Identifying goals: Transitioning to advanced facility management for better maintenance and operations
The Università Cattolica del Sacro Cuore is one of Italy’s premier higher education institutions. Home to more than 40,000 students, the university boasts a nationwide presence, with campuses in Milan, Brescia, Cremona, Piacenza and Rome.
Facility management plays a central role in the university’s pursuit of academic excellence and in preserving its significant architectural heritage.
“Our activities take place in buildings with an extensive surface area, various types of systems for air conditioning, lighting and security and thousands of assets, from elevators to doors to electrical panels,” explains Stefano Vincini, head of service for maintenance and development of applications. “In addition, some of our buildings are monuments of great historical and architectural value that require periodic monitoring to assess their condition and ensure their preservation.”
Overcoming challenges: Adopting a state-of-the-art platform and transforming practices without affecting day-to-day activities
Until 2013, the university’s administration was not adequately equipped for the task: “Managing and monitoring all our assets has always presented significant challenges, and the tools we relied on were becoming increasingly obsolete, both in terms of technology and functionality. For example, we had a dedicated system for ticket management that lacked any asset management capabilities - it merely collected incident reports and triggered maintenance interventions,” Stefano Vincini explains.
The administration therefore started seeking a state-of-the-art asset management system that could:
Ensure more effective management of its spaces and assets
Achieve continuous monitoring of buildings and assets to maintain safety, integrity and value
Use the latest technological innovations to minimize reactive maintenance and emphasize proactive and planned maintenance activities
Leverage new graphical technologies to aid in the preservation of the university’s historical and architectural heritage
Most importantly, the move from legacy tools to the new platform had to be achieved without negatively affecting the daily lives of the students and faculty on campus.
Realizing results: A transformative impact across an ever-increasing range of uses
The selection process led to the adoption of Octave Attune EAM (formerly HxGN EAM) in 2013.
“Attune EAM proved highly configurable and scalable, both in terms of functionality and volumes of managed assets,” Stefano Vincini notes. “It also stood out for its ability to optimize our decision-making process by evaluating data and helping us spot trends and anomalies effectively. In addition, its OpenCAD module offers a comprehensive solution for our space management needs,” Stefano Vincini says.
The university rapidly expanded its use across multiple sites, departments and services.
Because of the solution’s scalability and flexibility, its use now expands far beyond the initial scope of maintenance and inspections. Attune EAM now helps to optimize the use of surface and space, organize cleaning activities and schedules, manage building documents, ensure the consistency of real estate data, record lost and founds, ensure the availability of first-aid kits, and even perform a botanical heritage census, among others.
Data made accessible, precise and mobile
Today, Attune EAM is integral to the daily operations of several hundred staff across various university functions and external company operators who can engage in real-time data entry and retrieval.
“Attune EAM’s innovative ‘double tree’ asset classification allows us to catalog our assets with precision and granularity, based on both technology and geographical location. We can now easily navigate our asset catalog geographically, from the campus level down to individual spaces, or by type, such as fire systems or security components. This approach has revolutionized how we manage and maintain our assets across the university,” Stefano Vincini notes.
In addition, field operators can use mobile devices to access work orders, equipment information, and site floor plans, streamlining their on-site tasks and reporting.
Concrete benefits
Overall, Attune EAM has brought several additional tangible benefits:
The complete digitization and streamlining of more than 42,000 annual maintenance interventions, ensuring more efficient tracking and execution
The optimization of maintenance schedules to minimize the impact on students and staff
Improved oversight and performance monitoring of contractors and suppliers, with the ability to extract data to support tender processes
Time savings and increased accuracy in intervention recordings and maintenance operations
Improved data analysis and reporting capabilities, facilitating the definition and tracking of KPIs.
“For us, it was crucial to have a scalable and flexible asset management system that could optimize maintenance and operations while helping to preserve our architectural heritage. With Attune EAM, we have found a highly customizable solution provided by an international market leader that could meet our needs across a vast range of uses and evolve significantly over time, supported by a comprehensive portfolio of solutions and integrations.” Stefano Vincini, Head of Service for Maintenance and Development of Applications
Moving forward
In the future, Stefano Vincini envisions new uses for Attune EAM, such as managing asset logistics, hosting safety documents such as fire resistance certificates, and including specialized assets, such as staff uniforms. The university also plans to leverage EAM’s integration with its accounting software to control asset movements and disposals accurately.
In these new developments, Stefano Vincini knows he will be able to rely on continuous support from Octave and its partners: “Together, we have built and consolidated a very strong relationship, and we are very happy to see the continuous evolution of EAM in terms of technology, usability and functionality.”