Integrated FM Feed

Causeway’s hat trick in ‘The Hammers’

info@integratedfm.co.uk — Fri, 10 Dec 2010 09:45:26 GMT

Causeway has won through in no fewer than three categories in the Construction Computing Awards 2010 (‘The Hammers’) – E-Commerce Product of the Year, Mobile Technology Product of the Year and Environmental Project of the Year – as well as being one of the top two Companies of the Year.

Causeway CEO Phil Brown commented: “These results are clear recognition of our ability to combine innovation, quality and customer service to deliver solutions that add real value. The fact that our success is the result of nominations and votes from our customers is particularly gratifying.”

Winner of the E-Commerce Product of the Year, for the second year running, was Tradex, Causeway’s leading electronic trading solution, which enables the fast, efficient exchange and management of electronic trading documents between supply chain partners.

Tradex is also at the heart of the winning Environmental Project, helping equipment and support services provider Speedy significantly reduce its use of paper documents and associated environmental impact. The electronic trading solution developed jointly by Causeway and Speedy has also improved Speedy’s service to its customers while also driving down costs.

Winner of the Mobile Technology Product category was Causeway’s Vixensoft Mobile Solution, which delivers unprecedented management control of mobile workforces. Continuous innovation and investment in Vixensoft Mobile has maintained the product’s leading position in managing field service operations.

For more information visit www.causeway.com

Outlook integration with Causeway’s Resource/Room Booking module

info@integratedfm.co.uk — Fri, 12 Nov 2010 00:00:00 GMT

The latest version of Causeway’s Integrated fm facts Resource/Room Booking module features close integration with Microsoft Outlook/Exchange, so that rooms and associated services can be booked directly from the Outlook Calendar. The process is also two-way, so that bookings or amendments made directly in the Resource/Room Booking software, by requesters or FM staff, are updated in the Outlook Calendars of meeting attendees.

This seamless integration of FM back-office tools with everyday software used by customers delivers benefits to all concerned. Internal customers can manage their resource booking within a familiar software environment while enjoying the search and booking functionality of Resource/Room Booking, while FM departments save time through dealing with fewer calls.

In addition, the process harnesses all of the time-saving features of Outlook, such as automatically checking availability of internal attendees and sending emails to external attendees. Availability of related resources such as catering and equipment are also displayed during the booking process.

The same processes can also be applied to ‘virtual rooms’ such as break out spaces and the details of all bookings can be viewed or amended at any time simply by opening the booking in Outlook.

Special offers apply until the end of the year for both current users of Resource/Room Booking who would like to add Outlook integration and new users of the module.

Causeway nominated for 13 awards

info@integratedfm.co.uk — Wed, 10 Nov 2010 09:29:08 GMT

Causeway has been nominated for no fewer than 13 categories in this year’s Annual Construction Computing Awards (the ‘Hammers’) – including three ‘Judges’ Award’ categories.

The Construction Computing Awards are now in their fifth year and are designed to recognise innovation in the technology, tools and solutions used in the design, construction, maintenance and modification of buildings and civil engineering projects.

The 2009 Awards saw Causeway win both the Company of the Year and E-Commerce Product of the Year categories.

Voting is now underway at www.constructioncomputingawards.co.uk

Causeway has been nominated in the following categories:

Company of the Year
E-Commerce Product of the Year
CAD Product of the Year
Estimating & Valuation Product of the Year
Document and Content Management Product of the Year
Construction Accounting Product Of the Year
Mobile Technology Product of the Year
Building Services Product of the Year
Best Use of Social Media
Product of the Year
Team of the Year
IT Project of the Year
Environmental Project of the Year

Tackling the CRC carbon tax

info@integratedfm.co.uk — Mon, 25 Oct 2010 07:27:06 GMT

Failing to reduce carbon emissions will now be even more expensive than previously anticipated following the changes to the Carbon Reduction Commitment (CRC) in the government’s Comprehensive Spending Review.

“With no hope of a refund on carbon allowances as a reward for reducing emissions, the CRC has effectively become a carbon tax,” noted Causeway’s David Bell. “Furthermore, the need to buy two years’ worth of allowances based on 2011 emissions figures means that managing energy consumption is financially, as well as environmentally, critical. Doing so cost-effectively requires specialist tools that minimise the administrative burden and maximise opportunities to reduce emissions,” he added.

