Thursday, May 13, 2010

Keeping Sydney Clean And Green Through Effective Waste Management And Industrial Cleaning

Like all big cities, Sydney has its fair share of environmental problems. In particular dealing with waste management, industrial cleaning and e waste are all presenting the city with enormous challenges. Sydney's rapidly spreading conurbation is likely to result in a megacity sometime this century with all the attendant environmental problems that involves. Here's how the city's environment firms and agencies are handling these problems of waste and pollution in Sydney.

Waste management in Australia is at the heart of environmental protection and is one particular area where Sydney is highly proactive. The use of the word management rather than disposal identifies that it's no longer just a matter of throwing away waste. Modern waste is too complex for such a simple solution. Waste management comprises a system of activities that includes waste collection, recycling and disposal, hazardous waste management, emergency response, laboratory services, asbestos removal and re-insulation. In a nutshell, waste management can be defined as a system to safely remove waste products to recycle as much as possible and cause as little impact on the environment as possible.

Facilities Management Software


One major trend is the involvement of specialized firms in the provision of complete solutions for industrial waste. These firms are at the vanguard of environmental protection by offering a complete waste management solution for industrial clients.

Industrial cleaning is another area in which specialized firms are working for the benefit of the environment. One thing these companies are doing is providing on-site personnel who are experts in such key areas as high pressure water jetting, vacuum loading, tank cleaning, drain and sewer cleaning, sludge management, catalyst handling, and asbestos removal.

In short, environmental services Sydney handle every aspect of industrial plant and industrial equipment cleaning. As each site has specific industrial cleaning challenges, these firms tailor-make every solution including which solvents or specialised industrial cleaning equipment are used.

By taking advantage of one source facilities management, clients can get all their industrial cleaning done by one expert company leading to gains in synergy and coordination. The result is industrial sites running at optimum capacity with limited downtime as well as environmental friendliness.

Finally there's the pressing matter of e waste (electronic waste). A major new challenge in recent years has been dealing with the safe and effective disposal of electronic devices such as computers, printers and televisions.

This kind of waste is growing at three times the rate of other waste and has two important characteristics. Firstly, it contains valuable resources that are wasted when they end up in landfill. For example, e waste can contain significant levels of precious metals such as gold and platinum which can be extracted and recycled.

Secondly e waste harbours materials that require special handling including toxic heavy metals such as mercury along other poisonous items like cyanide-containing veneers and asbestos. Disposing of these in traditional landfills can result in serious dangers to both the environment and local residents.

Other types of e waste which can be effectively recycled are used printer cartridges. Instead of clogging up landfills with plastic, cartridges can be refurbished, refilled and sold. Mobile phones too can be efficiently refurbished instead of just being dumped.

At the time of writing, Australia has yet to enact laws on the disposal of e waste meaning it's up to private firms and local governments to take responsibility for this matter. Fortunately for waste recycling Sydney, the response has been very strong. Both public and private agencies have been very active in dealing with e waste recently. For example, the City of Sydney launched its E-waste recycling collections for residents in November 2008. This has resulted in 43.57 tonnes of electronic waste being recycled.

Meanwhile the leading environmental solutions firm Veolia Environmental Services in partnership with Sims E-Recycling launched Australia's first national e-waste recycling program in 2005. During the period 2007-2008, Veolia was involved in the recovery of close to 7 million kilograms of e-waste in Australia.

Effective environmental management requires concerted action on the parts of both national and local governments as well as the private sector. Sydney is fortunate to benefit from both in its efforts to surmount the challenges of becoming a clean and green metropolis for the benefit of its residents.

Estates Facilities Software

The Importance Of Energy Management & Monitoring

An accurate monitoring system enables an enterprise to administer its operations. To help assess its efficiency in operations, a company should set benchmarks in evaluating actual productivity against what it has planned to achieve.

Given that energy is already an expensive resource for any type of business, having an energy management monitoring program helps a company attain efficiency. With the increasing threats of global warming and the implications of carbon emissions from traditional fuels, there is a consequent increase in legislation to regulate energy use.

Energy management monitoring is important for any company's decision makers to have important information on how to identify trending in energy use for its operations. This helps major decision makers of a company to be able to generate sound conclusions and prepare for consequences. Using trend graphs from multiple scenarios must be compiled with benchmarks at it will also help in efficient reporting.

Carbon emissions will be heavily regulated in the future and carbon becomes tradable commodity. It is therefore important to immediately identify areas of wasted energy through an efficient energy management monitoring. Maximum efficiency will be of utmost importance for any company of the future as it can suffer a great loss from increased operating costs and penalties from excess carbon emissions.

