IKEA SOUTHEAST ASIA AND MEXICO TRUSTS URBANISE TO SUPPORT ITS SUSTAINABILITY STRATEGY OF BECOMING PEOPLE AND PLANET POSITIVE
To better sustain its own properties and its facilities, IKEA Southeast Asia and Mexico needed a highly scalable and innovative facility management system that could adopt its existing properties and expand into different store formats and mixed-use developments. IKEA SEAMEX’s current facilities management software lacked system flexibility and was deficient in analytics capability causing monthly reporting to be time consuming and cumbersome.
THE CHALLENGE
IKEA SEAMEX were using a series of systems to manage their facilities management functions and assets. These systems were a barrier to the adoption of small store formats and leased properties, efficient reporting on facilities management operations, including impacts and costs, and sustainability metrics, including utilities and waste. The set of unintegrated systems also lacked the flexibility to track facilities management process mapping and made facilities management benchmarking problematic.
IKEA SEAMEX also wanted to undertake benchmarking between each site to gain an independent perspective on performance, identify performance gaps and enable a culture of continuous improvement. As each site layout is relatively standardised, benchmarking would prove beneficial to all sites’ operational efficiency. THE CONVERSION
Urbanise was identified as a good fit based on its ability to manage and report on facilities management activities and sustainability metrics from a single platform. Christopher Mills, Head of Facilities for IKEA Southeast Asia and Mexico, was originally exposed to Urbanise when he was a General Manager of a Facilities Maintenance Consultancy in Dubai. Chris was charged with finding a more efficient single facilities management system that would ‘simplify and standardise IKEA SEAMEX’s services and compliance regimes across all stores and properties, no matter where, no matter the size’.
Features of Urbanise that appealed to Chris and the IKEA SEAMEX FM Teams in the initial stages of engagement included:
Standardised Services and O&M processes against listed property assets for regulatory and company compliance and maintenance regimes as required under the IKEA franchise.
A Mobility App that allowed data to be collected and tasks to be logged, tracked and managed in real-time.
Automation features including photo and image recognition, notifications via mobile device on assignment of task, auto-assignment and voice recognition.
Anytime, anywhere system access that could support any type of property and or leased unit under IKEA SEAMEX management.
Able to be implemented before Construction Completion to assist in Property handover to Facilities Management
An analytics tool that can undertake trend modelling.
Configurable real time dashboard reporting tailored to KPIs and Performance Benchmarks.
The ability to implement functional audits and questionnaires during daily works
Ability to translate speech into text in multiple languages; opening communication barriers and providing access to documents in different languages.
Training documentation and site support
Capability to integrate to BMS and Metering for Utility Billing
Ability to provide Billable FM services to Tenants and Customers
Additionally, the attractiveness of system enhancements released free to all Urbanise customers every two to three weeks was a selling point to IKEA SEAMEX as it demonstrates a commitment to continuous improvement, value offering, a desire to grow with our customer base, and aligned to IKEA SEAMEX values of innovation and continuous improvement.
The conversion process took approximately 12 months and the decision to implement Urbanise was ultimately due to the quality of product presentation, ease of use and system implementation, and a suite of automated analytical reports to provide site KPI performance on demand. IMPLEMENTATION
Urbanise used the waterfall methodology for the implementation of the Facilities Management Platform. This involved gathering IKEA SEAMEX’s requirements at the beginning of the implementation, and then creating a sequential project plan to accommodate those requirements.
Successful implementation at the first IKEA SEAMEX site and shopping centre, Johor Bahru (Tebrau and Toppen), was achieved over a two-month period during construction of the adjoining shopping centre. As an IKEA SEAMEX first, the facilities management system was installed prior to the completion of the site build.
All subsequent implementations (Penang and Bangkok) were completed within three weeks. This was achieved by:
Collecting processes and data from all IKEA SEAMEX sites and working with the IKEA SEAMEX Facilities Management team to align processes via workshops, demonstrations and training videos.
Using a replicable implementation schedule with clearly defined deliverables allowing for progress tracking and early slippage detection.