Causeway’s new CRC software module reduces the time required to collate energy data and understand performance by as much as 90%, offering a typical return on investment of just a few months.

“Understanding energy consumption in fine detail is the key to managing it effectively and the new CRC module makes that very quick and easy, so weeks of work can be reduced to a couple of days,” David Bell explained. “It also facilitates reporting on both financial and carbon performance, including projected future costs, to help with energy-saving investment decisions,” he continued.

The CRC module is the latest addition to Causeway’s web-based Sustainability iQ sustainability management system. Its functionality ranges from initial entry, storage and auditing of all required information, calculation of carbon footprint and management of scheme participation and trading costs through to tracking of performance trends.

The module also enables accurate prediction of future costs, with powerful reporting features – including automatic production of evidence packs when required for Environment Agency audits.

The CRC module can also be easily expanded to encompass other areas of sustainability management using Causeway’s Sustainability iQ software. It is provided as remote-hosted Software as a Service to minimise local hardware requirements and IT support. It is procured through a competitive monthly fee that can be met from revenue budgets, so there is no capital outlay.

CRC compliance made easy

info@integratedfm.co.uk — Fri, 08 Oct 2010 17:11:19 GMT

The new CRC module from Causeway (formerly Integrated fm) enables organisations to quickly and easily comply with the latest legislation, collate energy data from various sources, convert it to standard formats and report on their financial and carbon performance.

“The CRC module is designed to take the inconvenience out of complying with and managing the Carbon Reduction Commitment Energy Efficiency Scheme (CRC ESS), so the scheme becomes an opportunity to reduce energy consumption and carbon emissions, rather than a chore,” explained Causeway’s David Bell.

The functionality of the CRC module ranges from initial entry, storage and auditing of all required information, calculation of carbon footprint and management of scheme participation and trading costs through to tracking of performance trends. The module also enables accurate prediction of future costs and league table positions, with powerful reporting features – including automatic production of evidence packs if required for Environment Agency audits. The new CRC module can also be easily expanded to encompass other areas of sustainability management using other modules in Causeway’s Sustainability iQ software.

The new CRC module incorporates powerful workflow tools such as an integrated Task Manager for generating reminders for key tasks and avoiding penalties. There are also tools for managing significant group undertakings and changes to key data such as meter IDs and responsible personnel.

The Sustainability iQ CRC module is fully scalable and customisable and is provided as remote-hosted Software as a Service to minimise local hardware requirements and IT support. It is procured through a competitive monthly fee that can be met from revenue budgets, so there is no capital outlay.

Causeway broadens its horizons with Integrated fm

info@integratedfm.co.uk — Fri, 01 Oct 2010 00:00:00 GMT

Causeway Technologies (Causeway), a leading supplier of software solutions to the construction and support services industry, has announced the acquisition of Integrated fm, a leading provider of facilities management and sustainability management software.

Warwick-based Integrated fm has over 20 years experience of developing and delivering innovative facilities management (FM) software solutions under the fm facts brand. These include help desk, room/resource management, asset management and visitor management – all fully intranet enabled – along with Mobile fm for enhanced communication with mobile workforces and Workspace fm for space planning and move management.

Integrated fm was also the first company to develop remotely-hosted Software as a Service for the FM sector and, more recently, launched Sustainability iQ - the world’s first truly auditable management system for sustainability.

The company’s customers include Barclays Bank, Suffolk County Council, the University of Bradford, The Greater London Authority, Acuity Management Solutions, Sage UK, Vodafone, O2, BBC, BP, EDF Energy, Associated Newspapers, ISS Facility Services, Galliford Try, Birse Civils, the NSPCC and Investors in Excellence.

Causeway CEO Philip Brown commented: “Integrated fm is a perfect fit with our products and services for the built environment, providing Causeway with an end-to-end solution from design through to the day-to-day management of built assets and their environmental performance. There is a particularly strong synergy with our VIxensoft service & maintenance management software and we are already planning some exciting developments in this area.”

