Doing Facility Management in the Facility

FM:Systems frees facility managers from their desks with cloud-based mobile applications.

If you are managing multiple facilities, it might make sense to visit them every now and then. It can be beneficial to perform facility management, or FM, onsite. What happens when you are in your building and you suddenly realize that your vacant office space would be easier and more lucrative to rent as a flexible, open workspace like so many companies seem to be doing? You go back to the office so you can pore over the floor plans, imagine taking down walls and adding coffee nooks. What if you could do all that while you were standing in the building, looking at real walls, windows and even people. What if you were able to make the changes right then and there?

FM:Interact’s BIM software integration in the cloud with Autodesk A360 Model Viewer lets users make use of Revit models for operations.

FM:Interact’s BIM software integration in the cloud with Autodesk A360 Model Viewer lets users make use of Revit models for operations.

FM:Systems realized that being there, or being anywhere, was the place to be. Desk-bound facility management suddenly seemed constraining, given that every other part of a person’s life, personal or professional, was becoming mobile. With every thought and sentence sent wirelessly, why not cut the cord entirely and let the user use the application anywhere and everywhere, on any device?

FM:Systems made a strategic decision to go completely cloud based and include mobile devices wholeheartedly in 2013.

“We have a big advantage over our competitors, most of whom still have desktop applications,” said Brian Haines of FM:Systems, who was at the first-ever Forge DevCon in San Francisco to show how FM:Systems has now also jumped on the Autodesk cloud-mobile platform, Forge.

The commitment to mobility seems to have paid off.

“We’ve had 35 percent growth the last year,” said Haines.

FM Software

FM software or, as it was previously known, computer-aided facility management (CAFM) software, is essentially all the data about a building or a facility—information beyond the shape definition (modeled in CAD or as physical models)—but also stores and organizes data that has to with a building or facility’s maintenance and long-term ownership. FM is more about data than geometry, more business than design, and can often include financial information. CAD, which is mostly visual, is ill suited for data. FM data is best stored in a relational database, such as Oracle for Microsoft SQL Server, which can be displayed either in tabular or graphical form, such as through a CAD connection.

The Revit Connection

FM:Connect, FM:Systems’ flagship product, runs stand-alone on mobile devices as well as within Revit, where it operates seamlessly from a drop-down menu. Revit users stay within their familiar interface, not knowing—or caring—that SQL data is being served to them from a database.

FM:Connect also works with AutoCAD.

Despite its commitment to the cloud, FM:Systems understands that the cloud gives pause to the most security sensitive or skeptical of facility managers, who have made the inability to keep all building and facility data within their four walls a deal breaker. For them, FM:Systems provides an on-premise cloud server.

Fighting Giants

FM:Systems competes head on with ARCHIBUS, which, according to analyst firm Gartner, is a leader in FM with its estimated three million users.

“We’re strong in the health care and education segments,” noted Haines, citing his company’s strengths.

I get the impression that he likes his company’s odds. It doesn’t hurt to be small and mobile when competing against a giant.