Latest NewsCAFM Explorer 2012 Highlights
January 10th, 2012
CAFM, to the future and beyond…
November 24th, 2011Source: FMJ Magazine November 2011
FMJ recently visited the CAFM Explorer User Group to find out how customers are helping to develop the software they use on a daily basis, and why their contribution is vital to a constantly evolving industry.
The dawn of information technology (IT) has led to significant strides in the way we view, process and handle information; and while the speed at which we conceive technological advancements has protracted over time, IT has turned something that was an evolutionary process into a constantly active revolution. And as the IT revolution in Silicon Valley, California was well on its way to adding exciting, new dimensions to our world in the 1980s, facilities management was starting to take shape in Margaret Thatcher’s new Britain. Increasingly, facilities managers looked to IT software to help them track and manage companies’ assets, so the computer aided facilities management (CAFM) system was born.
However, as our use of IT software has developed in the last two decades, so the capabilities of CAFM systems have. What were once used to determine the shape, layout and size of office space, can now potentially be used to manage energy, analyse extreme amounts of data, and carry out all sorts of maintenance requirements. So if advancements in technology continue to develop at such a rate, CAFM of 2021 will look and operate very differently to CAFM of today. But in order for CAFM systems to both evolve and be more effective, manufacturers must find out how they are used and what they are used for. The people most appropriately placed to answer these questions are the users themselves, or the customers. One manufacturer doing just that is FMx and its product is CAFM Explorer. In order to develop the product and launch new releases, FMx has formed a user group. Each year this user group meets to discuss their use of the product, concerns they may have, and possible additions to it that may help them in future.
Founded in 1985, FMx stresses that the CAFM Explorer User Group is independent from the company. Each event, in cluding the one FMJ visited at Mercedes Benz World in September, contains workshops and seminars with a distinct lack of sales pitch or advertisement.
A key figure at these events is Michael Priestley, head of business services at international law firm Withers and chairman of the CAFM Explorer User Group. Priestley has been using the product for almost ten years and has taken a proactive interest in developing it for his company’s benefit. He uses the product for budget control, helpdesk management and planned maintenance. Priestley explains how he was first asked to go to a user group event as an observer, but once he saw the process working in front of him, he was adamant that he wanted to be involved. In fact, the networking, sharing of information and benchmarking at show was something he expected from an actual CAFM system while specifying one. “It was something special,” he explains. “A dynamic support networking group that swapped ideas and best practice, and shared worries and expectations such as mine.”
The user group instantly began to give Priestley some very good advice. “I learnt that with FM software, I should learn to walk before I run,” he explains. “CAFM explorer is developed through the user group, which has specific but also joint needs, and it contains a strong committee with a focus on development, which prioritises user needs to help focus its CAFM offering.” Priestley is an incredibly interesting and enthusiastic character with a million stories to tell. Some of his stories have even influenced his work and the CAFM systems he uses today.
In a previous life, he was a Royal Navy Buccaneer on Iraq reconnaissance duties. “I was used to flying jet aircraft at low levels and very high speeds,” explains Priestley. “All controls were pulling in one direction and I could check the status of all of the plane’s operating systems instantaneously.” It was what he was used to, so Priestley asked the technicians at CAFM Explorer if they could design him an interface that matched the high octane thrills of his days in the Royal Navy. CAFM Explorer duly obliged and Priestley now operates FM software for his law firm that shares similar dials and graphs with the cockpit of a modern warplane (see graph below). However, rather than search for enemy combatants, military weapons or secret hideouts, he tracks financial costs and invoices, controls budgets and operates on a macro management level.
Priestley’s firm has recognised the benefits of using CAFM, the user group and also their business services manager’s responsibility as chairman. CAFM Explorer has made the business far more efficient, saving it £575,000 by simply tracking its processes. Each year, FMx releases three service packs with minor additions to CAFM Explorer. These additions, of course, are developed from the ideas and suggestions brought up in the annual user group event and online forum. A major update is then released once every two years.
However, the revolutionary process of IT systems means that CAFM Explorer is never really new. Instead, it is a constantly changing piece of software that adapts to the customer’s needs and wider business landscape. If CAFM of today looks like the cockpit of Priestley’s 20th century jet plane, will CAFM of tomorrow represent the cockpit of a 20th century spaceship? In an increasingly mobile workforce, for example, CAFM systems may have more to do with the motions of an airplane than first thought. But while legislation changes, margins become tighter and different aspects of business shift in importance, it is vital that companies recognise how their employees interact with technology, what they need from it and how software can help manage human resources.
CAFM Explorer 2012 is here!
June 1st, 2011
The amazing CAFM Explorer 2012 is HERE
Acclaimed by the UK press as ‘Simplicity, clever innovation and Automated CAFM’
Thousands of companies over the years have come to expect the quality of FM software in CAFM Explorer, with its elitist Microsoft GOLD badge, its simplicity by reaching out to over 40 countries around the world and its affordability achieved through the sheer volume of sales. But many of those companies take for granted the simplicity that comes from the clever innovation of numerous background systems that constantly run while FM’s work sleep and play. Checks and balances in CAFM Explorer bring semi-automation in the true sense of the word and with it arguably one of the highest rates of productivity in a CAFM system anywhere in the world. In fact CAFM Explorer is so admired that this year the company retained 100% of its global customers for renewal of their product support for a further year.