Integrated fm Director David Bell added: “Access to the resources and expertise of Causeway will deliver major benefits to Integrated fm’s customers as we continue to define the future of software for FM and sustainability management. So it won’t just be ‘business as usual’, our customers can look forward to better business than ever before, for all concerned”

Ends

About Causeway
With offices in the UK, Ireland, the Middle East and India, Causeway has a proven track record of providing high quality software and services for the built environment and we employ over 200 IT professionals servicing more than 2,000 businesses. Our software solutions enable customers involved in the construction and management of buildings to improve their process efficiency and enhance their financial control. No other company has such a complete vision of how IT can support best practice, helping our customers realise increased value and profitability.

Spet KPI

info@integratedfm.co.uk — Thu, 02 Sep 2010 00:00:00 GMT

Managing bookable resources such as rooms and associated services efficiently can yield considerable cost savings. The FM Index KPI Survey, compiled by FMJ and Integrated fm, has once again been looking at how different organisations go about this

Last month we looked at the range of resources that organisations make available for booking and how this has changed over the five years that the FM Index KPI Survey has been running. In the 2010 survey we also asked about how bookings are managed and looked at key issues such as ‘no shows’ and ‘turn aways’.

Most organisations have a choice of how they manage such resources – with paper based manual methods, in-house solutions developed using spreadsheets etc and proprietary third party software solutions. Of these, paper methods are in the minority, while the other two are represented in similar proportions. These figures are shown in Figure 1.

In many cases it is common to allow catering to be booked as part of the booking and since the survey began in 2006 we have been asking about average catering costs. Over the years there has been considerable variation, as shown in Table 1.

Table 1 Average catering cost:
2006 2007 2008 2009 2010
£55 £40 £74 £35 £38

In terms of organisation size, as measured by number of employees, there is relatively little variation in the average catering cost, as indicated in Figure 2.

One of the problems with including catering is the potential for wastage when a meeting is cancelled and they forget to cancel the food. Clearly the ideal situation is to achieve zero ‘no-shows’ and 35% of respondents report they are achieving this. This is up from 28% in 2009 and a remarkable improvement on the situation in 2007 when only 2% of respondents were achieving zero no-shows. A further 59% of respondents are achieving less than 25% no-shows.

“Improved management of bookable resources and the services that go with them is undoubtedly a very cost-effective way of reducing overheads, as well as making optimum use of space.”

Where resources are limited there is potential for people to be ‘turned away’, so that they have to seek alternative accommodation for meetings – quite possibly using an external venue at extra cost to the organisation. Back in 2007 only 5% of respondents were managing to achieve zero turn-aways, but in 2010 this has risen to 65% - a little down on the 73% figure for 2009. The overall improvement in managing turn-aways over the years corresponds to the more extensive allocation of space to meeting rooms that has been noted in this survey. The trends in achieving both zero no shows and zero turn-aways are shown in Figure 3.

In the next issue of FMJ we’ll be looking at how moves are managed and seeing whether levels of churn have changed compared to previous years.

Coalition announces energy policy

info@integratedfm.co.uk — Tue, 17 Aug 2010 09:07:35 GMT

Energy secretary Chris Huhne has outlined the government’s energy policy in the first what is planned to be a programme of annual energy statements. The statement sketched out the government’s intention to reduce energy demand from domestic premises, promote renewable technologies, support the carbon price, overhaul electricity pricing incentives and twist the arm of the private sector to stump up for new nuclear facilities.

He said the government will incentivise micro-generation at both domestic and local community level and roll out smart meters as the fist step in building a smart distribution grid. He said fossil fuels still have a place in a low-carbon future, but only with carbon capture and storage.

He also highlighted the approaching energy gap faced by the UK as North Sea gas and oil run dry and old coal and nuclear power stations close, combined with the need to reduce emissions.

“The cheapest way of closing the gap between energy demand and supply is to cut energy use,” he said. “Our Green Deal will transform finance for improving the energy efficiency of Britain’s homes. It will get its legal underpinning from measures in the first session energy bill.”

None of the issues in the statement are new, but this is the first time the government has articulated them succinctly under one policy umbrella.

Source: BusinessGreen

A drive to turn out the lights

info@integratedfm.co.uk — Mon, 09 Aug 2010 08:52:52 GMT

Efforts to cut both costs and carbon emissions are to include switching off the lighting on motorways between midnight and 5am, a time of low usage. This was one of the ideas received by the Coalition when it asked the public for ideas and could reduce lighting costs on motorways by 40%. As the Department of Transport has been earmarked for some of Whitehall’s biggest cuts, it is a particularly attractive idea.

