CAFM & IT
on jobs in the UK concluded that there has been a significant shift over the past 15 years from “low-skilled, routine jobs to higher-skill non-routine occupations”; 800,000 old jobs might have been lost to new technologies and automation, but the economy has added 3.5m new ones in the process.
“The McKinsey Global Institute estimates that a staggering 800m jobs could be automated by 2030.”
For industries like FM that are still professionalising, this has huge implications. A study by the Institute of Workplace and Facilities Management (IWFM), formerly the British Institute of Facilities Management (BIFM), and workplace transformation consultancy 3edges recently reported that the profession may soon undergo profound digital change – though what this will look like is still very much up for debate. On the more positive end of the scale, the report claimed that FM may face a “digital upgrade” or “digital reinvention” where the role becomes augmented by new technologies or totally transformed by data analytics, respectively. On the negative side, practitioners could soon be faced with a “digital downgrade” with the role becoming deskilled and marginalised.
“CAFM systems could very easily become the conduit between suppliers, original equipment
manufacturers (think CCTV cameras) and the FM function.”
Whatever the outcome, FM is at a turning point. The high-profile troubles of FM outsourcing companies throughout 2018 highlight the extent to which FM is already commoditised. With suppliers and customers of FM services continuing to squeeze margins, much of the industry has been gutted of real innovation and value.
However, new technologies present the sector with an opportunity to transform itself. If the first wave of CAFM software has helped customers to stay compliant and become more efficient, swapping inefficient spreadsheets for digital reporting and scheduling systems, the next wave could take advantage of so-called ‘smart technology’ and predictive analytics and make a huge difference to the FM role.
While it is easy to get caught up on the buzz surrounding terms like ‘smart buildings, ‘Internet of Things’ (IoT), and ‘big data’, the practical application of these concepts provides facilities managers with a genuine opportunity to make tangible improvements, and ultimately fire
www.tomorrowsfm.com
FM into the future. Fitting assets with IoT sensors that send real-time data back to a portal could, for example, provide facilities managers with an unprecedented level of granularity and intelligence in their asset information. In this scenario, CAFM systems could very easily become the conduit between suppliers, original equipment manufacturers (think CCTV cameras) and the FM function.
As a CAFM provider that strives to be at the forefront of FM innovation, Urgent Technology understands the scope and potential for adding new layers of intelligence and automation to our software. By integrating with sensors and other building systems, for example, we can turn data into actionable, easy-to-digest visualised information. Instead of an engineer inputting the completion of a task or the reading from an asset, the asset could send real- time data straight to the CAFM system – which will then process that information, and free up the engineer to be more productive too.
Equipped with this level of sophistication, FMs will also be able to capture far more accurate information on when their assets may fail or begin to underperform. Gartner has described this development as “asset performance management” – the intersection between data capture, integration, visualisation and analytics to enhance an organisation’s capabilities around condition monitoring, predictive forecasting and reliability-centred maintenance.
There are, of course, barriers to this next stage of development. Generally, organisations do not invest enough resource in their FM teams, ignorant of what an intelligent, technology-led function could achieve. Married to this lack of investment is also an entrenched pattern of short-termism, as contracts and intellectual property continue to change hands with great frequency. In many cases, there is simply no appetite to discover the competitive advantage that the FM function or a business’s physical assets can deliver in the long term.
“FM may face a “digital upgrade” or “digital reinvention” where the role becomes augmented by new
technologies or totally transformed by data analytics.”
With all this in mind, the onus is on facilities managers and FM organisations to embrace technology, data analytics, and even some of those fashionable buzzwords like automation and AI. If robots are taking over, it’s best to keep up with the new technologies rather than doing nothing and be left behind.
www.urgtech.com TOMORROW’S FM | 31
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