Technologies every facilities manager should be leveraging

12. 02. 2021

contractors looking at 3d rendering of blueprint on tablet

The modern-day duties of facilities managers have grown increasingly complex, as key decision-makers in retail, hospitality, and beyond strive to manage dozens or even hundreds of locations throughout the world. For many, doing so effectively requires a significant amount of time, travel, and resources that can put a particular strain on budgets and on overall project efficiencies. Thankfully, various types of technology have evolved to help ease these challenges, serving to streamline cross-functional operations while more capably facilitating asset management, risk management, operations, and maintenance. But knowing which of these technologies to leverage and how to do so successfully is often easier said than done. Here is a look at some of the key technologies facilities managers are using to help streamline decision-making and project processes.

Façade and roof assessment with zoomable HD drone imagery

For facilities managers, simply monitoring and proactively maintaining the exterior condition of many sites at once poses a significant logistical challenge, starting with capturing high-quality imagery and translating it into actionable results. Through façade and roof assessment with the use of HD drone imagery, facilities managers can access zoomable, high-resolution visuals and data pertaining to any number of sites across the globe at one time. Leveraging drone technology provides a more accurate assessment in less time than traditional methods, while working with a professional field service team even further streamlines the process by removing the need to travel or to send team members to every site to document façade and roof conditions. Deliverables of such a process may include HD aerial orthomosaic maps, HD aerial building façade views, 3D building point cloud models, and more. Performing a façade and roof assessment with help from IDS can provide you with highly detailed, remotely accessible imagery to inform key processes such as predictive break/fix.

Infrared inspection imagery on roof and building envelope

In some instances, high-definition imagery alone may not be enough to help uncover certain areas of your facilities that may be at risk. This is where infrared thermal imagery can play an invaluable role, helping assess the condition of all facilities by pinpointing potential water and heat damage areas in a way traditional photography simply cannot. By leveraging infrared thermal imaging on your facilities’ roofs and building envelopes, you can more effectively determine the health of your assets and can more easily work with inspectors and maintenance personnel to facilitate repairs and proactive maintenance. Building envelope services through IDS also provide you with a cloud-based immersive and interactive digital replica of your site, capable of being viewed from anywhere in the world to see your facilities’ exteriors as if you were there in person.

360° imagery, deficiency photos, and condition assessments

In regard to facilitating repairs and proactive maintenance, leveraging 360° imagery to produce deficiency photos and to perform condition assessments has extensive benefits for facilities managers. 360° imagery can provide you with a virtual walkthrough of all of your sites – inside and out – to gain a complete picture of current conditions and potentially at-risk areas. Deficiency photos captured by a professional field service team can help identify the highest-priority locations in a matter of hours versus weeks, serving to get ahead of maintenance issues in a fraction of the time.

Portfolio comparison summary for multiple properties

The façade assessment process through IDS can also produce a comprehensive portfolio comparison, equipping you with a top-to-bottom view of the conditions of all of your facilities so you can more quickly and precisely determine where priorities lie and where resources should be directed. In doing so, internal resource utilization is reduced due to the eliminated need for personnel to compile all imagery and data into a singular, actionable comparison. With IDS, such a comparison can instead be included as part of a façade assessment package, allowing you to view, assess, and make decisions regarding your properties without needing to travel or send team members to any locations.

Streamline facilities management processes with IDS

At IDS, we aim to equip facilities managers and their teams to more effectively plan, collaborate, and organize tasks in a way that saves time and money and that produces more successful results. We provide efficient, full-service image and data capture solutions to create fully immersive virtual representations of all your facilities. Contact us today to start saving time and money through the use of our industry-best facilities management solutions.