“Enterprise alignment with Building services”

A one-day international IFM summit held on January 22, at The Leela in Mumbai during the Clean India Technology Week 2016 has received wide acclaim both for its content and the high level of discussions which covered many vital issues. “This has been one of the most professionally designed and conducted Summit on IFM in India”, commented the delegates and the speakers. The Summit had right mix of speakers from the industry, raised relevant issues of the FM sector and deliberated on business and technical solutions that had not been dealt with in depth before. Being addressed perhaps for the first time has been the increasing relevance of infrastructure to the core business of an organization.

The presentations by eminent speaker’s like Markus Asch from Alfred Karcher, GmbH & Co. KG and Sreedhar Saraswathi from Archibus emphasized the impact of technology on FM. Likewise, Shail Gala, of DTZ elaborated on the strategies for change management that should be adopted for smooth transition in an organization.

While, much appreciated was Jairam Panch from Turner Project management India Pvt. Ltd presentation highlighting the relevance of both infrastructure and FM to the core business. Mili Majumdar from TERI addressing the audience drew their attention to the benchmarking strategies for building performance especially the green rated buildings.

The invigorating panel discussions among industry experts on subjects like changing face of Real Estate Management, Supply Chain Management as a catalyst in FM outsourcing and the need for regulating FM saw enthusiastic participation and interaction from the audience. Not surprisingly, the Summit is already making waves as an apt platform to network with key facility management professionals, corporate heads, developers and building consultants community, etc.

Property represents a substantial investment for many organizations and its management should be central to any business’s strategy. Deliberating on the role and importance of real estate and facilities management, top developers, corporate real estate management heads, facility management leaders and service providers got together on a single platform. Addressing the audience on the relevance of both infrastructure and FM to the core business was the first Master speaker of the day Jairam Panch, Managing Director, Turner Project management India Pvt. Ltd an Indian arm of Turner International, USA, a global Project Management company.

According to him innovation in construction and new concepts of BIM, Lean and 3D printing are becoming critical to new age building design and maintenance. He said, “The problems faced in facility management originated during construction & design phase of the buildings. Therefore, the focus should be on how to make maintenance less repetitive and technically more sophisticated. Housekeeping cleanliness, technically trained staff are the challenge the industry faces worldwide. Another critical aspect of the modern buildings is safety and security, given the rising heights of the buildings and the limitation of fire extinguishing snorkels to reach such heights. Thus, the fire safety will have to be inbuilt in the building through choice of materials and design. While, sustainability calls for optimization and resource efficiency, keeping the lifecycle cost minimum is also important.”

“Involving FM in the earlier stages of design and execution helps the project managers understand the design better and testing & commissioning at the end of the project should always be done with FM participation. Handing over or Close out is an important stage in project management wherein, coordination with BIM is helpful in capturing information and handing over the documents in 3D to the owner for future reference. It involves, handing over the OEM manuals, as built drawings, warranties, certificates from vendors, suppliers, approval, fire safety NOC, Occupational certificate etc. to the FM for maintenance aspects,” he said. In the end, Jairam suggested backward integration where FM companies inform designers and consultants of the essential points as the design & construction managers may not be aware of all the aspects.