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Potential use of real-time data capture and job-tracking technology in the field
Abstract
Purpose
– The purpose of the paper is to discuss the scope for improving the delivery of FM services through the use of wireless web‐based communications infrastructure, delivered via an application service provider (ASP) business model. This paper discusses the findings from case studies of three organisations and their approach to the management of facilities.
Design/methodology/approach
– An investigation was undertaken to ascertain the current state of play in terms of managing and tracking processes within the facilities management department of three different organisations. These case studies were chosen from distinct sectors, namely health care, higher education, and banking. Emphasis is placed on analysing how the organisations currently operate with their existing FM systems and the degree of influence technology has on existing processes. This was considered mainly in terms of computer‐aided facilities management (CAFM) and computer‐integrated facilities management (CIFM).
Findings
– The study found that a new wireless web‐based service for FM systems would be considered useful. Although notoriously slow adopters of new technology, there was an acceptance by the facilities managers interviewed that a wireless web‐based approach would improve current practice, especially with respect to real‐time job reporting and tracking and in the determination of FM operative working time utilisation.
Practical implications
– Further work by the author is focusing on the development of a suitable demonstrator to illustrate the key concepts of a wireless web‐based FM service which will then be tested and evaluated. For further information, visit the research project web site at www.wirelessfm.org Originality/value – The paper hopefully stimulates discussion in the area of emerging wireless technologies that have the potential to streamline and improve current practices for the management of facilities, in particular that of real‐time job reporting and tracking.
... Improving the delivery of facilities management services through the use of IT has been a recurrent topic over many years. More recently, attention has focused on web-enabled mechanisms that can make use of existing infrastructure – see, for example, McAndrew et al. (2005). Real-time job-reporting and tracking are now possible, leading to greater efficiency and effectiveness in the delivery of services. ...
... The use of a web 'front end' enables access to parts of these applications by recipients of services irrespective of their geographical location. Moreover, there is reported to be acceptance by facilities managers that web-based applications and services are the way forward (McAndrew, 2005). ...
Facilities management is concerned with the management of the working environment together with the delivery of support services to that environment. Through this process a large volume of relatively low value transactions takes place. Two case studies are discussed where technology has been deployed to significant effect in the form of a central support desk. This deployment is shown to have a dramatic effect on the efficiency and effectiveness of the core facilities management processes. The first case describes the use of this technology across a number of geographically-dispersed locations and the issues that the technology has assisted in overcoming. The second case describes the use of the technology on a single, large site. It contrasts the operating environment, but continues the theme of enabling technology and the way this can be integrated into standard operating procedures. Finally, the paper summarises the benefits that can be achieved by, first, harnessing and then integrating this technology within an outsourced facilities management environment.
... Another concern weakening AMM practice is the lack of support from senior managers by refraining from providing inputs in the form of goal-setting and directing innovative ideas. McAndrew et al. (2005) reported that paper records were still the only means of data transfer. ...
Purpose
The continuous evolution of the UAE necessitates adapting to the dynamic nature of facilities management (FM) and construction sectors. Therefore, this study explores the current asset maintenance management (AMM) practices and FM teams' roles in the early stages of planning.
Design/methodology/approach
Twenty semi-structured interviews with 13 FM experts and 7 construction professionals (consultants, managers, directors, engineers) in the UAE were conducted. Data were analyzed thematically and validated by the triangulation method.
Findings
The study unveiled a disconnection between the FM and construction sectors in the UAE, unlike the global markets. Interviewees highlighted several areas that could benefit from improved collaboration between these sectors, including data transfer, space planning, design review, sustainability practices and energy savings, maintainability, defects liability period (DLP) and lifecycle cost (LCC) and budget estimation and feasibility. Additionally, the most frequently reported barriers to the collaborative approach were the immaturity of FM in comparison to the construction sector (60%) and the lack of awareness of technology (50%). Raising awareness on the importance of early FM involvement was voted the most as a solution to the barriers identified (70%). Interviewees further emphasized the crucial role of building information modeling (BIM) in fostering this collaboration.
