by Brianna Crandall — March 12, 2012—Multinational technology giant IBM (International Business Machines Corporation) announced recently that its maintenance software products have been deployed to improve building performance for the U.S. Air Force, help Los Angeles schools create smarter, greener campuses, and transform the Louvre in Paris into Europe’s first smarter museum.
U.S. Air Force
The U.S. Air Force (USAF) selected IBM smarter buildings software to help its civil engineers maximize energy efficiency and automate the management of its physical infrastructure portfolio—buildings, vehicles, runways and other infrastructure across 170 locations worldwide. This portfolio includes more than 626 million square feet of real estate, over 100 million square yards of airfield pavement and 10 million acres of land used by Active Duty, Reserve and Air National Guard personnel.
To meet federal requirements, the Air Force Office of the Civil Engineer will use IBM TRIRIGA software to gain greater visibility and control of its physical assets as well as to increase energy efficiency and reduce waste production. IBM’s integrated workplace management software will provide the Air Force with a standardized, powerful technology platform to analyze data about real property assets, streamline work orders and suppliers, and reduce energy use across thousands of buildings. These tools will help USAF measure and manage its operational, financial, and environmental performance to determine and prove effectiveness against real property management objectives. USAF plans to reduce operating costs, increase return on budget and reduce energy consumption through IBM TRIRIGA’s integrated workplace management, energy assessment tools, and condition-based maintenance features.
Los Angeles Unified School District
IBM is helping the nation’s second largest school district become one of the greenest and most sustainable by making energy conservation and cost savings as easy as sending a text message. The Los Angeles Unified School District (LAUSD) is the largest public school system in California and the second largest school district in the United States, with 700,000 students. With more than 14,000 buildings spread out over 710 square miles, the district receives more than 300,000 maintenance service requests a year.
LAUSD is empowering its students, teachers and staff to identify maintenance issues such as leaky faucets and broken air conditioning units by sending text messages and photos through their mobile phones. A mobile reporting solution developed by IBM Business Partner CitySourced sends the photos and texts for analysis by IBM software that automatically shows staff where the problem is located using geographic information software from IBM Business Partner Esri. Prior to the “crowdsourcing” app, each campus plant manager needed to decipher and pinpoint the failing unit before submitting the call to the Maintenance & Operations Service Call Desk and routing to the appropriate personnel. With the mobile application, reports are submitted directly to the Call Desk. The CitySourced app reports maintenance issues directly to IBM Maximo Asset Management software.
The Louvre Museum in Paris, France
IBM is working with the Louvre Museum to preserve and protect its facilities and artwork, which cover more than 650,000 square feet, making it one of the largest museums in the world. Established in the 18th century, the Louvre is home to thousands of objects and artifacts, including the Mona Lisa. To preserve and protect its facilities and world-famous artwork, the museum staff handles more than 65,000 repairs and maintenance visits per year. Through the use of IBM Maximo Asset Management software, the museum’s staff has been able to streamline their maintenance processes as well as the efficiency, real-time operation and management of the museum, all while keeping galleries open to the millions of customers who visit yearly.
The Maximo computerized maintenance management tool will replace the paperwork used to manage hundreds of vendors, in order to make the museum’s corrective and preventative maintenance more streamlined and efficient. IBM Business Partner SQLI upgraded IBM Maximo software in order to create a single information database and shared repository for the museum staff. The integrated database helps the museum visualize processes including the planning, cleaning, maintenance and disposal of the rooms and facilities systems such as the air-conditioning and heating systems, elevators, lights for each room or gallery, and the locking system for more than 2,500 doors. The management system can now aggregate data from individual systems within the museum, providing real-time information on each asset. Additionally, the software provides a predictive view into the performance and reliability of equipment and systems, helping determine which assets need to be repaired or replaced.
