A review of the work that AGEM, Association of Modern Building Managers, has done in these first months of the year. Training continues to be the pillar to empower the Building Managers and Facility Managers sector.
By Alejandra García Vélez
To begin 2014, the Association of Modern Building Managers held two trainings focused on offering tools for administrators and facilities managers to strengthen their professional practice.
Thinking about the above, and taking into account that the issue of Facility Management still does not have a high degree of recognition in the region, it was considered that the best way to start the training program in 2014 and set the tone against the objectives of the Association was to start talking about what Facility Management is.
What is Facility Management
To talk about this topic, the architect Carlos Leyton, general manager of FMax S.A.S.; Carlos is an architect from the Universidad de los Andes in Bogotá, Colombia, with specialization studies in business administration and has a master's degree in business administration from the same university, which was awarded in 2010.
Since joining IBM's real estate and general services team in Colombia and Latin America in 1994 and to date, he has participated in the development of Facility Management services from all its edges in facilities and office buildings, commercial and industrial, locally and internationally and has complemented his career with methodologies implemented in the LEED and Project Management areas.
The talk, held in February, was entitled "Maintenance and operation of facilities is Facility Management" and was conceived as a basic training for all people in charge of the operation and maintenance of buildings on what is the Facility Manager and its importance in all types of facilities.
To start his conference, Leyton offered a definition of Facility Management (FM), in which he stressed that it is "the development of a comprehensive service in each client and awareness of this, of the fundamental aspects of a project in its physical facilities, for its implementation (design and construction), good use, conservation and maintenance and operation of work environments, to take advantage of its functionality and durability, which will result in increased productivity of companies and well-being of users."
In addition, he pointed out that "this integral activity is done in the physical facilities, supports services for the occupants and users and contributes to the economic success of the organizations; for an adequate management of costs, improvement in the service and strengthening of the organization by a specialized outsourcing". He also explained that "the above is achieved by maintaining productive physical environments and developing Facility Management support services for these, whether new or existing."
Once the above was established, it was given way to analyze the opportunities and challenges that Facility Managers currently have. Leyton highlighted as one of the main opportunities, given the immaturity of the local market in this field, the possibility of developing an FM service from the initial stage of the administration of a property, building, or co-ownership, from a provisional administration to a comprehensive administration in these.
The speaker also pointed out that the projects and the adaptations of the offices and infrastructure in operation will be required before or after developing a Facility Management program. Which means that this service will be complemented with the others mentioned.
Finally, Leyton shared some value propositions that in his opinion Facility Managers should aim for. Among them "innovate in the implementation and delivery of services with excellence, speed and low costs, using the best quality, information and knowledge of industry professionals and our subcontractors".
He also pointed out the importance of properly coordinating the actors (client, technical group, advisors, government entities, associations, etc.), and permanently updating the referential information (minutes, client reports, profiles, database, among others) and criticism towards them. His last recommendation was to demonstrate the control of the minimums in the projects (time, cost and quality), and logistics at the time of the beginning of the project management and bases for the future will be critical when starting a Facility Management contract.
BMS systems for better management
For the second talk of the year we wanted to change the focus towards technological tools that allow a facilities manager to generate more efficient spaces in terms of the use of resources. In this specific case, the central theme was the energy savings that can be achieved by using BMS (Building Management Systems) systems.
As a guest for this conference AGEM had Victor Henao, Service Engineer of Honeywell Building Solutions. Henao is a Control Engineer from the National University of Colombia with knowledge and extensive experience in the management of electronic security and building automation installations. In his professional practice he has participated in important building automation projects in the country and the execution of maintenance of these systems at an international level.
Some of the projects he has developed are: the security and control system of the Los Molinos Shopping Center in 2005; modernization of the automation system Isagen building in Medellín headquarters in 2007; was resident engineer for the automation system project of the new Bancolombia headquarters in 2008 and 2009; preventive and corrective maintenance of the automation system of the Corporación Andina de Fomento CAF Panama Building, Panama City, among others.
The main premise of the talk was that the first step towards energy conservation in a building is to know where, when and in what way the energy is consumed, in order to improve and optimize this consumption. In this sense, BMS are fundamental tools when analyzing data that allow detecting points of improvement in the installation.
But before continuing to talk about the advantages of having one of these systems, it is important to know for sure what a BMS is. According to the definition used by the speaker, a BMS is "a system based on a microprocessor which centralizes and simplifies the control, monitoring, operation and administration of air conditioning, heating, security and all other services of the building.
The objective of having such a system is to achieve a safe and comfortable work environment, as well as an efficient operation, with low energy consumption and the reduction of operating times and costs.
Now, the speaker highlighted among the advantages of the BMS aspects such as the presentation of data in a friendly way, deployment of personalized graphs that facilitate the understanding of the flow of information, having building plans per floor and graphic representations of equipment.
In addition to the above, it is possible to carry out the complete management of alarms, deploy them in order of importance and time, detect with this potentially dangerous situations or deviations of process variables that can guide the operator to take the necessary measures to correct them.
In conclusion, Explained Henao, a BMS can save time, effort and money if we know how to take advantage of the tools it gives us; or none of the above if a management is not made from the data thrown by the system.
In addition, he pointed out that BMS free up resources of the organization which can be invested in data analysis and searches for new optimization strategies generating greater productivity and accelerating the return on investment.
AGEM, present at Facility Management Week
On March 18 and until the 21st of the same month, the Facility Management Week was held in the city of Bogotá. This traveling event that circulates through different Spanish-speaking cities has the sole objective of publicizing the discipline of Facility Management in the different environments where it has an impact.
The Bogotá edition hosted activities that served as a meeting point for all those interested in Facility Management. Professionals will find a forum with similar experiences where they can exchange opinions and ideas on best practices in their profession.
Similarly, for companies it was a way to know how Facility Management can help improve and optimize the activities that, according to IFMA (International Facility Management Association), represent the second cost center of companies, after those associated with Human Resources.
AGEM was present there, publicizing its work in favor of training and unionizing the sector; as well as learning with the talks given by different companies in the country.
The meeting included a free forum with half-hour talks on topics such as Facility Management in property management, Benefits and challenges of implementing a maintenance model based on square meters, Benefits of the management model under Facility Management policies and the impact of sustainability on the operation of buildings.
The last two days of the week were dedicated to a specialized workshop for facility professionals, which was led by David Martínez, Global Director of FM House, a company that promotes the realization of this event. Martínez, also a member of IFMA Spain, seeks with exercises such as this to promote the visibility of Facility Management throughout the region.
What is AGEM
AGEM - the Association of Modern Building Managers aims at the union and continuous training of those professionals who manage, administer, operate or are responsible for the maintenance of the new generation of buildings in the Andean Region.
To fulfill its mission, the character of AGEM is one of voluntary work, among the different actors in the sector, starting with the managers, but also including the suppliers and the media. If you wish to propose training talks or support the work of the Association you can contact the mail [email protected]
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