Sodexo – IFMS Asset Understanding – Asset Management Council Awards

Summary statement about the project

Sodexo, global leader in quality of life services, improves living environments for residents of the mining portfolios it manages.

This involves delving deeply to understand where assets which contribute to resident wellbeing and comfort are within their lifecycle.

In July 2019, Sodexo introduced a specialised Asset Pickup and Condition Assessment Program to establish a clear baseline to support appropriate Asset Management.

This contributed to the wellbeing of tenants across the IFMS Portfolio of Commercial, Residential and Remote Village properties and infrastructure, geographically spread across Western Australia’s Pilbara Region of six townships and ~20 remote villages.

Description of project or framework addressing the assessment criteria

Use of Best Practice Asset Management Principles

Operating and maintaining an extensive portfolio of residential and commercial properties across a geographically large and remote area in Australia, Sodexo has recognised it manages many aging assets that are still in service with varying levels of risk.

The extreme nature of the ambient environment due to dust, heat and high humidity can cause issues with resident wellbeing and quality of life such as occupant discomfort, high operating costs, and asset failure.

There was a clear need to ensure the infrastructure was being appropriately managed for the environment in which the assets operated.

This included an understanding of where assets sat in their lifecycle and ensuring an appropriate programmed remediation and replacement strategy was developed.

The project set out to close the gap in both knowledge and asset condition and reliability and would lead to secondary opportunities and benefits.

Degree of originality and ingenuity of solution

In 2019, Sodexo launched a specialised Asset Pickup and Condition Assessment Program to investigate where assets across the IFMS portfolio sat in their lifecycle.

This allowed Asset Management principles to be applied.

It involved undertaking an environmental scan and assessing a range of assets that were more than 50 years old, which, as defined by manufacturers’ specifications, had reached end-of-life capability.

This resulted in reduced operating parameters that could cause a decrease in performance.

It was also identified that there had been a notable increase in failure events across key assets at periods where peak performance was required.

Program and project management

The dedicated team of a project lead and a team of engineering students trained to deliver this project commenced an asset servicing and assessment campaign.

This was to understand the portfolio’s landscape which allowed tailored Asset Management Plans to be drafted across the key asset categories.

Assets were graded in line with the Institute of Public Works Engineering Australasia (IPWEA) guidelines for Asset Condition Assessment, Performance, Data Collection and Management. Assets and their sub-components were graded between C1 (New/Very Good) and C5 (End of Life/Very Poor).

This ensured a roadmap was developed to ensure the best value-for-money solution which supported the improved quality of life for residents,

Benefit/Value of the project or service to the community or organisation

Through effective data and information management, Sodexo has been able to improve the reliability, integrity and productivity of assets, which has a flow on effect to all stakeholders of the assets involved in the program.

The roadmap has allowed the team to consider future opportunities and improvements for how assets are able to be managed through the whole of their lifecycle. To achieve this, there was a requirement to understand the assets and where they sat in their lifecycle.

Key to this was ensuring that standardised assessment criteria was developed along with a framework to manage data integrity.

Submission

This could only be achieved by a full audit and was supported by the development of custom APP that allowed validation of existing assets and the addition of new assets not previously identified.

The outputs of this tool were integrated with the independent Asset Management tool the business utilises.

The team investigated opportunities to allow Automatic Condition Assessment Surveys to be to be captured each time work was undertaken.

This allowed an understanding of an asset’s remaining forecast life and how it may be changing and was achieved by embedding a simple survey into the work management process and having it integrated with the independent Asset Management tool the business utilised.

To maintain consistency, Strategic Reoccurring Asset Condition Surveys were also implemented and completed at a determined interval, by a team of personnel specifically trained in asset condition and performance evaluation.

This was achieved by embedding a separate survey into the work management process and having it integrated with the independent Asset Management tool the business utilises.

Sodexo then set about working with business partners to allow implementation and retrofitting of IoT technology to allow assets to be remotely monitored and managed.

To understand where to focus, the IoT technology solutions were aligned to the FMECA assessments that were undertaken as part of the development of the Asset Management Plans.

The IoT sensors capture key performance data and where a Technical Acceptance Limit is passed, an alert can be sent to the Sodexo Command Centre for triage and appropriate escalation.

Underpinning this is a dedicated resource to manage data quality and the integration between the various systems that Sodexo utilises to manage assets.

This has required an understanding of how the various systems work and how integration points drove outcomes.

There is now a program of work underway to optimise the volume of systems, taking onboard all the lessons learnt along the journey.

This has allowed the landscape to change from a reactive one, where the Command Centre responds to resident calls to alert Sodexo to an asset failure, to one where Sodexo is able to proactively call a resident before the failure occurs.

The implementation of the use of Smart Glasses, which allowed centralised technical experts (internal and external) to provide remote support to site-based teams, reduced the time to resolve asset failures.

This has reduced costs through a decrease in travel and related inefficiencies while increasing productivity and limiting asset down time.

Additional opportunities which have eventuated from this project include the development of a Standard Asset Hierarchical Structure that can be used to deploy new assets while allowing performance across asset type to be analysed.

A standard suite of Primary and Secondary Asset maintenance strategies are being developed which includes a documented register of Regulatory, Duty of Care and Contractual obligations to be consistently applied.

Aligned scripting for use by Sodexo’s Command Centre will also result in improved response and rectification timeframes. Ongoing collaboration between teams on data and how it is used has enabled improved analytics, supporting gamification and better business understanding.

3. Opinion as contribution made by the nominated team/organisation

What sets Sodexo apart is the company’s unwavering commitment to identify each client’s requirements and provide a tailored solution to plan, integrate and deliver facilities management services.

Through its substantial experience, Sodexo has recognised the best outcomes are achieved through collaboration. Sodexo formed a specialised team which integrated into the company’s Integrated Facilities Management Services (IFMS) program.

It was a collective and collaborative approach involving and drawing from the key Asset and Building Maintenance teams of Engineering, Reliability, Planning, Scheduling, and Execution as well as stakeholders both internal and external to Sodexo IFMS.

Following the Sodexo Asset Management Framework has allowed the team to gain alignment to ISO 55000 Asset Management Standards that will support a future planned program of work to gain ISO 55000 certification.

4. General comments and supporting evidence

The program of work set about ensuring the asset data was accurate and appropriately integrated. It also required a review and quality validation step to ensure accuracy and consistency was maintained.

The master asset register (technical object structure) for all maintainable assets is pushed from IFS to SPM and CRM and Service Desk systems so the register is maintained singularly in IFS.

With SPM as the online asset condition database, there is an asset hierarchy that allows the collection of condition assessments across the hierarchy to deliver a rolled-up overall condition assessment. SPM is also the master ‘component condition’ register whereas IFS is focused on the Maintainable Unit level.

IFS contains a record of ~220,000 active maintainable assets while SPM contains a record of ~870,000 active maintainable assets and components.

Systems integration occurs via:

SOS contains the primary maintenance documentation SOPs that are pulled into IFS and attached to each work order when the maintenance plan creates it.

Additionally:

Asset condition evaluation data is electronically entered into SPM via mobile devices.
IFS generates work orders for activities related to other Service Streams so there is the tightest integration of BMS.

A clear understanding of the program deliverable will allow:

Utilising Asset Pick Up data to develop standard replicable Asset Hierarchies and Structures
Embed Asset, Maintenance Process and Systems discipline
Gain alignment to ISO 55000 Asset Management Standards