Energy was once a commodity which most enterprises did not have that much control of in the past. In this day and age, energy control is now a top priority. There are Facilities Management Software solutions available for companies which are very useful in energy management monitoring which can control results down to asset level. This will help ensure that every element is optimized in operations.

Companies which have implemented highly efficient energy management monitoring system get a very high chance of enjoying the benefits of state and regional grants that are intended for energy efficient practices.

Organizations of the future will be subjected to mandatory carbon emissions reporting, including a full inventory of assets that use energy with corresponding meters. A full life cycle analysis of assets will help ensure that companies account for all sources of energy and sources of greenhouse gas emissions within or without their control.

Active energy response and smart grid functionality will help ensure that a company's assets operate in optimum conditions to get the best utility rates. Striving for a perfect performance through energy management monitoring involves current best Estates Facilities Software solutions which can help ensure the best use of alternative energy sources.

Energy management monitoring is a skill which every managerial team needs to understand as the era goes into the low carbon economy age. Legislation stipulate heavy monetary penalties which penalize companies which do not comply with energy efficient productions. Likewise, pressure from the highly aware consumers and the threat of their withdrawal from patronizing products from companies that do not practice clean production will compel companies to prioritize energy management.

Teaching Self-Storage Managers to Use and Appreciate Facility-Management Software

For a self-storage owner, the decision to hire a new facility manager is the first step of a time-consuming process that involves placing ads, reviewing resumes and conducting interviews. Once a person has been chosen, the arduous task of training him to operate your facility begins. This is where Facilities Management Software stops wasting your time and starts saving it.

When evaluating self-storage software, the best way to start is by looking at the help tools your software provides. Even the most basic package should include help files pertinent to whatever screen you’re viewing.

For example, if your manager is attempting to take a payment, he should be able to click a help button and see relevant topics based on that screen. If he needs to link two units together, he should have access to a feature that will walk him through the process. More sophisticated software may even include video training throughout the program. This is a great tool that simplifies any operational procedure.

Though help menus and videos are useful when performing tasks that are new, what’s more important is the intuitiveness of the program. The layout should be simple and easy to understand for even the less computer-savvy manager. Think about the most common tasks a typical manager performs throughout the day—tenant move-ins and move-outs and taking payments. How difficult are those functions in your software? If your new manager can’t process a payment in just a few mouse clicks, you need to step back and evaluate your program.

Learning the Software

Some software packages include a feature most owners find invaluable when training new managers. It may go by a different name depending on the product, but most programs have what’s referred to as “training mode.” In this mode, managers can practice move-ins, take payments, run reports, make bank deposits, or practice other tasks relevant to the running of a facility.

The training aspect of the program uses the same interface and features as the program itself, but using a “dummy” set of tenants for training purposes. Once the training mode is closed by one user, the data is reset and ready to go for the next training session. This feature alone can save countless hours in frustration for you and your new manager.

As an owner, you’ll have access to every feature and function in your software, but do you really want your manager to have free reign too? Perhaps he doesn’t need access to certain reports or functions. Before you begin training Estates Facilities Software, understand how your software restricts different levels of users. Except for the most basic programs, all software should offer some form of setup that allows you to pick the features or functions a user can access. Higher-end software will allow you to use and set up templates for various positions, such as manager, relief manager or area manager.

Thursday, May 6, 2010

School & University Maintenance Management Software

Professional maintenance management of Educational Facilities, Schools and Universities means implementation of enterprise-level maintenance management and top-notch facility maintenance scheduling to protect the organization's assets and keep your school running smoothly.

Mapcon Technologies, Inc. provides 3 computerized maintenance management systems (CMMS) to assist your organization to meet and exceed your school maintenance management goals. Whether you require enterprise asset management, university maintenance software or even single-site school maintenance software, Mapcon has the package you need.

Mapcon Technologies' enterprise-level educational Facilities Management Software provides you with the power of JAVA Swing Technology. Combined with our many years of experience designing, implementing and supporting Computerized Maintenance Management Systems (CMMS Software), our enterprise asset manangement (EAM) software goes "beyond the browser" with a customized, heavy-duty, data intensive, highly responsive and highly secure CMMS application.

A significant advantage of our EAM school maintenance software is "architecture neutrality." By using Java ("Write once, Run anywhere"), Mapcon Jemms will within practical limits operate in various environments (Microsoft Windows, Netscape Navigator, Internet Explorer, Linux), connect to various databases (Oracle, SQL Server, Interbase), and communicate with various other software packages (accounting packages, spreadsheets, word processors). Mapcon Jemms is not tied to any one IT environment.