According to the Highways Agency the plan would only be applied to sections of motorway with a good safety record, while more potentially dangerous areas such as junctions will remain lit. Currently only around half of Britain’s motorways are lit.

Chris Hardy, president of the Institution of Lighting Engineers, said: “Generally we think it is better to dim than switch off completely.” However, most motorway lighting is not dimmable and upgrading the light sources and control gear would be a very expensive operation.

Similar initiatives have been adopted or are being adopted on local roads by highways authorities across the country. They include Cornwall, Surrey, Blackpool, Luton, Neath, North Somerset, Plymouth, Medway and Warrington. In many cases they are installing equipment which allows lighting to be dimmed rather than turned off completely.

Source: The Guardian

Interactive boost for room booking

info@integratedfm.co.uk — Thu, 05 Aug 2010 09:55:06 GMT

A combination of fm facts Resource/Room Booking and the innovative Interactive Rooms system is proving ideal in helping FMs manage their meeting spaces more effectively.

The fm facts Room/Resource Booking module is a fully intranet-enabled tool for the efficient management of company resources including conference rooms, car parking spaces and shared resources like pool cars. The solution supports more informed strategic planning, reductions in costs in key areas and the ability to deliver a more efficient service to your internal customers.

When combined with Interactive Rooms, is becomes very easy to books rooms ‘on the fly’ while also improving integration with the central fm facts Resource Booking software.

Interactive Rooms uses touch-screen displays outside each room, providing at-a-glance information on whether the room is in use or has been booked, and enabling bookings to be made via the screen. Key features include ‘meeting activation’ and ‘meeting finished’ buttons, with automatic cancellation if the system is not activated within a pre-set time of the booked start time. Meeting times can also be extended via the screen if the room is still available.

Crucially, all changes made via the Interactive Rooms screens are also synchronised with the Resource Booking software, so it is kept up-to-date for people booking rooms via the intranet or by ‘phone.

As a result, internal customers have more choice in how they book their rooms and can be more spontaneous with unplanned meetings - while maximum use is made of all of the rooms in the building.

Information on the screens can be customised by the FM department and can include a booking code, the name of the requester and any visitors, start and end times of the meeting and the title of the meeting. This latter feature also enables attendees to confirm they are at the right room for their meeting before entering the room.

Interactive Rooms uses an intuitive interface, so that the system is very easy to use with no need for staff training.

For more information please click here

Hydro power

info@integratedfm.co.uk — Mon, 02 Aug 2010 14:46:29 GMT

Inspired by traditional waterwheels, an engineering student at Leicester de Montfort University has invented a device that uses the energy from waste water in high rise buildings to generate electricity.

The student, Tom Broadbent, explained: “The inspiration for HighDro Power was literally a ‘Eureka!’ moment that came when I emptied a bath in a hotel and found that it cleared very quickly and with a large amount of force. It seemed logical that this energy should be harnessed in some way to create green electricity and help governments meet targets and it filled an obvious gap in the market.

“HighDro Power works by using the water discharged from appliances such as showers, toilets and sinks in high-rise apartments. The water goes down the pipe and hits four turbine blades that drive one generator.

“The whole thing was influenced by traditional waterwheels to ensure that any solids passing through had limited effects on whether they could function.”

It is estimated that a typical seven storey building could save £926 a year on electricity, though clearly hotels will have the potential to save more than offices because of the higher use of baths and showers.

Click here for more information

Doing it by the book

info@integratedfm.co.uk — Mon, 02 Aug 2010 00:00:00 GMT

The FM Index KPI Survey, compiled by FMJ and Integrated fm, is now in its fifth year and continues to build a picture of key trends in the FM sector. In the first of a series of reports from the latest survey we look at bookable resources.

The Fifth FM Index KPI Survey was carried out in July 2010, exploring a range of key subjects including booking of resources and changing resource usage in organisations, help desk management, move management and communication with mobile workforces.

This year’s survey confirms a trend noted in previous years that more organisations are offering a wider range of resources that can be booked, far beyond the conventional meeting rooms. They also have a number of different ways of doing this, although more are turning to software to help them manage resource booking efficiently.

