Predictive Maintenance
One way to check on an a
sset’s health is to conduct one of the following forms of predictive maintenance which are generally static in nature:
- Thermography Scans – Examines the component for unusual heat generation via infrared radiation. Excessive heat can cause a fire, as well reduce the effective life cycle, increase operating costs, and interrupt service delivery to our customers. Thermo gram showing a fault with an industrial electrical fuse block if not attended to, could result in a fire.
- Power Analysis – Effectively measures Power Quality which if not addressed can impact motor life longevity, realize transformer faults, overheating of electrical wiring (fire), and greater operating costs.
- Vibration Analysis – Measures the extent of the vibration for a motor, or mechanical device which if not addressed could increase operating costs, and reduce the intended life cycle of an asset.
- Oil Viscosity Test – Measures the quality of oil to engine it is operating within defined parameters which if not adhered could reduce the asset life cycle.
- Air Quality Test – Sampling and analysis of indoor air for the parameters temperature, relative humidity, Carbon Dioxide, Carbon Monoxide, Oxygen, Nitrogen Dioxide, Sulphur Dioxide, respirable suspended particles, Total Volatile Organic Compounds (TVOC), Formaldehyde, Hydrogen Sulphide, airborne bacteria, and chlorodiene. Analysis of these parameters can lead to proactive detection of Sick Building Syndrome (SBS) or Building Related Illness (BRI).
Maintenance Budgets
In a global best practice, the amount of dollars allocated to maintenance represents 2-4% of the Current Replacement Value. Indian benchmarks are yet to be established in this area. Essentially when you look at your deferred maintenance, assuming the FM systems and procedures are efficient and effective, you may well require more maintenance rupees to steer clear of the deferred maintenance iceberg.
TECHNOLOGY
The world is moving quickly to data centric sustainable facility management operations. If your company has not recently assessed how technology may be utilized to improve the cost and service efficiencies of your company’s process, it may be time to assess it. Some of the essential and emerging technologies for a typical Facility Management business unit or department:
Building Automation Systems (BAS) sometimes referred to as Building Management Systems (BMS) although, I have never seen a software system manage a building… but the day is approaching with data, highly complex algorithms, artificial intelligence swiftly advancing and converging; either way, we are not completely there, yet. Generally, these programs automate systems such as climate control, security surveillance, card access, and fire control systems within predetermined operating parameters.
Energy Management software (EMS) is quickly moving to SaaS models where the software is paid for as a service and usually hosted on the cloud.
Integrated Workplace Management Software (IWMS) technologies have matured over the last two decades essentially merging CMMS, CAFM, i.e. maintenance management software and space planning programs with project management software systems. Some of the more robust systems will also include sustainability, and a strategic portfolio planning program elements. The magic of the IWMS system is the integration of data thereby reducing of data input which saves time and decreases human input error.
Building Information Modelling (BIM) has been around for a number of years and while gaining popularity in India, the UK government has embraced BIM advantages mandating BIM technology in all their projects commencing 2016.
One thing to consider is the use of standardized asset nomenclature like project Haystack, which is an open source initiative to streamline working with data from the Internet of Things. It creates a standard communication tag so multiple databases can seamlessly integrate with one another thereby reducing the labor and expense required for system integrators and speeds up the run to implementation stage. For example, an asset associated with cooling would have the tag “HVAC”, not “aircon” or “HVACR” – the two databases would merge properties for assets with that particular “HVAC” identifying digital tag.
Another developing trend in sustainable facility management is M2M (Machine to Machine) and M2M2H (machine to machine to humans) which is enabling condition based analytics in real time, i.e. one step more advanced than predictive maintenance, due to the Continuous Based Monitoring (CBM) which occurs in this model, predicting asset failure, real time cost and consumption dynamics, etc. This type of real time monitoring is accentuated for example, when IBM suggests that 50% of municipality’s water is lost due to leaking water lines and commercial buildings account for over 33% of electricity consumption.
“While we often think of the latest technology as a way to improve building functions, we usually fail to fully consider how technology might alter the way people use those buildings. In other words, we tend to overvalue the role of the technology and undervalue the resulting re-engineering of the operational processes. And those process changes, rather than the technology itself can have the biggest impact on costs, effectiveness and efficiency.” J. Sinopoli, Managing Principal of Smart Buildings.
In the last three to five years, the technology focusing on the corporate real estate world has grown exponentially. There areover 50 vendors and 700 solutions in the information managementsegment (IWMS) and 100 plusvendors and 1000 solutions in thesmart building/campus category.As mentioned by Ravi Venkatesan,former Chairman, Microsoft Indiaand Cummins, India, in his book,“Conquering the Chaos”- “Middle market customers segment isvery demanding and driven bythe value for money. They havelimited disposable incomes butbig aspiration and will not acceptproducts that compromise onquality or functionality.” Indeed,with the extent of change going on in the workplace, a well thought out strategic movement towards sustainable change is required to weather future challenges.