Not only that but, our educational Estates Facilities Software (written using Swing) allows an application to switch between numerous 'look and feel' styles. Each gives a slightly different look to the various visual components (scroll bars, dialog boxes) of the university management software. You're in control with MAPCON Jemms!

Facilities Management Crosses Chasm to the Data Center

It wasn't so long ago that the facilities management (FM) team stalked the corridors of office buildings with greasy blue coats and large bunches of keys. That image is now as out of date as carbon paper and typing pools: Today's facilities manager is more likely to be found in a white short-sleeved shirt behind a 21-inch flat-screen monitor looking at CAD drawings and updating an asset database in a high-tech basement lair.

The role of the FM department has changed, too. If you are involved in planning and running a modern data center, it's a good idea to get FM involved. Today's FM departments have much to offer data centers and the administrators that manage them. Working with them helps facilitate a flexible data center that is green and energy-efficient. Together, they enable the data center to supply the desired IT services to the people who need them, at close to optimal cost.

First, let's clear up some basics. The FM department does not dictate what technology is used in the data center. That's an IT decision and nothing will change that. "Essentially, facility management is about power, cooling and fire protection, and also, where data centers are concerned, physical access controls," said Kevin Janus, vice president of the International Facility Management Association (IFMA) IT Council. "It is not involved in what servers you run, but it is concerned with the environment in which they will live."

A facility manager can help with a number of environmental factors, purely because he has a complete overview of a building and its current and planned future uses — something IT staff probably lack. "Obviously you don't want the IT department creating a data center when there are kitchens on the floor above because of the danger of leaks," Janus points out.

But the real issues are power and air conditioning. Air conditioning is the number one consumer of power. Servers, as anyone who has worked in a data center can testify, generate a great deal of heat. The high density racks that are becoming increasingly common in today's data centers consume vast amounts of power, and a similar amount of power is needed to dissipate this heat. That makes the planning and layout of the data center, and the provision of power and air conditioning equipment, crucial.

This falls clearly under the FM purview.

How can FM help? In an organization of any size, it's likely that the facility managers will have a computer aided facility management (CAFM) package at their disposal. Among other things, a CAFM will usually store CAD floor plans of the building and a database of assets. For the data center, this will likely include plans showing the layouts of racks. In many cases, the database will hold the location of each server, the applications running on these servers, and information about the departments that "own" each application, where relevant.

Facilities Management Software tools can also carry out calculations to work out the amount of power that must be supplied in a given area of the data center, and the corresponding cooling capacity needed to remove the resulting heat. Information like this is clearly invaluable for the IT department because no matter what IT strategy is in place, the available power and cooling capacity presents constraints. The only way the IT department can be free to install and run the hardware it wants is if FM has already put in place the power and cooling it requires. And the only way for FM to know the IT requirements is for the two departments to communicate regularly.

"The IT strategy may call for increased use of virtualization two of three years down the line, but they won't necessarily know what implication that has for the facility, especially in terms of A/C," said Chris Keller, a past president of the IFMA's IT Council. "But it's also important to look at how the strategy will impact on people and the office layout elsewhere in the building. If the IT department wants to replace printer stations with inexpensive printers on every desk, then more power and A/C is going to be needed throughout the building or it won't be possible."

When a data center space is initially populated, the Estates Facilities Software can help design the layout of the racks to maximize the efficiency of the cooling systems. Detailing current thinking on hot and cool aisles and other energy efficient data center layout techniques is beyond the scope of this article. However, bear in mind that input from the FM department and the Estates Facilities Software tools at its disposal makes is possible to design a data center layout that will use significantly less energy and cost less to keep at an acceptable operating temperature than a badly laid out one.

What about making changes to existing data centers? "The contents of racks have to be managed, and if the A/C can't handle it then racks or individual servers have to be moved," said Keller. "Then the question is how do you know which servers you are moving and how do you keep track of where they are going? The FM department has, in a CAFM database, the place to store that information, and can offer it to the IT department. There's no point in the IT department doing it all again when the information already exists. From the CEO's point of view, redundancy is not the way to go," he said.

The message from the basement then is very clear. By involving the FM team in the planning and layout of your data center, it can provide the tools and resources to ensure the data center will be practical to run, and as green and energy efficient, as possible. By keeping lines of communication open between the two organizations, the data center will be the flexible enough to accommodate the changes that you have planned, so you can deliver the services you want in the way you want, without worrying about where you are going to put the boxes, whether you are going to run out of power, or if the servers might melt when a new system is deployed.