To that end, one of the questions asked about which resources are available for booking. This year’s results indicate that the availability of commonly booked resources such as conference, meeting and training rooms peaked in 2009, as the 2010 figures are very similar.

In 2009 we saw a marked increase in the availability of booking systems for hot desks, in parallel with the increased allocation of space to hot desking and other flexible working systems. In 2010 this has increased slightly but the highest increase has been in the ability to book car parking spaces. These results are shown in more detail, over the last five years, in Figure 1.

Additional resources that can be booked through the resource management system include pool vehicles, sports facilities, hotels and other external accommodation, travel arrangements and video conferencing. The proportion of respondents offering these has increased for travel, hotels and sports facilities since the 2009 survey, while pool vehicles and video conferencing have declined slightly.

It is clear that resource booking and management systems need to be flexible enough to handle a wide range of different resources, as the benefits of such systems are extended more widely within organisations.
Steve Dingley, Managing Director, Integrated fm

Many respondents also reported an increased demand for many of these bookable resources; 57% report increased demand for sports facilities and 50% report increased demand for video conferencing (compared to 41% and 40% respectively in 2009). It seems likely the increased demand for video conferencing reflects measures to reduce travel and associated carbon footprint, and this may have also been influenced by the Icelandic ash clouds earlier in the year. These figures are illustrated in Figure 2.~

The survey also asked about the percentage of the portfolio that was allocated to various specific functions. The allocation of conference rooms has risen slightly compared to 2009 (from 14.1% to 14.6%), while meeting room allocation has risen from 15.7% to 19.4% and training room allocation has fallen from 18.3% to 11.4%. These and other figures over the last four years are shown in Figure 3, though break-out areas and non-bookable office space were not included in the 2007 survey.

In the next issue of FMJ we’ll look in more detail at how these resources are managed.

Delays to carbon capture

info@integratedfm.co.uk — Wed, 28 Jul 2010 12:16:06 GMT

The UK government has announced that no new coal-fired power stations can be built without including carbon capture and storage (CCS). However, no date has yet been set for announcing the winner of a competition to prove the technology for public funding. This is likely to delay the first plants with CCS technology.

However, Chris Huhne, energy secretary, said he did not believe there would be an “energy gap” between supply and demand as old power plants were taken out of service. “The lights are not going out on my watch,” he said. He also predicted that we will see the first nuclear power station on track for 2018.

Mr Huhne said that the push for renewable energy, CCS and other low-carbon technologies would not necessarily add to consumers’ energy bills. If the oil price rose from its current spot price of about $80 to more than $100, then consumers would save money as a result of the government’s policies, he said.

Regional management

info@integratedfm.co.uk — Fri, 16 Jul 2010 00:00:00 GMT

For the second month, the FM Index KPI Survey, compiled by FMJ and Integrated fm, looks at regional variation in the way common FM tasks are managed.

Last month we gave an overview of regional variation in the management of help desks and levels of customer satisfaction, reported in the 2009 FM Index KPI Survey. This month we are looking at the responses in relation to the management of planned preventative maintenance (PPM) and communications with mobile workforces.

Respondents to the survey were asked to indicate the region of their head office, although because of the relatively low numbers of respondents from Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland these countries were treated as regions to maintain statistically significant samples. There was also a category, designated overseas/other.

Previous surveys have shown that the most common ways of managing PPM are divided into manual methods (manual), systems that have been developed in-house using general software such as spreadsheets (in-house) and proprietary software specifically designed for PPM management. Across the total sample these were represented by 30%, 29% and 34% of respondents respectively, with 7% using methods that don’t fall into these main categories.

At a regional level the South West of England had the highest use of manual methods (50%), Scotland and the East of England were most likely to be using in-house software (both scoring 50%) and Northern Ireland was the highest user of proprietary software at 100%, with other/overseas coming second at 45%. It should be noted, however, that these two ‘regions’ only represent 7% of the total sample. The responses for all regions are shown in Figure 1.

Respondents were also asked what percentage of their planned jobs they actually actioned each month, and those actioning over 75% of planned jobs were considered as having a successful PPM regime. More detailed statistics relating to PPM management were published in the April issue of FMJ.

