Leveraging Innovation in Recreation Facility Asset Management
By: Marmak, ORFA & I.B. Storey
In these challenging times leveraging innovation into the facilities asset management plans will be an important part of a facilities manager’s toolbox. Innovation, for its part, can refer to something new or to a change made to an existing product, idea, or field. Leveraged innovation integrated into facility asset management can enable organizations to accomplish more with less which is a relentless expectation in times of limited and competing capital expenditures.
The reality of the ongoing pressure, which ultimately leads to an absolute requirement to stretch fiscal resources, has resulted in a variety of techniques and analytics to prioritize investment. All of these approaches start with data acquisition and subsequent analysis. Some of these “wins” can be quickly obtained with little investment; others become more challenging especially once rigorous systems have been put into place. When it comes to asset management of recreation facilities, there has been some evolution in the approach however, this area remains a potential goldmine of under analyzed data-potential. Even recognition that this data exists allowing for a refinement in approach is not widely recognized.
Our historical approach to asset management, and sadly still in use in some places today, was build it and forget it. Now while that did more-or-less work out for the Pyramids of the Giza longevity, that approach proved less desirable for more modern facilities. Emergency repairs and unplanned expenditures resulted in a certain degree of financial chaos and in some cases facility shuttering. In our current environment, lifecycle planning (asset management) is generally accepted as a required part of sound fiscal management policy with wildly varying degrees of analysis and approach. The basis of all management improvement is to provide better information to make better decisions, preferably with the least amount of time to turn the collected data into information. Why is time a consideration? Our “do more with less” guiding principle results in minimum staffing models. Minimum staffing results in increased workload and by extension limited time to consider anything. A recent leadership symposium, had a session devoted to innovation. The facilitator was a former innovation executive with Disney and his insights were quite exceptional. Among the topics was an exercise designed to illustrate how, when asked “when do you have your best ideas”, most responses pertain to showers and car rides alone. The highlighted gap was the removal of “thinking time” from our acceptable workday practices. Removal of “thinking about it” time, the pressures and increased workloads have also removed acceptability of time to innovate. Plato’s “necessity is the mother of invention” could not be more relevant today. World War II brought about many technological inventions. The COVID-19 Pandemic is bringing about and will result in further invention. The invention in many cases is innovation – that is improvement on an existing process. So considering asset management, the opportunity exists to enhance the process as well as innovate.
The Ontario Recreation Facilities Association (ORFA) recognized the need for more investment by the industry it represents and made an operational decision to assist members in improving asset management performance. Investing in “reinventing the wheel” can be a frustrating experience. To avoid frustration, the ORFA needed a proven partner and found it in the Ontario Good Roads Association (OGRA). OGRA has been investing in the Municipal Data Works (MDW) technology that can track roads, bridges and other related public works infrastructure conditions. MDW information has supported many capital financial requests and at the same time, has prioritized project workloads. Data collected by the owner allows senior officials and funding sources to evaluate asset needs in a fair and equitable fashion.
The ORFA, in collaboration with the OGRA, and Marmak Technologies, have customized a user-friendly software application (RFAM), based on OGRA’s successful MDW asset repository program. This new software application has greatly assisted recreation facility professionals in the collection and management of recreation facility assets data that now harmonizes with other municipal departments making the sharing and presentation of data more simplistic.
Leveraging asset management tools permits proactive planning for lifecycle upgrades. Typical systems relay on age of assets and life expectancy matrices to determine investment timing and priorities. There remains an overlooked wealth of data that can be turned into information (innovation) by leveraging invention, specifically IOT Data acquisition. The internet of things (IOT) is a system of interrelated devices with unique identifiers and the ability to transfer data over a network without requiring interaction. Primitively put, it’s the ability to data mine automatically. Data is the foundation upon which solid decision-making information is built. However, processing data into information can be time consuming and as such challenging to prioritize.
The possibilities to leverage currently unmined data using IOT data acquisition and process it into information will unlock extensive underutilized potential to refine and enhance asset management. The RFAM tool has the underutilized functionality to leverage this innovative approach to asset management allowing for visualization (data to information) of IOT data. The application possibilities range from the most intuitive, such as preventive failure detection, to emerging requirements such as safety based asset management.
The BC Technical Safety Investigation Report into the Ammonia Release at the Fernie Memorial Arena dated July 25, 2018 clearly identified that safety needs be incorporated into Asset Management Planning. This recommendation specifically listed for governments (No.10 of 18) is titled “Incorporate Safety Risk Assessments into Asset Management Planning.” The tragic events at the Fernie Memorial Arena in BC from the October 17, 2017 have sparked widespread debate into a variety of safety and lifecycle topics. What is not debated is the aging infrastructure which had been initially recommended for replacement in 2010 was deferred and ultimately removed from the financial plans by 2014.
Innovative approaches to asset management can be quickly realized using the RFAM tool to disseminate information as it relates to a range of safety related matters. As denoted in the recommendations from the Fernie BC investigation, incorporating safety as a component of asset management is currently recommended and probable to become standard practice. Safety-integrated asset management opportunities range from food safety to rink refrigeration plant safety monitoring and trending. IOT visualization allows for cost-effective remote information acquisition allowing enhanced decision-making information about asset upgrades. Consider integrating innovation into a facility’s asset management activities are not just a good idea it is essential to the long-term use of all recreation infrastructure.