Originality/value
The study’s originality lies in its focus on the UAE’s regional context and the use of qualitative insights from experts to understand the nuanced interactions between FM and construction, providing an in-depth analysis of local collaborative practices.
... The experiment to test the developed prototype had to be examined the variables that believed to influence most construction sites during the monitoring process. Literature from similar applications was examined to obtain and group the variables (Mcandrew et al., 2005; To analyze the variables that are not directly measured but are inferred by a mathematical model from other observable variables, the elements were categorized into latent variables (Rakêt, Sommer and Markussen, 2014). This path was done to examine of the latent variables' significance and to develop a structural equation model that represents the prototype's relationships. ...
The construction industry is expanding since it significantly contributes to the economy. At the same time, the skilled labor shortage in the United States makes it challenging to manage the high demands of the construction process. According to the Associated General Contractors of America (AGC) construction industry creates nearly $1.4 trillion worth of structures each year; therefore, to accompany the enormous budget, the shortage of skilled labor, and the limited construction durations,
it is proposed to provide an automated method in the construction process that mainly utilizes Mask R-CNN models in detecting the activity of masonry walls construction.
Quantitative analysis and conclusive research methodology were performed to train, test, and evaluate the developed computer vision models (i.e., YOLOv4, YOLOv4- Tiny, and Mask R-CNN) using Google Colab Pro. The models were trained and tested on forty masonry walls with more than two thousand bricks annotated that differ in pattern and location, in addition to physical and environmental conditions. The bricks’
masks were combined in a 3D matrix and converted to the surface area representing the masonry wall progress ratio. The monitoring progress percentage is translated to the Building Information Modeling (BIM) through Dynamo. Experimented data were used to validate the performance of the adopted Mask R-CNN model in different
scenarios using JMP Pro 16. A structural equation model (SEM) was proposed to show the causal relationship between the variables.
The developed computer vision models had a maximum accuracy of 84%, recall of 95%, mean average precision of 96%, intersection over union of 72%, and errors of 11% in detecting bricks in masonry walls. The SEM had a root mean square error of approximation of 0.1134 and a comparative fix index of 0.9674. Three hypotheses were developed and tested; the results showed that the only significant relationship on the estimated area through the Mask R-CNN model was the actual area of the wall. An
IDEF0 was proposed to demonstrate the concept of construction progress monitoring using up-to-date inspection technologies. The IDEF0 process was developed to show the flow of stages during construction progress monitoring.
The research integrates Dynamo with the Mask R-CNN model to detect and reflect BIM 3D models' progress by summating generated masks’ matrices. It shows the interaction of BIM and drones in masonry wall progress monitoring, data collection, and the possibility of detecting brick elements using their location when following the IDEF0 process.
... High-frequency systems rather operate at 13.56 MHz, and ultrahigh-frequency (UHF) systems use a band anywhere from 400 to 960 MHz (Majrouhi and Limbachiya 2010). Hence, tagging and tracking assets via RFID increases the value of FM using automation (McAndrew et al. 2005). In order to integrate the built environment data with IoT sensors, where occupancy and user comfort information could be acquired by using IFC models and open messaging standards, a platform was defined by Dave et al. (2018). ...
Building maintenance includes actions that aim to ensure the components of a building are in acceptable conditions. In traditional maintenance methods, as-built drawings and maintenance manuals are regarded as essential documents for the operation and maintenance of buildings. In this method, the time and cost of facilities management are increased due to managing a large number of documents. Thus, the necessity of creating a range of fields from the information generation to the development of automation systems is evident in the maintenance services from the technological perspective. This research presents a computerized system that integrates the building information model objects in industry foundation classes and radio-frequency identification to improve building maintenance performance. The computerized system is successfully applied to the building of a soccer stadium via the proposed research methodology using a qualitative and practical approach. The main contribution of this research is to provide an innovative framework for the implementation of the proposed system with a step-by-step approach, and also to evaluate the maintenance methods to help different building maintenance stakeholders decide on the appropriate method. The research indicates that with a slight effort on the implementation of the proposed system, a significant improvement of overall maintenance performance can be achieved compared to the traditional method in terms of time, cost, and functionality. It is also hoped that the proposed system can join with other new technologies to promote the system’s value in the field of building maintenance.
