EFeM - Enterprise Facility Management and RFID
Supporting activities related to property operation, property management and cost saving.
There are two types of activities in each organization – core business activities and supporting activities. Core business activities constitute the organization’s line of business, generating profits. Supporting activities, being non-profit as they are, are still inevitable for the organization’s proper operation.
EFM History
Facility management was born in the United States of America. Its birth was stimulated by conservatism and lack of flexibility within the organization’s hierarchy. Most “facility managers” were not even aware of the fact they were actually performing this job. Usually they were professionals hired to manage property, buildings or administration.
There are several facility management definitions, two of them being the most widely used:
- Methodology to ensure harmonization of workers, working environment and the organization’s activities, encompassing principles of business administration, architecture, humanities and engineering sciences.
- Analysis and optimization of all costs from the perspective of relevant processes related to the organization’s buildings or activities that are not part of the organization’s core business.
Factors Underlying The Manager’s Success
Prompt and right decisions necessitate sufficient information. It is the current trend to make the decision-making process shorter and shorter, which places ever greater demands on quality and timely availability of the relevant information.
High-quality management in decision-making processes helps to achieve:
- reduced operating cost,
- enhanced competitive strength,
- improved customer service,
- better staffers’ satisfaction, and
- strengthened authority of managerial staff.
Why is it advisable to implement EFM?
Because it means efficient property management and a substantial cost saving. The main reason for implementing facility management is the organizations’ effort to reduce cost for supporting activities to the minimum level possible and to succeed in the fierce competition struggle. Another important motive is making workforce and financial resources available for core business. EFM efficiently takes on all supporting activities, which are anyway indispensable for the organization’s operation, performing them more cheaply and flexibly than has ever been done before. These activities include particularly day-to-day management of buildings, manufacturing equipment and property, better utilization of premises, planning, maintenance, cleaning, catering as well as handling of irregular activities associated with reconstruction, moving premises, repairs, emergencies etc. The major EFM benefits are cost transparency and maximum utilization of asset potential.
The most telling indicators are economic indicators, affected by the following factors:
- Reduction of the organization’s direct cost. As indicated by sources from abroad, organizations with a well-established EFM report 30% higher savings on their operating cost.
- Staff performance improvement. This is achieved by eliminating futile (redundant) work, arranging for simplified access to up-to-date information, providing for working equipment quality and availability, creating pleasant working environment etc.
- Profit increase. This factor involves identification of other income that is generated as the value added in relation to the above-mentioned factors.
Facility Management in Management of Premises
Owing to the unique modular structure of the solution, the EFM system may be extended as the organization’s demands grow. Following the initial phase in the management of premises and saturation of the system with complete data, EFM may be enhanced to include additional modules (increasing the depth of details and expanding the range) even to the extent of fully covering the organization’s day-to-day operation dynamics. The solution can be updated without any system downtime. The employees in the organization just find new system components upon routine turning-on of their computers in the morning after they arrive at the office (no additional installation and IT infrastructure maintenance is needed).
A broad array of application modules allows you to choose an optimal procedure for EFM implementation based on investment resources availability and data completeness:
- Basic map of premises
- Management of property using RFID technology
- Crisis management
- Document management
- CCTV system
- Buildings and structures
- Utility network
- HelpDesk
- Flow charts
- Customer information system
- GIS link
Facility Management in Management of Buildings
Record-keeping of immovable property contains complete records of land registry data on plots of lands and structures, ownership relations and related documentation.
Record-keeping of structures is a tool for full management of internal structures in buildings (floors, rooms, service and technology areas).
Record-keeping of internal infrastructure handles the management of electricity, gas, water and heat distribution systems, management of data and telecommunications networks and of security infrastructure.
Record-keeping of movable property deals with personalized inventory control of furniture, office equipment and other equipment the premises are furnished with.
Record-keeping of persons means attributing premises to persons, managing the assigning of the workplace and related equipment (telephone, furniture, facilities etc.), and spatial planning of free capacity allocation.
