Mats Broman, CEO of Service Works International (SWI) spoke to Fiona Perrin from i-FM discussing the future of FM. When technologies converge to form a Connected Digital Twin, we can really see the possibilities of FM, says Mats Broman.
Take a walk around a sports centre. Explore its corners, its layout, its facilities, its sensors and its construction. As an FM, you’ll already be thinking about processes, workflows, maintenance regimes and sustainable practice. How do you speed up efficiency, lower costs and protect the environment?
Now, instead of walking the sports halls, the central areas, the boiler rooms and offices, imagine you can do it all from the comfort of your desk through a 3D model with perfect visualisation. It’s something you are used to on your phone in your day-to-day life, through maps and StreetView, but not in the workplace portfolio you manage every day.
Point and click on any element of the built environment. Explore further. Check out the connected environment from IoT sensors and what they are telling you. Fly through the centre and see the maintenance history of the assets for which you’re responsible. Visualise the space without moving an inch.
Then perhaps, you’ll have a question. You’ll know the answer is somewhere deep in your own documentation, models and the real-time data you’ve gathered. You use AI in your own daily life — language models like ChatGPT are everyday tools, but again, that might be a long way from your reality at work.
Now dream of a time when AI can also help provide the intelligent, transformative answers to our own business questions – how often does a lift really need to be serviced, for example, based on real use data? What should the temperature be in an office in two weeks’ time? And then imagine the answers, all available and integrated into your CAFM system via a connected digital twin of your built environment. This is what is possible when BIM, AI and CAFM systems converge.
Learning from Scandinavia
How do we know this is no FM reverie? Well, it’s already a reality in Sweden, says Mats Broman, CEO of global facilities, property and workplace management software, Service Works International (SWI). Having led the Nordic operation for over 15 years, he took over as CEO from founder Gary Watkins in May, and he’s ready to show us in the UK the art of the possible.
“I have a lot of experience around the use of AI, digitisation and other things from the Swedish perspective,” he says. “I will try to enhance that and implement it in a broader way in the UK and other places in the world.”
SWI’s software is already in 100,000 sites across the world — clients include Honeywell, Mitie, BNP Paribas and multiple NHS Trusts across the UK. Broman says that the culture of the company — “openness and transparency” — is not going to change, but he looks forward to “speeding up” bringing some of the Scandinavian learning to the UK.
“In Sweden we’re more advanced in using BIM on the FM side,” he says. “And I’ve been working with digitisation of buildings in the region for over ten years, driven by the municipalities and their requirements. In the UK, there have been demands to use BIM in construction projects for a long time but the purpose has been to create an efficient building process, not for efficient FM. In Sweden we now relate it to the FM processes from the start.”
Broman demonstrated examples of the 1,400,000 sqm that have already been digitised at this year’s Workplace Futures conference including the sports centre at Sollentunavallen. The visualisations are impressive; integrated with CAFM systems and SWI’s investment in AI tools for better digitisation and for solution interrogation, they are transformative. Importantly, the tools work for both existing buildings, new construction and in change in the use or layout of facilities.
Following the digitisation of Stockholm Central railway station on behalf of property owner Jernhausen, engineers use StreetView-type visualisations to streamline visits. “We can see the basement of the railway station and the water pumps that help regulate temperature in the building, for example,” explains Broman. “Engineers might want to have a view of the time series and they can see stats directly when they are out in the field.’ Room sensors in the conference rooms provide information on how the rooms have been used — and are predicted to be used — to drive decisions on temperature for energy management. Air condition alerts are sent to the CAFM system; at the same time users can use the same convergence of technology in apps to provide directional signage – “just like StreetView but inside”.
If this is the future, every FM will want to be there.
Leap in daily reality
Broman, though, is realistic. “We ask first, ‘can we have your paper drawings?’” he says. In this ‘Plan to BIM’ model, floor plans provide the basis for machine learning (an AI application) to digitise and render buildings into visualisations that are then integrated into the CAFM system. Importantly, though, “the reality is that users often don’t have great drawings to start with,” he adds. So the solution might be ‘Scan to BIM’ using laser scanning and multiple data sources to provide accurate digital twins, including 3D visualisations of everything from the office layout to HVAC.
Real-time user data then helps operators to plan maintenance visits, understand the interdependencies of different systems and speed up processes and solutions. “It’s much easier to solve the problem out in the field,” explains Broman. “It’s changing workflows, planned preventative maintenance and the ways that engineers and their colleagues work on demand.”
FM must recognise the legacy
Broman loves starting that conversation with clients – how to commence the journey to digitisation and is “now having some really interesting dialogue with existing customers in the UK” to see what can be achieved. “It’s step by step,” he says. “We often have to help customers to understand how they can start their digitisation journey and where the return on investment may be greatest.”
He believes the drive towards sustainability will be the key to adoption, helped by regulation and the drive to net zero. Ensuring standards are adhered to means solutions can be scaled globally.
Working together as an industry is fundamental, he says, and all the different players in FM have something to bring to the table. “The tricky thing is to really understand what makes us more efficient, better and more profitable. I think it’s important to meet each other — service providers have expertise from their side; real estate from their side; so now is the time for us to work together to see how we can provide solutions for market needs and make us much more efficient.”
Some say, though, that FM is notorious for not being an early adopter. Again, Broman is pragmatic: “I think we have to accept that we are a slow-moving industry for natural reasons. When you invest in a building you tie up lots of capital, and if you try to change the building at the same rate as technology develops you don’t always get a return on investment. We must accept that we have a legacy and that we might have to do some things manually but add things that are going be more efficient – take the low-hanging fruit. We have to be honest with ourselves and see what we can do – but that’s a lot more than we are doing today.”
A better future
In the meantime, take a moment to think again about flying through your buildings, seeing and interrogating the assets you manage via accurate 3D visualisations and then using AI to assist with solutions that make the user experience better, at the same time as protecting profit and the planet.
Imagine the difference it would make to your job and the industry we work in. It’s no pipedream: Broman has shown us the future, and we might all want to share in the vision.