Can you make your facility more predictable?

1. Can you make your facility more predictable? 20/10/2010 Dr Hennie Ras, WSP Facilities Management

2. Understanding what Facilities Management is all about

3. Understanding what Facilities Management is all about (continued) • Note that all definitions, except no.1, assumes the workplace to be contained within the building. • Facilities Management is concerned with both tangible aspects of a facility (e.g. building, systems, equipment), as well as non-tangibles such as environmental/social/political/economic influences, process design, and third party services • The way we think and talk about Facilities Management determines our mental model of how Facilities Management works. • What is your model for Facilities Management?

4. Statistically meaningful prediction of the performance of facilities • Possible the most studied and mature predictions are weather and atmospheric patterns. • These predictions increased in their accuracy due to the availability of powerful computing devices, as well as a realisation that weather predictions are very sensitive to initial conditions. • Two kinds of common prediction errors: • Model inadequacies • Uncertain initial conditions • Can improve prediction by: • Improving the model • Improving the observational network to reduce errors in the initial conditions

5. Statistically meaningful prediction of the performance of facilities (continued)

6. Statistically meaningful prediction of the performance of facilities (continued) • Direct measurements tend to be quantitative and immediate • Indirect measurements tend to vary from quantitative to semi-quantitative and/or qualitative and delayed • Each variable has its own pattern of variability • Prediction of the behaviour of a facility now becomes more “soft” due to qualitative nature of data and cumulative effect of multiple variability • Prediction accuracy depends on: • the appropriateness of the FM model (including all direct and in-direct variables and knowing their contribution to facility behaviour) • Knowing initial values for each variable (including qualitative variables) • Weather prediction may be an easier problem to solve!

7. Making the facility more predictable • Predictability is closely related to Visibility and Control (Atkin 2009) • Therefore, increase Visibility to increase Control to improve Predictability • Implement real time visibility and control on variables that can be directly measured • Implement business process visibility and control on variables that can be measured in-directly, often possible in near-real time • Provide operational policies and guidelines for variables that can only be measured through institutional reporting

8. Making the facility more predictable (continued)

9. Useful technologies in providing visibility to FM operations • Item level identification • Mobile handheld devices • SCADA loggers and controllers • Electronic workflow • Services oriented system architectures (SOA) • International and Local governance frameworks and standards

10. Mobile handheld devices

11. SCADA loggers and controllers

12. Electronic workflow

13. Services oriented system architectures (SOA) Asset Management Supply Chain Handling Reporting Reporting Login Login Identify Asset Link Item Level code Identify Person Apply Depreciation Identify Item Link Item Level Code Identify Person Authorise Despatch

14. Services oriented system architectures (SOA) (Continued) Visibility Platform Presentation Orchestration Identify Asset Identify Item Authorise Despatch Link Item Level code Identify Person Apply Depreciation

15. Frameworks and Standards King III SOX SARS PFMA MFMA SA Institute for Chartered Accountants

16. Designing liability and accountability into FM processes • Liability - A comprehensive legal term that describes the condition of being actually or potentially subject to a legal obligation • Accountability - The obligation imposed by law or lawful order or regulation on an officer or other person for keeping accurate record of property, documents, or funds. The person having this obligation may or may not have actual possession of the property, documents, or funds. Accountability is concerned primarily with records. While responsibility is concerned primarily with custody, care, and safekeeping.

17. Designing liability and accountability into FM processes • We refer to the operational manifestations of liability and accountability when an employee signs for receiving or accepting or handing over work-in-progress, or a document, or an item of value. • Such signature can be in handwriting, a biometric or a personal code or password, all of which are unique to each and every individual employee • Such signatures are often prompted by electronic workflow driven processes • For auditability these signature events are stored on a central database and reported as a Chain of Custody report per item, process or employee

18. Summary and Conclusion • What does your model of Facilities Management look like? • Weather prediction may be an easier task due to the availability of standardized models, algorithms and available atmospheric measurement data • In FM we can at least improve visibility of the performance of facilities by capturing item level performance data and process performance data. • Automated data capture technologies will assist greatly in improving FM data integrity. • Visibility and predictability of FM leads directly to more effective and efficient facility performance due to enhanced command and control, as well as enhanced process liability and accountability.

19. Questions • References: • Alexander, K. 1996, Facilities Management. In Facilities Management: Theory and Practice, edited by Alexander K., (London: E & FN Spon), pp. 1-13 • Atkin, A. And Brooks, A.,2009, Total Facilities Management, 3rd edition, Blackwell Publishing Ltd, Chapter 12. • Barret, P., Facilities Management: Towards best Practice, (Oxford: Blackwell Science) • Becker, F., 1990, The Total Workplace: Facilities Management and the Elastic Organisation, (New York, Van Nostrand-Reinhold) • BIFM, 2001, see Alexander , K. et al, Facilities Management: Innovation and Performance, Spon Press, 2004, p. 83 • Information Theory and Predictability, Lecture 8: Statistical Probability, www.math.nyu.edu/faculty/kleeman/infolect8.pdf, accessed 7 October 2010 • Internal documents in WSP supporting discussion of using automated data capture in Facilities Management • US Library of Congress 1989, see Alexander , K. et al, Facilities Management: Innovation and Performance, Spon Press, 2004, p. 83