Article in Tomorrow’s FM – May 2011
Book NOW on a live webinar and see what’s in this amazing NEW release
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For more information please contact us
Royal Marsden’s ISO 9001 with CAFM Explorer
May 25th, 2011In December 2010, the Estates Department at The Royal Marsden NHS Foundation Trust achieved ISO 9001 certification for its Chelsea site.
CAFM Explorer is one of the core systems which continue to support the Estates Department with maintaining this international standard. CAFM Explorer is a popular Microsoft GOLD partnered software product provided by authors FMx Ltd and a key partner of the Estates Department.
You cannot manage something which you do not measure and CAFM Explorer plays a fundamental role in helping to measure, analyse and understand the service and capability of the Estates Department. We believe it has increased effectiveness and transparency of activities, resources, services and costs. The certainty of decision making and the management of budgets, forward planning and statutory compliance has increased. We also believe it forms part of the training and development of staff; increasing participation and motivation. Cost savings have been achieved through holding optimum levels of stock and helping to increase staff efficiency and productivity. CAFM Explorer lay down specific protocol for reactive and planned maintenance, all of which helps the Trust Estates Department deliver services and projects within budget and in a timely manner.
The Quality Assurance audit showed CAFM Explorer plays a significant and fundamental role, in ensuring the reactive help desk is well controlled and calls are efficiently implemented, with the back up of service level agreements and relevant operational statistics. It supports staff with managing planned preventative maintenance that is closely associated with individual critical assets and subcontractor activities. Asbestos/Legionella are also core essential activities led by specialist contractors but controlled from within the CAFM Explorer software. A key element of any NHS Trust is critical spares and the calibration of instruments and CAFM Explorer could also be relied upon to save costs by identifying optimum levels of maintenance and stock for instruments/assets.
User Group influence drives NEW CAFM Explorer release
March 17th, 2011News of the next major CAFM Explorer release broke last week when Tony Leppard Managing Director of FMx, authors of Microsoft GOLD partnered software CAFM Explorer, confirmed the upcoming new release would be called CAFM Explorer 2012.
They say the best software is engineered by maturing it with professionals over a period of time, and that’s exactly what has evolved with CAFM Explorer 2012.
The CAFM Explorer User Group that is an independent organisation last year celebrated its 25th anniversary, and along with it, 25 years of leading the software direction by example. That has meant over the years CAFM Explorer has matured amongst some of the most professional companies and facility experts in the world.
Tony Leppard Managing Director of FMx has always insisted on the group’s independence and preferred to work with whatever pressures that may bring to be sure CAFM Explorer is a product of high quality and truly made by facility experts, for facility experts.
The User Group has been hard at work over the past couple of years driving the needs of all CAFM Explorer users across 40 countries world-wide. The result is a newly branded CAFM Explorer product being called 2012 that has been engineered closely with Microsoft to adhere to strict protocols and as a result has already been granted Microsoft GOLD status. On top of that elitist engineering accolade, the User Group has defined through its user base some amazing new functionality that crosses just about every FM app in CAFM Explorer and coupled with compatibility with Apples iPad it’s destined to take CAFM to another level.
Some customers are already using a beta release and FMx claim that news will be forthcoming in May 2011 in terms of when it will be available to everyone.
Leppard commented:
“We are expecting our pricing to still be highly competitive. CAFM Explorers volume in world markets has allowed us to offer CAFM Explorer at generally far lower prices than our competition. Customers like the fact that they get all the functionality, self-learning tutorials and support for one price point so there are no hidden extras in the future.”
For more information about The CAFM Explorer user Group go to www.cafmexplorerusergroup.com
CAFM Explorer at IFMA in Boston, USA
February 17th, 2011We are pleased to announce that CAFM Explorer will be showcased at this years IFMA Facility Fusion event in Boston, USA.
We will be giving attendees to the show the ability to see why organisations in over 40 countries around the world now use CAFM Explorer to manage their facilities and estates.
The Exhibition hours are as follows:
Wednesday, March 23, 2011
4:00 p.m. – 6:00 p.m.
Expo Grand Opening followed by the Welcome Reception on the expo floor!
Thursday, March 24, 2011
10 a.m. – 2 p.m.
Join us at Booth 110 - you can view the floor plan here
If you have any questions please do not hesitate to contact us
An FM Model for the Future?
November 24th, 2010CAFM Explorer’s Independent User Groups new FM Model has revolutionised our view of CAFM. It tells us FM is fractured in that there are so many FM disciplines that are fragmented and therefore cause a failure in communication.
The Independent CAFM Explorer User Group is made up of some of the most experienced Facility Managers in the business, and they have created an FM model for the future to address ‘Fractured FM’.
