Ideally, a commercial building should run like well-oiled machine; every stakeholder interaction an example of efficiency and transparency. In practice, the challenge is creating the common ground for stakeholder interactions to take place as smoothly as possible, providing the tools and information they need. Stakeholders - in this case - include owners, managers, vendors, tenants, visitors, etc., all of whom interact with the building in some way. They all need at least some information and they all have potentially information to provide.
Here are three strategies that the many of the most iconic facilities use, which separate them from the rest of the pack. The good news is that these steps are easy to implement and can have an immediate impact on a property's operations.
Create a data model encompassing all stakeholders. All too often, multiple stakeholders create separate and incompatible data models of the same property operation. When you collaborate to create a comprehensive data model to serve as common ground, it becomes a framework where all critical information generated by stakeholder interactions are accumulated in a meaningful way and used to support timely, informed decisions.
Leverage mobile devices and applications for responsiveness and agility. Property management and engineering teams can be more efficient and responsive without being tethered to their desks when they have access to their facility management software on their mobile devices. By eliminating the need for paper work orders, teams can receive proactively alerts when tenants enter new work requests, allowing engineering, property managers or the appropriate vendors to get tenant requests as they happen, reprioritize their schedules as needed and update tenants on completed work.
Incorporate contract governance into your live data model. After vendor contracts are signed, they shouldn't be filed and forgotten about in a cabinet, or abstracted into one more separate document to be managed manually. Contracts define stakeholder relationships: they're the rule book for the interactions you should be instantiating in your data model. Making contract specifications a live part of your data model reduces administration and introduces transparency into what your vendors are doing.
The best way to achieve efficiencies in a multi-stakeholder built environment is to get all the stakeholders involved as early as possible. Even during construction, the groundwork can be done to create a comprehensive information solution that supports efficient operation and transparency.
Jeff Thompson is the executive director of AwareManager, Boston, Mass.