Overall, 51% of respondents were actioning more than 75% of PPM jobs and Scotland, East of England, the Midlands and the South West of England exceeded this figure, while the other regions fell below it. A more detailed breakdown of these figures is shown in Figure 2.

Workforce management

We also asked respondents about the structure of their workforce and how they communicate with it. Overall, 66% of respondents operate a mobile workforce and this ranged from 100% in the East of England to 0% in Wales and Northern Ireland. The most common method of communicating with mobile workers is via a mobile device such as a ‘phone or PDA (73% of all respondents but again this showed considerable variation, as indicated in Table 1.

“Mobile devices are undoubtedly the easiest way of communicating with a mobile workforce in many circumstances and the greatest efficiencies are achieved by deploying mobile software that is automatically synchronised with desktop asset management software.”
Steve Dingley, Managing Director, Integrated fm

We also wanted to gain an insight into the level of outsourcing and for the purpose of this report have considered those that outsource none of their FM with those that at least outsource some.

Fast paybacks with Mobile fm

info@integratedfm.co.uk — Tue, 06 Jul 2010 09:30:09 GMT

Integrated fm’s Mobile fm service delivers improved performance and productivity with a typical payback period of just three months.

Featuring links to Help Desk, Asset Management and Stock Control modules, Mobile fm helps to optimise use of a mobile workforce, increase responsiveness and improve Service Level Agreement compliance, while also providing instant access to real time data for management reporting. It can also contribute to an organisation’s sustainability by minimising travel of mobile technicians and virtually eliminating paper print-outs.

Mobile fm can be used on any mobile ‘phone network and any handheld device with a touch screen and is designed for ease of use with minimum training by any size of mobile work force. It enables fast, real-time sharing of information between technicians and base, resulting in reduced costs and faster resolution of problems. Enhanced communication also optimises workforce time and enables technicians to add tasks remotely from the field, creating a more accurate record of work carried out on an asset.

As well as managing reactive and planned tasks, Mobile fm is also ideal for carrying out audits and surveys as data can be entered directly onto the mobile device as staff move around each building. It is also now possible to create a risk form for any help desk job, which is stored in the confidential notes section of the job.

Mobile fm solutions can be combined with Integrated fm’s hosted CAFM solutions, where the software is hosted on a secure, remote server and accessed via an internet connection. The hosted CAFM solution reduces implementation and running costs and eliminates IT issues associated with installing the software in-house.

Integrated fm and Sage – Partners in FM

info@integratedfm.co.uk — Tue, 06 Jul 2010 09:23:23 GMT

Integrated fm and Sage UK have won through to the finals of the PFM Partnership Awards (Partners in FM - SME Organisations category), in recognition of the strong and enduring partnership that exists between these two companies. This success also reflects the ability of a small company such as Integrated fm to work effectively with a global organisation like Sage.

Since 2004, Integrated fm and Sage UK have worked closely together in implementing a range of information management systems, fine tuning them to meet Sage’s needs and continually updating the systems to take advantage of the latest developments and innovations. Crucially, throughout this time the two companies have communicated regularly, modifying and upgrading systems to meet changing needs. Working together, the two companies have also identified opportunities for further efficiency improvements - on some occasions customising products to meet specific requirements.

As well as continually updating everyday CAFM modules during this time, Sage has also deployed additional modules including Strategic Reporting (2008), Property Management (2009) and, in April 2010, the Sustainability iQ management tool.

University of Bradford extends Integrated fm services

info@integratedfm.co.uk — Fri, 02 Jul 2010 00:00:00 GMT

Recent developments within a long-standing relationship between Integrated fm and the University of Bradford include the phased introduction of the fm online Helpdesk Intranet and Mobile fm.

The University has been using Integrated fm’s fm facts software modules for over 10 years, having replaced an in-house developed help desk package for the user-friendly fm facts Helpdesk. Since that time, Asset Management, Resource/Room Booking and Stock Control have also been added.

In introducing intranet functionality to the Helpdesk, the University has begun with one of its halls of residence. “Halls of residence receive most of their calls out of hours, so it made sense to start here,” explained the University’s Information and Systems Manager Steve Bradbury. “Providing access to the Helpdesk at any time has proved very useful to hall of residence staff and has enabled us to fine tune the service they receive,” he added.