Defining Property Management Software and Why You Need It

If you are responsible for managing the maintenance and general operations of commercial or residential properties, then property management software can be a valuable tool. While you may have records on your computer or online to track rent payments, repairs and vendor records, it can be cumbersome to juggle these different resources. With the Facilities Management Software, you can simplify your administrative functions.

Inventory Functions

When you are accountable for both residential and commercial properties, software to handle all aspects of each of them in one package can make your life and job a whole lot simpler. You can segregate your types of properties as well as group them by location, property manager, use of the property, and more.

You can create unique profiles for each property under your control using the property management software. Within these properties, you can classify them down even further by types of units such as grouping all same number of bedroom units together or even by floor coverings, appliance availability and more. Or, you may want to group your properties by the monthly rates tenants pay.

To further break things down, the software can be used to create and maintain descriptions of each individual unit within a property. For instance, with commercial properties, you can log the individual businesses that rent there as well as list the individual layouts of each space, from square footage down to the number of lighting fixtures that exist. The same principle applies to residential properties like apartment buildings, condos and duplexes. With just a few clicks of the mouse and keyboard, you can pull up how many empty spaces you have in your residential properties as well as how many bedrooms and baths they have and even whether they have a washing machine and clothes dryer hook-up.

Tenant Tracking

One of the best features of property management software is the ability to keep track of individual tenants. Credit reports can be saved in tenant profiles as well as their payment history, correspondence history, requests for property improvements and repairs as well as any other information you deem appropriate.

With the customised reports your Estates Facilities Software can run for you, you could easily discern which tenants are late on the rent, have a lease coming up for renewal and whether or not a moving tenant is eligible for a security deposit refund. Being able to draft new leases and other contracts and paperwork is a possibility too, within software.

Bring your business operations into the 21st century and integrate all your records and tracking mechanisms into one property management software package. Test drive the software you plan to purchase to ensure you will be able to easily navigate it.

Facility, Building Management and Preventative Maintenance Software

Give Us your FM and Property Objectives and We'll Measurably Help You Achieve Them

FM Innovations® is the only Facilities Management Software company to take your facilities and property management objectives, develop measurable key performance indicators around them and customise a building or property management software system that measurably helps you achieve those objectives. FM Innovations® develops sophisticated management software solutions that are easy to use in order to manage the ever-increasing complexity of the FM and property management industry. Determination, commitment to quality and our innovation has put us at the forefront of the preventative maintenance software industry.
Looking for quality FM solutions?
No matter who you are we can help with the best maintenance software, building software and preventative maintenance software

At FM innovations® we are the specialists in integrated FM software- we create and customise space management software, maintenance software, building software and preventative maintenance software for your specific industry and requirements. If you are a Government Organisation, SME or a Large Multinational Corporate, FM Innovations have a designed our WSM software to suit your current and future needs. FM Innovations® have built into WSM “implied intelligence”, creating a new benchmark when it comes to facility management software. WSM delivers automation, information flow, and detailed operational statistics with graphs for executive level reporting in a customisable database that is easy to use. Each WSM module has an intuitive interface and user-friendly design that is robust enough as a stand alone operation, integrates with each module and/or integrating with your existing systems.

Our WSMenterprise software addresses all aspects of facilities and property management, including space management, works management, asset management, property management, lease management, room booking management, visitor management and contracts.

FM Innovations® consulting applies diagnostics to your current systems, plots the requirements of where you wish to be, and designs the modules and interfaces that give you exactly the systems infrastructure you need.

We proudly provide tailored solutions to suit your specific Estates Facilities Software needs. We have worked closely with some of the biggest names in Australia and the World, designing and creating software packages to suit their needs. Please contact us to see how we can help you.
Easy to use, painless to migrate and produce better reports

When FM Innovations® first started there was and still is a need for an 'easy to use' facilities software program that is painless to migrate, but with the capability of producing multiple reporting formats. We pride ourselves on remaining at the forefront of the industry and remaining the best and easiest to use software program in the industry and providing our clients with the most innovative and user-friendly maintenance software, building software and preventative maintenance software programs available..

Whether you are seeking building software, maintenance software, or a combination of different programs, the components of WSM work together or stand-alone, so they provide many different users (managers, operations teams, contractors and suppliers) with the accurate information needed to make effective business decisions and pursue Facility Management and property objectives.

What’s more, the interface is largely customisable, so it can reflect your preferred ways of entering data and retrieving reports.