Key service handles access management in respect of access to individual areas in buildings and structures.
Lease of premises involves management and monitoring of the lease of premises.
Event management is a process module for management and administration of performances related to maintenance, removal of breakdowns, restorations, revisions etc.
Document management handles maintenance of documents (technical documentation, drawings, regulations, standards, texts, tables, photographs, video sequences etc.) related to individual buildings and structures administered.
EFM Purpose and Benefits
The purpose of the EFM is to increase the effectiveness of processes that aid the employees in giving higher performance, thereby making a positive contribution towards economic growth and overall success in the organization.
Facility management benefits:
- Process efficiency, service quality and cost reduction,
- Cost planning,
- Long term planning-based real estate and investment management,
- Information quality and availability,
- Most record keeping- and process-related information is located in a unified information environment, thus enabling, for example, comparison of cost for individual activities (in various buildings/structures) during specific time periods,
- Available and up-to-date key information in a shared environment for effective control and better decision-making, and
- Improved qualitative access to clients – substantial support of customer orientation and customer communication
Radio Frequency Identification - RFID
RFID abbreviation means identification based on radio waves (Radio Frequency Identification). Even this explanation of the meaning hidden in these four letters is not complete. Nevertheless this is one of the most prospective technologies, which are currently being on the move from development to the area of wide commercial use.
In terms of technology RFID is an identification element (tag), which works in the high-frequency band. Simply said, this technology enables to provide goods in stores, transmitted shipments, but also people with a miniature chip or a “transmitter” containing important information. The information need not be read by a special scanner placed in an immediate vicinity, as it is e.g. with bar codes. The procedure is much simpler.
RFID tag consists of very small silicon chips, attached to a narrow aerial. Reading device transmits radio waves, through which it communicates with RFID chip via aerial, and thereafter it stores the received information. RFID tags use radio waves for communication. This fact results in a principal difference between RFID and bar code. At RFID several tags can be read all at once and no direct tag visibility is necessary at reading. RFID tags can be also rewritable, that is data stored therein can be modified and updated anytime.
Sometime RFID chips are symbolically called also as radio tags. Depending on used frequency and intensity of the transmitted signal data can be acquired from them at a distance of several dozens or hundreds of metres.
RFID chips can be either passive or active. Reading data is simple with passive chips. RFID reader will send radio waves of certain frequency. Passive chip will record them through an integrated copper aerial, moderately changes and sends back to the reader, where they are converted to specific data. Passive chip does not have its own energy source. The energy necessary for an interaction with the reader is acquired from the emitted electromagnetic field.
Active chips have their own energy source in a form of batteries of extremely long lifetime. Thanks to them data from the chips can be not only scanned, but also new data can be recorded to them. Batteries in the chips will last really a long time, because active chips do not have permanent energy consumption. The energy is needed for reading new or sending already stored data only.
Major benefits of RFID
- No direct visibility is necessary at tag reading and recording
- Error rate reduction
- Improvement of goods flow management
- Higher level of automation
- Digital acquisition of information
- Speed of information acquisition
- Mobility
- Possibility of multiple reading
- Resistance and variability of medium
Economic benefits of RFID use
- More products for the same fixed costs
- Higher accuracy and speed at stocking out, simpler stocktaking
- Minimization of costs for marking and remarking
- Faster stock receipts, sorting and release
- Improvement of asset records and work with assets
- Simplification in the field of data administration and exchange
- Fast return on investment
Fields of RFID use
As we already indicated, RFID can be applied almost everywhere. RFID technology is most frequently deployed in the following industries:
- Transportation and logistics
- Production and processing
- Safety
The number of specific applications is however significantly higher and it includes:
- Asset records (stock taking)
- Animal registration and monitoring
- Hazardous waste registration and monitoring
- Production process monitoring
- Shipment delivery monitoring
- Automobile transport monitoring
- And many others