafe thousands of dollars in architects fees and hours conversing to and from the architect’s office. Implementing Aperture has been especially useful for the creation and updating of fire evacuation plans.
EG Tafe staffs have found new applications for WSM Works Management and Asset Management. This year they have discovered another use for WSM - manage the Tafe's equipment purchases. EG Tafe have four main sources of equipment funding and an enormous equipment “wish list” that has to be monitored and regularly updated as requirements change. By logging all equipment requests under a ‘Project’ called, ‘New Equipment Requests’ all the information can be detailed, monitored and analyzed. From there they can depict the various funding sources once they are approved for purchase. EG Tafe found that the work staging and the available reporting enhances their efforts in this area as well as gives them more time responsive reporting. FM Innovations provided some suggestions to Acting Facilities Data Maintenance Officer of EG Tafe that have resulted in EG Tafe achieving their aims without the necessity of any upgrades to the system
EG Tafe has recently implemented the Room Event Management (REM) module, to WSM, which has overcome most of the problems. The REM module will allow EG Tafe to book rooms, classify and define room usage, manage all resources used for these bookings including security, guest lists, catering and equipment, audio visual management and teleconferencing. In addition EG Tafe have introduced another FMI product - WSMplannet, which provides a web interface for WSM Works and Asset Management & REM. This has been beneficial on two fronts:
- Some of EG Tafe’s outlying campuses only have narrow band access to the major campus. Therefore they were cut off resulting in an overload of paperwork and second hand recording of data such as maintenance requests. The web-based product allows them to access WSM through the Internet, saving time, reducing paperwork and generated cost savings.
- EG Tafe I.T. staffs found that it is easier to maintain and upgrade the Web-based product rather than multiple client server installations.
FM innovations have helped EG Tafe to achieve their targets by developing measurable key performance indicators around the facility management objectives.
31-Oct-2008