Service Works launches new Property Management technology solution

Service Works, the leading international supplier of Integrated Workplace Management Software (IWMS) solutions, has added a new Property Management module to its award-winning application, QFM.

A fully web-enabled solution, QFM Property is designed to manage the risks and responsibilities of maintaining a property portfolio, in order to minimise occupancy costs and improve operational efficiency.  QFM Property provides a broad range of tools and features to streamline the property management process, including:

Property Viewer
A comprehensive enterprise repository for managing property related data, such as lease, tenancy and ownership information. The system allows for the creation of proactive alert-based workflows, to ensure that key actions and events, such as lease expiries, break clauses and rent payments are not missed. The system is fully configurable; properties can be arranged in hierarchical structures, to reflect different ownership structures, for ease of management and reporting.

Property Director
A flexible control centre which enables users to create tailored views of a property portfolio to suit bespoke requirements, in order to streamline day-to-day property management activities. High level property information can be viewed, configured and maintained through an easy to use grid facility, with the ability to save customised views for future use.

Diarisation
A ‘watch’ facility allows users to add diary entries to elements in the system, such as a lease or rent agreements, in order to drive automated notifications and system dashboard displays, ensuring watch items are readily accessible when action is required. The “watches” may be personal or shared with others across the business.

Document Management
QFM Property provides extensive data management facilities, with the ability to attach electronic and scanned documents and URL links to the different entities within the system in order to retain a comprehensive repository of property information. Attachments can be categorised to aid searching and can be assigned to “watches”, enabling automatic diarisation for review, in line with critical dates and deadlines.

Reporting
QFM Property integrates with SAP Crystal Reports so that users can create their own reports on any information contained within the system. A flexible report scheduling engine allows reports to be scheduled for distribution at regular intervals to the required audience via e-mail, to provide relevant parties with full visibility of pertinent and timely property data.

Time Zone and Language Capability
QFM Property is fully time zone enabled, supporting effective property management across geographic borders. The system supports customisation into different languages, to allow organisations to operate the system in the business language(s) of their choice.

Integrated Facilities and Property Management
QFM Property integrates with the full suite of QFM Facilities, Space and Bookings management software applications to deliver a complete technology solution for the effective management of the built environment.

The facilities management sector is awash with acronyms, especially in the technology sphere as three and four-letter terms are bandied around with increasing ease, if not understanding.

CAFM, CMMS, EAM, FCP and BIM are probably the most common. For the uninitiated, these acronyms stand respectively for computer-aided facilities management, computerised maintenance management system, enterprise asset management, facility capital planning and building information modeling. But even knowing this may not reduce the sense of bewilderment.

CAFM at least will be familiar to many facilities managers given that it has been around since the 1980s and is being used these days by organisations of all sizes and complexities to manage hard and soft FM services. Everything from the facilities helpdesk to planned maintenance, health and safety, service level agreements and stock control can be managed with the software, and the benefits can be far reaching. Organisations that properly implement a quality solution enjoy a rapid return on investment, thanks to generating sustainable reductions in operational costs, optimising asset and resource value, improving service quality and availability, and delivering enterprise-wide visibility of critical performance information.

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Spotless, a key consortium partner in New Royal Adelaide Hospital (new RAH), Australia’s largest health public private partnership (PPP), has selected Service Works as its facilities management software partner for this prestigious project.

Service Works’ software application, QFM, will be used to manage Spotless’ performance and contract service delivery.

The new RAH will be Australia’s largest, most technologically advanced and complex PPP healthcare project, which will provide a 30% increase in hospital-wide patient capacity.  The hospital’s advanced technology solutions, combined with the collaborative design and construction techniques will set the benchmark for future healthcare facilities, both in Australia and overseas. Some of these initiatives include:

• Automated Guided Vehicles  (AGVs) to support the delivery of FM services such as catering, bulk stores, linen and waste and
• Facility wide RTLS (Real Time Locating System) functionality and electronic tagging of mobile equipment to enable efficient fleet management

Geoff Barnsley, General Manager – PPP and Government Development for Spotless explains that “With experience of in excess of 160 PPP contracts across the world, Service Works is the ideal organisation to partner with to manage the service delivery and operational performance of this prominent contract. Its PPP software, QFM, with its fully integrated payment mechanism solution, will ensure complete auditability and transparency across the contract, meeting the objectives of all the project stakeholders; South Australia Government and SA Health Partnership.”

Gary Watkins, Group Managing Director for the Service Works Group of companies comments, “We are delighted to be partnering with Spotless on this internationally leading and technologically innovative PPP contract. This will be a pioneering patient-centric hospital, which will raise the bar for hospitals across the globe.”

Managing the facilities of eight schools is the tip of the iceberg for Skanska, the largest construction company in Sweden where it is headquartered. Not only has Skanska constructed the 230m Heron Tower, one of the tallest buildings in London, it is also renovating the United Nations building in New York City and is restoring the World Trade Center ground zero site, among countless other prestigious projects.

