Articles

Future of Campus and Facility Management in the Digital World

by Lisa Watson Facility Management Expert

As tech-empowered classrooms and connected living are becoming popular, campuses are evolving to provide the modern-day students with the wired experience that they want. Technological innovations can help universities from behind the scenes too. Smart building technologies and digitalized facility management (FM) are emerging as institutions wish to cut down on costs and improve the campus experience.

Several institutions face the contesting challenges of offering a high-quality, tech-enabled campus experience while at the same time financial pressures are mounting. Decreasing incomes from tuition and public support are combined with maintaining old university campuses. With facilities second only to employees in campus expenditures, it is imperative that some establishments are seeking new ways of bringing competence to their real estate and facilities.

With the help of information and awareness tools and automated systems that are created specifically for facilities, FM teams in higher education institutions can identify new ways to save while they keep adding value to their organizations. Tech-enabled FM means new opportunities to cut down on energy waste, accelerate work orders, extend equipment life and also be on the upper side during lease negotiations.

Digitizing the Facility Management Framework

Technology helps facility managers operate efficiently and improve campus experience for students, staffs and faculty. Your college or university might already be using a CAFM or IWMS platform. But there are other options that are available. Right from move-ins to service requests and maintenance and repairs, you can automate every aspect of the FM service delivery. In order to improve decision making and campus experience, you can collect and analyse every aspect of the FM service delivery. For example, if a plumbing service is required at any part of the campus, an office manager can log online and report the incident. The platform will alert a facility manager and will also suggest a plumbing contractor who is immediately available. With the help of data received from GPS tracking, automatically the system tracks when the plumber comes and does the work. It also creates a log regarding all the details related to the work like cost and repair history, the length of the service and the like.

Today, leading organisations are using computers and sensors in order to streamline data. For example, sensors are used to track a malfunctioning HVAC and it negates the need for any kind of human intervention while reporting. Data that are received through these automated processes will help track employee preferences and facility usage. This will help facility managers to manage facilities more efficiently and campuses can take informed decisions about better planning, asset management and better facility services.

Moreover, the automated system captures all the data that could never be possible to track in a paper-based system. You will be automatically able to track when the technician will arrive on and leave the site, when the invoice price gets confirmed and whether the cost of repairs and maintenance is in line with the calculated estimates.

 

 

Facility Management for the Campus of the Future

Even after having some clear advantages and benefits, some educational institutions are not being able to leverage technology in their practices optimally. One of the most important reasons behind this is the gap in skills. All FM teams are not technically advanced to deal with the emerging possibilities of the tech tools of the modern day. As a facility manager you can learn a lot of new usages of technology from a facility management app. You can also go for in-house training or even tap the education offerings of certain renowned and recognised education institutions. The end result will be the rise of FM operations in every campus that give life to technology in the heart of each campus.

As the evolutionary process of digital transformation is now underway, facility managers now have an ocean of opportunities. More businesses today are looking forward to reducing operational and administrative costs by making use of technology in the best possible way. Also, more and more businesses are contributing towards the environment and therefore the need for green buildings and tech-enabled campuses are more on the rise. The coming years are definitely going to be revolutionary for facility managers as more and more businesses and enterprises will be looking forward to using technology to the best of their abilities.


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About Lisa Watson Junior   Facility Management Expert

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Joined APSense since, May 5th, 2020, From San Ramon, United States.

Created on Jun 12th 2020 07:44. Viewed 417 times.

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