... Other advocates of information systems in facilities management include McAndrew et al., (2005) who describe three different case studies. The purpose of these studies was to establish the state of play in terms of managing and tracking processes within the facilities management department of three different organisations. ...
Over the past decade there has been significant growth in the facilities management (FM) sector resulting in a diverse and highly competitive marketplace. This marketplace engages contractors, in-house teams, suppliers, consultants and professional institutions. Many of these organisations have had to innovate to differentiate themselves from competitors. The subject of this paper is facilities management innovation. More specifically, it examines the introduction of information technology (IT) to support such innovations. Our understanding of how such innovations are brought about is scant. The intention of this paper is to examine the motivations and factors which have brought about 'information system' innovations in the sector based on an examination of a small but diverse collection of case studies. The study specifically considers the route by which the selected innovations came about and the way in which the innovation has diffused throughout the rest of the organisation. The IT innovations identified in case studies include whole life cost modelling, a content management solution, open book partnering, management information portal (fmNet), RFID technology, and capacity and capability planning. Taken together they characterise a sector that is using IT to codify and standardise information such that useful knowledge becomes widely dispersed.
... RFID plays a major role in facilities management, such as in security, inventory, construction site delivery logistics and materials tracking, document tracking, product life cycle tracking and building energy controls (Jaselskis and El-Misalami 2003, Wing 2006, Kelm et al. 2013. Automating the tagging and tracking assets using RFID can increase the value of FM (McAndrew et al. 2005). RFID tags are able to read multiple tags simultaneously and uniquely recognize facility items, store information regarding maintenance history of these items, and continuously update the information in real-time ). ...
Background
Finding the current location of a specific utility or oneself in an unfamiliar facility can be difficult and time consuming. The hypothesis tested in this paper is that using the information contained within Building Information Models (BIM) can increase the accuracy of indoor positioning algorithms using context-aware sensing technology. The presented work demonstrates how the integration of passive Radio Frequency Identification (RFID) tracking technology and Building Information Modeling (BIM) can assist indoor localization for potential applications in facilities management for proactive preventative maintenance.
Methods
This paper includes (1) developing a framework that utilizes the integration of commercially-available RFID and a building information model; (2) evaluating the framework for real-time resource location tracking within an indoor environment; and (3) developing an algorithm for real-time localization and visualization in a BIM. A prototype application has been developed that simultaneously connects the RFID readers on a maintenance cart, an asset maintenance database and a BIM model. Three multilateralization approaches were compared in the system to use in the algorithm. Testing was conducted in a facility with a corridor that loops around in a rectangle.
Results
The goal is to have a system accuracy within 3 m. Results show that fusing BIM with multilateralization techniques for RFID technology can decrease the number of false reads by 64 % versus standalone multilateralization equations. The greatest system accuracy achieved was 1.66 m.
Conclusions
Significantly, the results validate the hypothesis that BIM can increase indoor localization accuracy, and show the usefulness of using BIM for indoor localization in addition to real-time visualization.
... The process is cumbersome and provides little benefit to each location other than informing the corporate office of the lack of resources to meet delivery needs. Furthermore, a process that requires paper-based entry introduces wasted time and reduces real-time visibility (McAndrew et al., 2005). ...
Small organizations that maintain their own fleet and make their own deliveries are responsible for ensuring their drivers are utilizing the most efficient routes while delivering products to their customers. Furthermore, efficient delivery requires that drivers spend as little time as possible dropping off and picking up products, since these activities are referred to as "non-value added activities," although they are necessary tasks in the order cycle process. To aid in reducing order cycle times, large organizations that can afford it have employed transportation management systems. Unfortunately, small organizations with limited resources are less likely to adopt transportation management systems, despite the need for such automation. One solution is to use available productivity software to track and manage driver route activity in an effort to improve and maintain driver productivity by reducing non-value time and identifying optimal routes. This paper will outline how office productivity software such as Microsoft® Access can meet the needs of small organizations with limited resources by describing the development and use of a route activity database that employs an easy-to-use multi-user interface. This paper also includes the details of the underlying infrastructure and the user interface.