In the UK Skanska employs around 4,600 staff and undertakes around £1.3 billion of work each year. All aspects of the construction, development and infrastructure process - from financing projects, through to design, construction, facilities management, operation and maintenance – fall under its remit. Worldwide, Skanska employs 52,000 staff, and in 2010 its sales totalled around £11 billion.

Published in the March issue of FMJ’s Month in FM

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Buying a CAFM system is usually a major investment decision that the facilities manager needs to justify to the finance department. But often they don’t have the language or skills to do this effectively. Gary Watkins from Service Works Group explains how to write a business case document for the CAFM investment.

Implementing a computer-aided facilities management (CAFM) system enables an organisation to work more efficiently, saving time and money. However, as with any major investment, convincing the finance director (FD) to part with the cash many not be an easy task, especially in a tough economic climate. A well-researched and detailed business case will help to persuade the board of the benefits a CAFM system will bring to the organisation and its quick return on investment. But what should a CAFM business case include?

Click here to read the article in full.

Taken from the February issue of FMJ.  

The results come from a study undertaken by Service Works Group, a company producing software to manage the service delivery performance and asset management of more than 60 PFI/PPP projects worldwide.

While PFI projects have been criticised in the UK, the study found that many countries have renamed, embraced and refined the model with increasing success, resulting in high quality and low costs to the benefit of users and tax payers.

The white paper, ‘The Importance of Transparency and Auditability in PPPs: Facing up to the Challenge of Complexity’, set out to illustrate the criteria required to ensure PPP contracts truly reflect the partnership approach that they are intended to embrace, creating new or upgraded facilities for the communities that they are intended to benefit.

Click here to read the article in full.

Taken from the February issue of FMJ.

Big names in politics and entertainment feature on Twitter. Brands with a strong consumer face watch it, monitor it, learn from it and talk directly to their customers via the medium.

What can social media do for FM?

Taken from the February issue of FMX. Click here to read the full article

Service Works Group (SWG), global leaders in the CAFM (Computer-Aided Facilities Management) technology marketplace, has launched its new space planning and management application, QFM Space.

QFM Space is a web-based space management application which links into AutoCAD to provide organisations with essential insight into space utilisation in order to make cost-effective use of their facilities. Occupancy information can be viewed and overlaid onto graphical floor plans to support accurate move management and scenario planning. Online dashboard and reporting tools provide the ability to analyse information, in order to maximise space utilisation and reduce real estate occupancy costs.

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Computer-Aided Facilities Management (CAFM) solutions deliver numerous significant benefits to organisations, according to the annual CAFM survey by leading software provider Service Works Group conducted in association with the Facilities Management Association and the award-winning news and research service i-fm.net.

More than 80 per cent of facilities professionals who responded to the survey said their CAFM system had saved them money, with 91 per cent agreeing that it also made the FM service more efficient. Almost 80 per cent of respondents confirmed that CAFM allowed them to better identify staff workload while 90 per cent said it gave them better quality data and provided better auditability. More than 60 per cent said their CAFM tool had enabled them to improve their organisation’s sustainability credentials. Overall the survey gave CAFM the thumbs-up with 77 per cent saying that their CAFM solution gave them all the benefits they thought it would.

More than 450 facilities professionals across the private, public and not-for-profit sectors took part in the recent survey with the majority of respondents confirming that they use their CAFM tools for reactive maintenance (19 per cent), planned maintenance (18 per cent) and asset management (15 per cent). Health and safety, contract management, resource management, capital projects, room bookings, space management and mobile workforce management were also key uses.

The survey confirmed that the bigger the organisation, the more likely it is to have a CAFM solution, with more than 50 per cent of organisations with in excess of 5,000 employees using a CAFM system compared with 14 per cent of organisations with less than 50 employees. Again the more sites an organisation works across, the more likely it is to use CAFM. Just under 30 per cent of businesses with less than five sites used CAFM while 62 per cent of those with between 101 and 499 sites used a CAFM tool. The survey also revealed a direct correlation between the square footage an organisation occupied, its FM budget and its use of CAFM – the higher the FM budget, and the larger the premises, the more likely the organisation is to have a CAFM system.

Around 30 per cent of respondents used more than one system to manage their FM function which resulted in some overlap within the results. Just over half (52 per cent) have an Excel spreadsheet, the same number use a professional CAFM system; while 11 per cent have developed a tool in-house, a further 11 per cent use nothing at all and 8 per cent are reviewing the market.

When asked which CAFM tool was used within their organisation, Service Works Group’s QFM solution was found to be the most popular with 21 per cent of respondents using QFM, followed by 20 per cent using Concept from FSI, and 16 per cent using Maximo from IBM. When asked for their perceived top three CAFM providers from a list of 12, participants also identified the same three organisations.

The full results of the annual CAFM survey will be published in a white paper in early February. To receive a complimentary copy, please email info@swg.com

For more information: contact Cathy Hayward at Magenta Associates, m 07971 400332, t 020 3376 9459, cathy.hayward@magentaassociates.co.uk or Hazel Bedson, Marketing Manager at Service Works Group on 020 8877 4080 or email hazelbedson@swg.com