FMT302: Several Aspects of Facility Management, Such as Strategic and Tactical Planning, Maintenance and Repair, Operations: Operation and Maintenance of Building Services Assignment, SUSS, Singapore

Assignment Brief:

• Demonstrate understanding of the operations and maintenance requirements of the major building systems. Ability to apply the Codes, Standards, and Guidelines into key maintenance strategies and activities that are required to meet the expected level of operational availability and standard of performance.
• Analyze key operation consideration and maintenance activities of the mechanical and electrical services commonly found in most buildings that are required to meet the expected level of operational availability and standard of performance.
• Evaluate the achievement in quality maintenance function, costing in maintenance, including statistical application and life cycle costing.
• Examine various operation and maintenance aspects in energy-saving strategies and measures of the mechanical systems of most buildings.
• Compute the chilled water cooling plant efficiency using a systematic approach that helps to improve the overall system performance and reduces the operating costs.
• Demonstrate an understanding of energy-saving measures and appropriate solutions for given scenarios and building.
• Examine specific areas or measures of the mechanical and electrical system that can improve operational availability, energy efficiency and reduce operating costs.

Question 1

The students are required to study several aspects of facility management, such as strategic and tactical planning, maintenance and repair, operations and energy management, benchmarking and condition assessment, and Life Cycle Costing on a local campus.

The subject of this case study is a 418,000 square meters, University facility which is located in the city center, holding approximately 22,000 students, faculty, and staff. The Facility department of the University consists of the following disciplines: facility manager; energy manager, zone managers, admin coordinator; supervisors; electricians; plumbers; HVAC technicians; general mechanics for all-purpose maintenance; specialists; and plant operator. They used both in-house and outsourced service providers. The campus buildings were TOP in 2000. The building parameters are presented in Table 1 below.

Table 1: Building Parameters

Table 2: In-house and outsource service (partner FM organization)

The existing buildings or facilities do not have “as-built” information and Facility Operation Documents. There were no records for the mechanical, electrical, and plumbing systems (MEP) either. Any problems that arose with either one of these systems were dealt with on an “as

needed” basis, and the work is usually outsourced to specialty contractors. The maintenance records that were kept dealt with man-hours and specified in which work had been completed. There was no detail describing what activity was conducted or what was fixed. Most of the buildings and services in the campus have not undergone major retrofitting work.

The buildings on the campus are controlled by a central Energy Management & Control System (EMCS). The EMCS has an onsite user workstation which is installed at the facility office and an LCD monitor controller at each zone. The EMCS interface provides real-time data and simple time-series visualization of all monitored points and controls operational settings, but it does not have a web interface. The electrical meter and gas meter were installed at each building to monitor the energy consumptions but they are not linked to a web-based control function to retrieve monitored data from the EMCS.

The energy manager and the facility manager are responsible for campus energy management and routinely use both the EMS and the EMCS interfaces. The zone managers are responsible for system operations and troubleshooting for the buildings in their zones. Upon occupant complaints, the zone managers would check the operational status using the EMCS interfaces located in each building, and modify setpoints if necessary. But the zone managers rarely access the EMS because they are not responsible for energy management.

The University is currently not Green Mark (GM) certified and the Board of Directors has been committed to going for the GM certification within 6 months’ time. Lately, it has been proactive in energy conservation measures including energy-efficient retrofits, operation, and maintenance optimization, and energy-efficient new construction.

You may go through the major building services discussed in units 1 to 6 of this course and study the following aspects of the facilities.

1.Strategic and tactical planning – long-term, mid-term, and short-term planning;

2.Benchmarking, Key Performance Indicators, and implementation of physical condition assessment – development, assessment, and use

3. Maintenance and repair – policy setting and how it is implemented in the different building systems (building regulations and requirements, and other);

4. Operations and energy management;

5. Use of databases for the various aspects of facility management;

6. Life-Cycle Cost analysis of the building and its systems;

7. Information and Communication Technology – telecommunication, data-communication, digitalization, and network management.

From the case study, answer the following:

A. Evaluate the structured and organized facility management of the organization, the operating energy data, the utility management, and the building control system, you are required to assess the level of preparedness and commitment to achieving the objective of the University to obtain Green Mark certification in 2021. Prior to the certification, examine which are the important work and challenges that the Facility Manager and Energy Manager could do to uplift the building efficiency and equipment maintenance program.

B. Appraise the University’s maintenance management system, documentation, and maintenance history of the facility with the aim of identifying the frequency of breakdown, the state of the component or facility, and the deferred maintenance, which will facilitate the development of scheduled maintenance, budgeting and objective reporting for management decisions.

(i). Identify what are the inadequacies of the system.

(ii). Discuss the challenges that would be facing in implementing a maintenance management system and assess opportunities to better use the CMMS functionality to support the Facilities Maintenance Management organization without major new investment.

(c)

(i). Examine and analyze the in-house and outsourcing strategy.

(ii). Evaluate and propose the technological tools that can be adapted for use in educational institutions. Developing and analyzing trend-logging strategies.