... The RFID tags for construction applications could be utilised for management of the completed facility, thereby bringing justification to expenditure on the RFID system and, importantly, adding value to the facility by automating or at least simplifying the facilities management process. Indeed, asset tagging and tracking is cited as one potential application (McAndrew et al., 2005) from which real value could be added to the management of facilities. ...
Construction is following the general industry trend towards the introduction of hard and soft automation for many aspects of materials identification and tracking. Recent developments in RFID (Radio Frequency IDentification) tagging provide the hardware solution and cyber-agents are part of the software scheme employed. The agents - programs that can make autonomous decisions and take necessary action when required - are totally dependent upon sensors (rather than human intervention) to provide real-time information on parameters such as location, condition and timing: RFID tags are seen as an appropriate sensor type for providing this kind of information. The potential of RFID tagging technology in the construction and management of facilities is assessed in terms of value chains, a number of applications for improving efficiency are reviewed, and others are proposed. Although there is little evidence presently of RFID adoption in the wider construction sector, the paper concludes that a breakthrough will result from applications that emphasise the management of the building or facility, in particular energy consumption.
... Elsewhere, RFID has been used to help manage the operations of large infrastructure facilities such as office buildings, industrial plants, and public utilities [9]. Legner and Thiesse [10] report that Frankfurt Airport's operating company integrated RFID and a mobile application with its asset management systems, leading to better planning, control, and documentation of the work as well as improved process quality. ...
The use of RFID technology affords an opportunity for greater visibility in the supply chain and further supply chain automation, making the processes more streamlined, providing accurate and timely automatic data capture, thereby improving shipment reliability. This paper provides a case study of an RFID-enabled supply chain ecosystem focusing on a large high tech multi-national corporation based in Singapore. Specifically, the paper provides an implementation framework for the Return on Investment (ROI) calculator which trades off labor cost and productivity gains. The Supply Chain Operations Reference (SCOR) methodology is used to assess the operational level benefits of RFID implementation. We show how scalability is critical for RFID adoption.
... Managing the operations of large infrastructure facilities such as office buildings, industrial plants, and public utilities requires close monitoring of thousands of technical objects, which can be spread over large physical spaces. 1 When damage or failure is reported, the facility management crew must move fast and make the right decisions to rectify the problem. Reactive or emergency maintenance is a "firefighting" strategy; it's particularly troublesome because of its unexpected nature and the high cost of stalled production lines or infrastructure operations. ...
The Europe's second largest airport in Frankfurt, Germany employed RFID technology to maintain the quality of its facility management processes in guaranteeing travelers trouble-free operations, maximum security, and convenience. The facility managers approve RFID technology for easy identification, decentralized data storage, fraud prevention, structured documentation, and paperless information management. Frankfurts, real-estate and facility management division provides comprehensive commercial, technical, and infrastructure services and handles the maintenance of all vehicle and special airport equipment. The continual optimization of technical systems supporting quality, security, and safety measures is a top priority at the airport.
Background:
One of the main problems that may put people's safety in danger is the lack of real-time detection, evaluation, and recognition of predictable safety risks. Current real-time risk identification solutions are limited to proximity sensing, which lack providing the exposed person with risk-specific information in real-time. Combined values of concurrently presented risks are either unrecognized or underestimated.
Objective:
This study goes beyond the proximity sensing state-of-the-art by envisioning, planning, designing, developing, assembling, and examining an automated intelligent real-time risk (AIR) assessment system.
Methods:
A holistic safety assessment approach is followed to include identification, prioritization, detection, evaluation, and control at risk exposure time. Multi-sensor technologies based on RFID are integrated with a risk assessment intelligent system. System prototype is developed and examined to prove the concept for on-foot building construction worker.
