When data takes over from gut instinct T
ransformed organisations truly value data in decisionmaking. However, executives still rely on their experience and gut feeling for critical decisions. This approach does not help — because there are undeniable benefits to use data analysis in daily operations.
Within facilities management, it can help facility managers identify areas where the money is being wasted or space is underutilised. For companies yet to adopt data-driven decisionmaking, the transition may seem daunting.
How do you collect and collate data to turn this into actionable information? All it requires is a mindset and appropriate data management and a clear understanding of qualifying data. Intuition and estimations have no place in the world of datadriven decision making.
Strategic boost
Data must not only be used to facilitate transactions but also be harnessed to energise business. The FM industry stands to reap many benefits from a data-driven approach. For instance, if asset information and the data therein are adequately provided, then any automated facilities management system can optimise resource planning to improve the availability, reliability and performance of any facility.
The ability to collect and analyse current and historical data on asset operations enables a shift from reactive to preventive. Finally, it also helps to move to predictive maintenance. It is a fact that a comprehensive PPM (Planned Preventive Maintenance) data does help in forecasting future emergencies.
Maintenance teams can readily analyse historical data to calibrate future PPM strategy, breakdown analysis, and to work on future life cycle maintenance. Ultimately, proper data management supported by automated analysis and visualisation can predict and help in more effective analysis of asset life cycle planning.
Until recently, most domain experts in the FM industry had typically been dealing with first principles and physics-based analytics — this was good enough with relatively small amounts of data manageable by humans. As the volume of data grows, leveraging on machine learning (ML) and artificial intelligence (AI) will play key roles in overcoming the limitations of calculations that can be performed by humans to achieve “predictive analysis”.
This needs to be supported with scalable database definitions that allow data mining — along with the flexibility to adopt to data capturing — across the fragmented FM market.
Above all, what a data-based approach to facilities management allows is for an organisation to effectively forecast its company’s future. By understanding what kind of impact your decisions have had in the past, you’ll be able to refine your strategy for the future.
Better grip on costs
Reporting and analytics can provide FMs with several benefits, including a better understanding of the way their facility is operating and, most importantly, the utilisation of resources at hand. Given that resources form 80 per cent of facility management cost, the visibility on their utilisation gives a window to optimisation that leads to the cost efficiency of the highest level.
By generating useful reports, FMs can keep track of company-wide assets and inventory, which will assist in informing how you allocate assets while simultaneously lower company expenditure
Based on relevant and critical data collection and integration, most MIS can be provided through the data visualisation, dashboards and live reporting, wherein effective data analytics can be obtained for the use of stakeholders. Live dashboards help to monitor activities and facilitate decision making that is critical to run facilities. The analytics was also given to help review the history for diagnostic purposes to prepare necessary correction and improvement plans. Useful data analytics provides invaluable, evidencebased insights on how to optimise the function of an office.
FM has evolved to extend its footprint and encompassing more services with the expansion of its IFM (Integrated Financial Management) model. Transactional data must be analysed to review trends as well as help to monitor.
It is essential that relevant and key data critically needed for the assets and services against each SLA (Service Level Agreement) be stored. Workforce productivity and deployment are other aspects that can significantly benefit from data analysis, if provided in an appropriate format containing crucial information.
Who wins in the process? Winners will not just be facilities management providers. They will also be asset owners, manufacturers, assurance providers, other data providers, regulators, insurers, and other industry stakeholders.
Above all, what a data-based approach to facilities management allows is for an organisation to effectively forecast its company’s future. By understanding what kind of impact your decisions have had in the past, you’ll be able to refine your strategy for the future.
With the help of this data, facility managers can have a firm grip with regards to their actions and their results. There is no doubt that a practical data-driven approach helps in changing behaviours to positively affect operations and, most importantly, the bottom-line.
■ Tariq Chauhan is Group CEO at EFS Facilities Services Group