So we had to tackle assignments in Tririga this last week. The program is admittedly usable and provides great functionality. The HUGE drawback to an assignment like this is the lack of realism. I would never as the FM be inputting this information and populating these databases myself. The consulting team and the vendor would be paying an intern to do this work.
The CMMS case study we are doing in class is also less than stellar. I will need to make decisions on workflow software in my future career, I know that. But the objective of this assignment is not choosing a software package--it is to help us become familiar with different CMMS systems on the market right now.
This objective can be accomplished in a number of ways. The case study approach may be nice practice for case studies; however, the driving factor in having us write this comes from the University administration. It gives them warm fuzzies knowing that we are writing papers in every class as a required part of the curriculum. So in every class from framing to real estate to safety, we have to do group work and a paper.
Thursday, October 30, 2008
World Workplace 2008
So I spent the 3rd week of October in Dallas, TX attending a conference for IFMA. Loved it. Such a good opportunity to tell people about our FPM studies at BYU.
Had lunch with a whole group of field office managers from Allstate insurance. They had all been insurance salespeople prior to taking over the FM position at their office. The only real qualifier for them was if they had "a propensity" for technical things. I tried to explain the value of hiring someone who actually had been trained in the care and maintenance of facilities, but they couldn't visualize that a graduate would actually know how to do their job.
I mean, they had spend the last several years doing on the job training and never attending FM classes, so how could a college-educated, technologically savvy young person do the same job, right? It is mind-boggling to think that these same people are decision makers for a large, national company like Allstate.
The future of FM is not in on the job training. It is taking current and developing technologies and practices and making them work for your business now. Put the people in place that know how to use and implement these advantages, and your business will benefit by way of better workspace and productivity and a better bottom line.
Had lunch with a whole group of field office managers from Allstate insurance. They had all been insurance salespeople prior to taking over the FM position at their office. The only real qualifier for them was if they had "a propensity" for technical things. I tried to explain the value of hiring someone who actually had been trained in the care and maintenance of facilities, but they couldn't visualize that a graduate would actually know how to do their job.
I mean, they had spend the last several years doing on the job training and never attending FM classes, so how could a college-educated, technologically savvy young person do the same job, right? It is mind-boggling to think that these same people are decision makers for a large, national company like Allstate.
The future of FM is not in on the job training. It is taking current and developing technologies and practices and making them work for your business now. Put the people in place that know how to use and implement these advantages, and your business will benefit by way of better workspace and productivity and a better bottom line.
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