Creating IKEA SEAMEX specific Process Maps to provide insight into the process and cut out the inefficient tasks and propagate the most effective.
Using an experienced team that could quickly identify requirements in relation to modification of standardised solutions to address operational and strategic needs.
Standardising asset and location naming conventions.
Producing a Maintenance Plan that standardised the frequency and type of maintenance to be undertaken.
Testing the Urbanise platform’s functionality in a live environment using real employees and subcontractors.
Working closely with the IKEA SEAMEX operations team to capture, standardise, cleanse and load information.
Providing comprehensive onboarding and cross training.
Future implementations scheduled for Singapore, Mexico and the Philippines are now structured to be completed within 10 working days, followed with 10 days of training.
…Urbanise provided the best fit for us and our ambitions – Christopher Mills, Head of Facilities at IKEA Southeast Asia and Mexico
By working in partnership with IKEA SEAMEX, we have been able to develop improved data capture and analytics features that benefit the IKEA SEAMEX team and the wider Urbanise platform and community – James Danaher, Urbanise Global Manager - Professional Solutions
RESULTS
The Urbanise Facilities Management Platform helps the IKEA SEAMEX Facilities Management team and subcontractors manage Facilities Management services (planned maintenance, corrective maintenance and asset management) to ensure a sustainable, safe, clean and functional environment for employees, visitors and customers of the IKEA SEAMEX sites. The Urbanise Facilities Management Platform also ensures sites are maintained to a common standard in order to promote and protect the IKEA brand as the best home furnishing specialist in the market. These improvements have included:
Improvements in facility operations
Standardisation of Facilities Management strategies, processes and training material across stores in IKEA Southeast Asia and Mexicos’ portfolio.
Able to install before Construction is completed to record and track Testing and Commissioning of new Assets and ensure BOQ data against IKEA Room book and Asset Register.
Ability to undertake store to store benchmarking in real time. Each IKEA SEAMEX site now has access to standardised reporting across all stores and regions that compare year on year performance and performance against SLA’s/Budget based on the Site’s size (square foot). Traditionally, this type of reporting was time consuming and results were only available at the end of month. With the implementation of the Analytics Module of the Urbanise Facilities Management Platform, performance can be assessed live allowing for the identification of trends, year on year results and actuals vs budget/targets in real-time.
Accurate tracking of statutory, legal and compliance regulations.
Availability of condition based and preventative repair schedules.
Ability to track assets, work order status, number of requests by site, maintain asset health and plans for maintenance.
Automatic management reporting and easy to read monthly dashboards that provide real-time store performance against KPI’s.
90% Savings in new installations, 50% savings in FM’s CAFM/CMMS Annual Costs.
Improvements in energy consumption
IKEA SEAMEX is aiming to be climate-positive (reducing more emissions than it puts out) by 2030. Monitoring of its sites’ utility and waste data is integral to achieving this target. The IKEA SEAMEX Facilities Management team originally planned to pull utility and waste data directly from each sites’ Building Management System (BMS). While this is being developed Urbanise built tailored utilities and waste surveys that can capture data via FORCE, the Urbanise Mobile App. Data from the surveys is feed into real-time dashboards where the IKEA SEAMEX Facilities Management team can observe the level of efficiency each store is operating at in terms of resource use (i.e., working-hours, electricity, water, waste processing).
Since the inception of tracking energy consumption data in 2016, IKEA sites have realised a 20% reduction in utilities costs worth USD 4.5 Million per annum. IKEA SEAMEX hopes the Urbanise Facilities Management Platform can assist in identifying further reductions and efficiencies.
THE FUTURE
As IKEA SEAMEX grows and evolves, the collective commitment to improved efficiencies using technology is critical. Essentially, Urbanise will transform IKEA SEAMEX Properties and Developments to become more productive, efficient and innovative.
As we grow, we need the right tools and systems that will cater to an increasingly changing retail industry. We see Urbanise as the tool that will enable FM to be more than just Maintenance. – Christopher Mills, Head of Facilities at IKEA Southeast Asia and Mexico.
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