Like all great discoveries its simplicity that nearly always wins the day and this discovery is no exception. The model was conceived by getting back to basics, the group analysed the corner stones of FM as People, Assets and Space. They agreed CAFM Explorer dominated physical space and it’s life cycle of work orders and cost tracking. Furthermore they discovered that Human Resources controlled the source of people changes and finance controlled assets. They concluded therefore that CAFM Explorer should seamlessly draw on those resources and feed that data into its daily life cycle, putting them in a powerful position of control.
That control meant they could then push crucial data out to other periphery solutions such as CRC models, strategic planning, benchmarking etc. In other words create slick one way traffic to any model or solution that made up the enormously fractured world of FM.
The group drew on their experience to test the model with any scenario, for example where does BMS fit? Access control systems, Health & Safety, Risk Assessments, CRM and so on.
The answer? Leave the periphery to the periphery experts and be flexible enough to let each organisation evolve its applications and have CAFM Explorer sit at the heart of the operation feeding the data.
CAD Driven FM Dead?
November 17th, 2010For 25 years AutoCAD has reigned over many Facilities. CAD was marketed as the software answer to a Facility Managers dream of controlling their facilities.
CAFM developers flocked to AutoCAD like bees round a honey pot and FM’s were led to believe their most expensive assets would be managed from drawings. More fuel followed as the story gained momentum that intelligent building data associated with the building drawings would flow freely as an integral part of a facility managers life! The CAD centric approach though, has severe cracks.
Can a facility really be run in a CAD Centric mode? i.e. from “as built” drawings. On the ground in reality do FM’s have things so well managed and are so proactive as to keep their building drawings up to date where their whole facility can rely upon it?
The answer is coming from a company who has been breaking away from that CAD Centric mould for 25 years. CAFM Explorer represents a fresher and more simplistic Database Centric approach. In other words the opposite to CAD Centric, the CAFM Explorer model assumes people and assets are pulled from their points of control, namely HR and Finance. CAFM Explorer also encourages an automated pull of data to its system from other sources such as BMS and Access control.
“It’s a clever and simple concept” claims Tony Leppard Managing Director of FMx, the authors of CAFM Explorer. Pull data from owners who control business processes, work it with the physical space and the day-to-day life cycle of reactive planned work orders, projects and costing and push that accurate data to other periphery business models such as Autocad.
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CAFM for Seniors
November 2nd, 2010CAFM Explorer is renowned for covering just about every market sector in business but US Partners Surface Logic have a model that makes the process slicker than normal.
Chief Operating Officer of Surface Logic, Andy Baxter has been long established in the seniors housing market providing FM consultancy, Asset Management and Budgeting expertise. Andy commented:
“When we discovered CAFM Explorer we couldn’t believe the value for money in a product that is so scalable, normally at that price point you get a product that just doesn’t scale up. We wanted a reliable solution that would also give us flexibility something web based, our customers don’t want to expend large investment on purchasing software and taking a risk, they prefer an affordable monthly charge that they can budget and that is what we provide.”
Surface Logic has been using CAFM Explorer for almost a year and inside of that time frame they have rolled out solutions to a number of their seniors customers.
“Our partnership with CAFM Explorer allows the customer to run their own business whilst we take care to maximise the value of the facilities and assets and keep their costs to a minimum. We now have an efficient and cost effective model to fast track the collection and building of data that automatically uploads into CAFM Explorer and we are now ready to roll this model out across the US.”
It’s a great partnership from two organisations in the USA and UK that provide seamless expertise to a sector that has been in need of a simple FM solution for years. Tony Leppard Managing Director of FMx said:
“Andy’s team just took the product and got on with it, they are a great partner, they saw the potential and like all great partners added their own value in what is now a commanding position in that niche market.”
Easier Call Logging in CAFM Explorer 7.5
October 28th, 2010CAFM Explorer release 7.5 for Windows 7 is now shipping, with five value added service packs release 7.5 is without doubt a bumper release.
7.5 comes with over 50 value added enhancements. These have been specifically directed by the independent User Group claims Tony Leppard Managing Director of FMx after polling their users on priority wishes. The jewel in the 7.5 crown however is a complete overhaul of call logging to increase Help Desk productivity says Tony:
“The Help Desk screen can now be customised to suit user requirements so fast call logging can be more productive and Help Desk operators can assign work orders and configure their Help Desk screen to suit.”
7.5 is now the last release in the CAFM Explorer QUANTUM series as the next release will be due early 2011 and will start a brand new series of exciting developments, all of which have been top wish requests on behalf of all users from the independent CAFM Explorer User Group. The name of the new series is yet to be announced however more news will follow before the end of 2010.
For more details of what is included in CAFM Explorer 7.5 Click here
User Group
Mercedes-Benz
World
CRC Energy
Scheme
discussed
25 Years
perfecting FM Software
Cost
Control
Roger Wragg
NM Rothschild
& Sons
