The future of FM: A new, dynamic world of operations

In facilities management and operations today, organizations face challenges that hinder operational efficiency and decision-making:

• Siloed building systems, networks, and data make it difficult to gain easy access to quality data for a comprehensive view of facility performance and prevent proactive decision-making.

• Lack of contextualized and synthesized data inhibits predictive analytics, trending performance, benchmarking, and accessible and timely actionable insights.

• The high cost and difficulty in collecting and maintaining high-quality data sets prohibits efficient operations and the ability to objectively measure improved performance.

• Manual processes and disjointed workflows result in time-consuming and error-prone tasks, reducing productivity and data quality.

• A reactive approach to maintenance and operations means issues are addressed only after they occur, leading to increased downtime, added repair costs, and diminished asset value.

• Paper-based documentation and compliance reporting add additional administrative burdens, increase risk, and hinder auditability.

• Suboptimal resource allocation and inefficient service request management slow down operations and increase cost to serve.

These challenges can be addressed through a digital transformation journey to integrate building systems, digitize assets and documentation, automate processes, aggregate data, improve data quality and analytics, and continually inform and optimize strategies. With this digital framework in place, organizations can leverage innovative technology and advanced data sets to train data models, deriving the required insights to intelligently manage their facilities.

Organizations have a lot to balance—they’re managing a hybrid work style, tracking return-to-office efforts, accounting for changing regulations, driving progress toward decarbonization goals, facing extreme weather events, and managing costs, all while providing a safe, comfortable, and healthy environment to attract, retain, and maximize the productivity of their employees. They’re looking for a way to manage their workspaces that adapts to the needs of their workforce and aligns to the success, goals, and objectives of their company.

Our dynamic approach provides a responsive and proactive way to manage facilities and their assets by supplementing traditional data sets with real-time data to monitor, optimize, and action operations and continually inform strategy throughout the commercial real estate lifecycle.

JLL’s Smart Building Platform (SBP) brings together disparate data sources by integrating and aggregating data from IoT sensors, technology, and building systems. This synthesized data from traditional data sets and new real-time data sets—like asset health and condition, indoor environmental conditions, climate-related factors, and occupancy/utilization—allows JLL’s Intelligent Operations Center (IOC), our centralized team of FM experts, to continuously monitor, optimize, and efficiently action operations:

• Autonomously – Through a rules-based engine and pre-determined if/then logic through the Smart Building Platform.

• Remotely – The IOC addresses issues across geographically dispersed portfolios from an off-site location.

• In-person – A work order can be auto-generated from the SBP rules engine or manually generated by the IOC and dispatched to an on-site technician.

Over time, as data accumulates and patterns and trends begin to emerge, subject matter experts analyze the building’s performance, forecast potential impact, develop strategies, and enact changes to optimize building operations to achieve organizational goals and initiatives. This continuous, self-informing strategy allows for improved decision-making throughout the real estate lifecycle. From maintenance strategies to capital planning and asset renewal to resource allocation, occupancy planning, and sustainability and portfolio strategies, this insights-led, expert-applied approach helps organizations achieve today’s goals faster and identify future needs before they become future problems.

Organizations can realize the impact of this approach through task efficiency and cost savings and avoidance, without sacrificing safety, compliance, reliability, and comfort:

• Task efficiency is realized by reducing the time it takes to complete tasks through automated workflows and integrated technology and systems. What used to take 15 minutes, may only take 10-12 minutes and those minutes add up quickly when that task is repeated thousands of times annually across a portfolio. Reducing low-value, labor intensive tasks allows for greater efficiency and reduced overtime and allows technicians to focus on higher value work, increasing productivity and worker satisfaction.

• Cost elimination is possible through strategies like condition-based maintenance, which eliminates unnecessary maintenance tasks because the condition of the equipment is telling us it’s not necessary at that time. Automation and autonomous actioning or optimization replace repetitive, manual tasks reducing labor costs.

• Cost avoidance is achieved through strategies like predictive maintenance informing FMs to proactively intervene before the point of failure, minimizing reactive maintenance and the high cost of associated collateral damage. Properly maintaining assets can extend the useful life of equipment, thus, saving on replacement costs. Implementing proactive energy conservation strategies reduces energy consumption and costs.

Having the ability to dynamically manage operations optimizes energy consumption, maximizes productivity and efficiency, reduces operational costs, improves compliance, increases asset value, enhances occupant comfort and health, and allows for vital progress toward decarbonization goals.

This dynamic approach isn’t for all buildings or assets within your portfolio. It’s best suited for those considered critical for business continuity and when the use cases and investment are justified.

Think of a doctor’s treatment plan for two patients, one with Type 1 diabetes, the other with Type 2. Type 2 can often be managed with diet, exercise, and, if needed, frequency-based glucose monitoring via finger pricks. That applies to Type 1 as well, but those patients often need a more rigorous treatment plan, including continuous glucose monitoring, insulin injections or an insulin pump for managing blood sugar levels. The goal is to improve the quality of life of the patient with the best health management strategy.

The same approach could be used to manage buildings. For example, a building you plan to exit in 24 months would be managed differently from a building critical to your business or one that’s revenue-generating. You’d manage your back office differently than your headquarters. How you maintain and manage assets within those buildings also differs; a low criticality asset, like lighting or a printer, is different than a high criticality asset, like servers or power backup equipment in a data center where uptime is paramount. The plan must adhere to the criticality of the building or assets in the same way medical treatment adjusts to the needs of the patient.

Taking a dynamic approach to facilities management provides a solution that adapts to the needs of an organization and all they are balancing in today’s environment. By strategically applying this approach within your portfolio, you can ensure you’ll see an impact that justifies your investment and aligns with your success, goals, and objectives.

Discover how our dynamic solution intelligently transforms operations and unlocks the full potential of your portfolio.