Results:
The evaluation of AIR assessment system performance proved its validity, significance, simplicity, representation, accuracy, and precision and timeliness. The reliability of providing quantitative proximity values of risk can be limited due to the signal attenuation; however, it can be reliable in providing risk proximity in a subjective linguistic fashion (Near/Far).
Conclusion:
The main contributions of the AIR assessment system are that the mobile wearable device can provide a linguistic meaningful risk assessment resultant value, the value represents the combined evaluation of concurrently presented risks, and can be sound delivered to the exposed person in real-time of exposure. Therefore, AIR system can be used as an effective prognostic risk assessment tool that can empower workers with real-time recognition and measurability of risk exposure.
Purpose
This paper seeks to establish the level of usage and how building log books are perceived within the UK non‐domestic buildings sector, and to identify potential benefits resulting from the use of building log books and internet‐based building information systems.
Design/methodology/approach
The method employed was the distribution and analysis of market survey questionnaires, distributed primarily via a professional body.
Findings
There is limited use of building log books, plus varying degrees of perceived usefulness, especially between the designer/contractor sector and the facilities management sector. Internet‐based information management systems appear to be largely acceptable. The quality of building information is likely to depend on who provides it. There is a significant perception within the designer/contractor sector that building regulations are not enforcing the availability of building log books in relevant buildings.
Research limitations/implications
Only a limited literature review was undertaken, and there may be limitations due to the nature of the distribution of the surveys and sample sizes. More research into the effective provision, management and utilisation of useful building information is required.
Practical implications
The paper demonstrates that regulations may not necessarily lead to practical implementation and that there is significant room for improvement in the provision and maintenance of building information which is useful to those operating buildings.
Originality/value
The paper expands understanding of the need for useful building information and proper management of that information, both for the facilities manager and as a means of feeding forward into new building designs.
Much of the Web's success can be attributed to its simplicity. It offers a straightforward means by which static information could be published and interconnected on a global basis. The Web Services initiative effectively adds computational objects to the static information of yesterday's Web and as such offers a distributed services capability over a network. Web Services have the potential to create new paradigms for both the delivery of software capabilities and the models by which networked enterprises will trade.
Today's Web Services technology, useful though it is, will be enhanced over the next 2-5 years by the harnessing of Semantic Web technology to deliver a step change in capability. Web Services provide an easy way to make existing (or indeed new) components available to applications via the Internet. However, currently, Web Services are essentially described using semi-structured natural language mechanisms, which means that considerable human intervention is needed to find and combine Web Services into an end application.
The Semantic Web will enable the accessing of Web resources by semantic content rather than just by keywords. Resources (in this case Web Services) are defined in such a way that they can be automatically ‘understood’ and processed by machine. This will enable the realisation of Semantic Web Services, involving the automation of service discovery, acquisition, composition and monitoring. Software agents will be able automatically to create new services from already published services, with potentially huge implications for models of eBusiness.
Having identified limitations in current Web Services technology, this paper will survey existing research in Semantic Web Services, most notably USA's DAML-S initiative and the European WSMF work, and describe BT's research into creating a set of tools to support next-generation Semantic Web Services.
With the advent of Web technology and the proliferation of Web enabled systems in the last few years, remote computer aided facilities management (CAFM) and computer integrated facilities management (CIFM) are starting to assume a more significant role. Computerised asset management (AM) has been widely discussed and various conceptual models, benchmarking and best practice principles have been proposed in the past. However, the vast majority of case studies involved private corporations as well as public sector institutions, with the majority using single-site studies, but very little dealt with the education sector spread on multi-sites. The effective management of assets forms an integral part of the management of the University of Sydney’s (USYD) overall resources in order to achieve its goals towards excellence in teaching and research. Reviews the current, more or less, manual centralised AM system at USYD and proposes a framework for a more decentralised, Web-based AM system built on the existing CIFM system used by the Facilities Management Office. Further examines the strengths and weaknesses of the current and proposed systems and the possible application of the proposed system to a range of AM scenarios outside the context of the university environment.
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