The University has also been running a pilot project with Integrated fm’s Mobile fm service, equipping eight engineers with PDAs linked to the Helpdesk.

“We wanted to reduce our use of paper and other printing consumables, to reduce environmental impact, as well as accelerating the feedback to customers,” Steve Bradbury continued. “Previously we had a cumbersome paper trail that led to extended delays in communications and the pilot has proved very successful, enabling us to give customers almost instant feedback on job completion. We now intend to roll out the Mobile fm functionality to all engineers and technicians in the very near future,” he enthused.

The sustained relationship between the two organisations has been built on a strong partnering relationship that involves regular liaison to keep the University up to speed with the latest developments and to ensure the software is being used to its full potential.

“Integrated fm has proved to be very responsive and very adaptable in enabling the software to meet our needs. And on the rare occasions we have needed to use the technical support, the response has been very efficient, as well as very pleasant,” Steve Bradbury concluded.

Many organisations risk missing CRC deadline

info@integratedfm.co.uk — Wed, 30 Jun 2010 16:11:56 GMT

Figures released by the Environment Agency indicate that fewer than 10% of the organisations captured by the Carbon Reduction Commitment Energy Efficiency Scheme have registered. There are now fears that many of these will miss the September deadline and be subject to fines.

The shortfall covers both those organisations that are required to participate fully and those that required to declare information but do not need to purchase carbon allowances. The former face fines of £5,000 plus £500 per day if they miss the deadline, while the latter can be fined £500 for each half-hourly meter they fail to declare.

Fears that many will miss the September deadline are compounded by the fact that fewer resources will be available for gathering and analysing the data during the summer holiday period.

CRC disaggregation deadline extended

info@integratedfm.co.uk — Wed, 30 Jun 2010 16:11:54 GMT

The Environment Agency has announced that it will extend the deadline to the end of July for organisations that want to disaggregate under the Carbon Reduction Commitment Energy Efficiency Scheme. However, those that wish to take advantage of this will need to email the Environment Agency to indicate their intent. The original deadline was 30th June 2010.

Disaggregation enables businesses with several subsidiaries to register them as separate participants in the scheme, which could potentially make administration of the scheme easier. In particular, it could make it easier to gather and analyse the required energy data from smaller units, rather than across a large estate.

Further information can be found by clicking here

Know what you’re doing before you make it better

info@integratedfm.co.uk — Wed, 30 Jun 2010 08:51:29 GMT

Saving water isn’t just good for the environment; it also makes sound business sense. In fact, a survey by Ethical Corporation indicates that water conservation is set to become a top priority in the next 5-10 years.

But you need to know how much you’re using and how much you can save to develop a business case that will get the go-ahead from the financial director. That’s were accurate, meaningful data comes in.

For example, by understanding its water consumption and taking appropriate measures, Sainsbury has saved around £1.6m since fixing leaks, installing sensors on urinals, and reducing toilet water capacity.

Any such improvement inevitably requires some investment and having the right figures to hand is a key part of making a return on investment calculation. However, where there are many buildings there is lots of data to deal with, often residing in different systems in a variety of formats. And gathering and analysing that data can be very time consuming. In fact, it can take so long that the information is out of date by the time it’s ready.

Managing data on water consumption and other sustainability issues is a lot easier with Sustainability iQ.

Integrated FM Feed

Causeway’s hat trick in ‘The Hammers’

Related Links

Outlook integration with Causeway’s Resource/Room Booking module

Related Links

Causeway nominated for 13 awards

Related Links

Tackling the CRC carbon tax

Related Links

CRC compliance made easy

Related Links

Causeway broadens its horizons with Integrated fm

Related Links

Spet KPI

Related Links

Coalition announces energy policy

Related Links

A drive to turn out the lights

Related Links

Interactive boost for room booking

Related Links

Hydro power

Related Links

Doing it by the book

Related Links

Delays to carbon capture

Related Links

Regional management

Related Links

Fast paybacks with Mobile fm

Related Links

Integrated fm and Sage – Partners in FM

Related Links

University of Bradford extends Integrated fm services

Related Links

Many organisations risk missing CRC deadline

Related Links

CRC disaggregation deadline extended

Related Links

Know what you’re doing before you make it better

Related Links