Facility Managers Rely Heavily On Transitional Project Closeout Information

On a daily basis, facility managers rely on accurate information to make informed decisions regarding the operation of their buildings. With the completion of each construction or renovation project, new concerns must often be addressed, including changes in building systems, equipment functionality, and also communicating new expectations to building occupants. Subsequently, the timely transition of closeout information at the end of a project is critical. The volume of information associated with this can be overwhelming, however, as each project generally produces a multitude of submittal binders, operation and maintenance manuals, warranty information, drawings, and other project closeout collateral.

The in₄mation team recognizes this challenge and helps facility directors and their staffs better manage closeout documentation. The in₄mation team helps make the information accessible by abstracting the documents and transferring the information into an easy-to-navigate facility database. While the hard copies of the submittal binders and operation and maintenance manuals continue to be available, the database becomes the quick first reference site for basic equipment, warranty, and preventive maintenance requirements.    

Once established, a facility database of building assets is a versatile tool to help facility managers in their daily activity. Beyond serving as an asset tracking source, a central facility database provides the source for managing facility drawings, vendors, maintenance activity, service contracts, life safety information, personnel, and a variety of other critical facility information.  The facility database provides access to information from a computer at work or at home, ultimately improving the response time to service requests and facility issues. 

One organization utilizing the facility database services of the in₄mation team is Cincinnati Public Schools. The district will soon reach a milestone with the successful completion of the first of three construction phases to renovate or replace the majority of its infrastructure. The volume of information being produced in the close out process for each school is staggering.  On average, Turner Construction is providing the district with 8 to 10 boxes of records per school. To date, 11 schools have opened since early 2005, and another nine are slated to do so by the end of 2007. "The in₄mation team is partnering with the district to ensure that the closeout materials are abstracted into the district's work order system, and the knowledge about the new schools is put to use" adds Brent Reiner, the Account Manager for the project.  "The facility database puts the asset and maintenance history for each facility into the hands of the district's trades and maintenance staff to help the facilities run as designed".