Facility management (FM) plays a fundamental role in the maintenance of operational efficiency and the well-being of people. As facility managers, it’s crucial to be aware of these FM trends and incorporate them into your business models.
Facilities management can be an incredibly demanding industry. As industry experts, we know that the right tools and industry partnerships are pivotal to keeping our day to day operations running smoothly. Internally, through our Centres of Excellence we are always testing out new innovative products and services that we can bring to our clients. That is where our relationship with FSI and their Concept Evolution platform started.
Over the past six years we have worked with FSI, utilizing their Computerized Maintenance Management System (CMMS) to provide the most complete support to our clients. Through this, we can consistently meet the ever-growing demands facing the industry and go above-and-beyond for our clients. This has seen the most success at our Forensics Services & Coroners Complex facility in Toronto.
The Forensics Services & Coroners Complex: Background
The Forensics Services & Coroner’s Complex (FSCC) is one of Toronto’s most prevalent government buildings. As well as housing the Office of the Chief Coroner, the Ontario Forensic Pathology Service and the Centre of Forensic Sciences in the same facility, the building is the reporting command centre for any emergency in Ontario, be it a flood, earthquake or missing person.
In addition, the centre:
- Accommodates over 2,500 autopsies per year
- Handles over 15,000 forensic science cases per year
- Houses 2 courtrooms for inquests for the Chief Coroner’s office
With this in mind, it highlights the importance of having all 665,000 square feet of the building performing as it should at all times. Our dedicated team plays a vital role in keeping the day to day operations of this critical environment running smoothly. Dexterra is responsible for the site’s hard and soft services, covering:
- Asset Management
- Plant Operations & Maintenance
- Fabric Maintenance & Repair
- Energy Management
- Facility Cleaning & Grounds Maintenance
- Customer Care
- Space Planning
- Housekeeping & Food Service
- Environmental Services
- Materials & Logistics
- Security & Surveillance
- Sustainability Management
This contract operates under a P3 (Public Private Partnership) agreement, which means expectations for maintenance and management of the facility are clearly outlined, and not meeting these standards result in penalties to Dexterra. Despite the immense responsibility and risk attached to managing every facet of a building like this, our team is consistently rising to the challenge and exceeding expectations. This is evidenced by the project achieving the BOMA BEST Platinum Certification in 2019 and both the Provincial and National Green Earth Awards from BOMA Canada in 2020. An important part of this success is Dexterra’s Concept Evolution platform, which has empowered the whole team to control every aspect of the site with effortless efficiency.
Introducing Concept and BIM: Total Control for FM Providers
Craig Francis, Facilities General Manager at FSCC said, “Concept plays such an important role in our ability to manage assets and report in a credible fashion to our clients. It’s central to everything. Everything we touch, Concept has an impact on.”
Ensuring all assets at FSCC are properly tracked and maintained is a crucial element of the contract. Establishing effective planned preventative maintenance (PPM) and predictive maintenance (PDM) schedules to maximize their lifecycles is vital to cost control, while never allowing performance to drop due to the presence of suboptimal or failed assets. By seamlessly allowing our team to automatically plan PPMs and PDMs and instantly distribute tasks to their relevant engineers, this maintenance management software enables us to work at peak efficiency, and make strategically-driven decisions over whether the long term costs of maintaining an asset are less than the cost of replacing it outright.
The significance of effective asset maintenance was key to Dexterra’s decision to merge Building Information Modeling (BIM) into Concept. The first phase of the project involved a comprehensive laser scanning of the rooms and floors where critical building systems are located. The information collated from the scan allowed a model to be built and, once other phases were completed, the model was integrated with Concept Evolution and FSI GO.
BIM also enhances the verification processes and allows for intelligent driven Preventive and Predictive Maintenance. Craig said, “This has been incredibly useful for Dexterra, as now our engineers can visually identify any asset across the facilities with total ease. This ensures any issues are swiftly located and resolved – nothing ever gets missed.”
Dexterra & FSI: A True Partnership
While the CMMS system we employ is all-encompassing in the management of the wide range of projects, it would not be nearly as effective without the incredible relationship between both our team and the team at FSI Canada.
Jon from FSI Canada said, “Having a strong bond between a CMMS provider and those using it every day is essential to getting the absolute most out of this technology. It is something we delighted to share with the team at Dexterra, enabling them to realize the full potential of their platform.”
We look forward to continuing to build our partnership with FSI to provide our teams with the most innovative tools and our clients with the best service. These types of partnerships and innovative solutions contributes to our goal of servicing the future!
You can find out more information about our partnership with FSI here.
