What is ARC working on that will help facility managers be more successful in their roles?

As a productivity tool for FM technicians and professionals, we are always looking for and developing ways to help FMs be more successful in their roles. This year, we will release productivity enhancements to our software that further simplify how FMs access critical building information. Technicians will be able to easily and quickly locate key information like all the electrical panels fed from a specific circuit, which shutoff controls a particular portion of the building, or other challenges like where a particular piece of artwork is displayed. Additionally, we are enhancing our offline capabilities so more information will be available to techs when they are in the field, without a Wi-Fi or Internet connection.

What’s on the horizon in your field/industry, and how is ARC meeting those challenges and opportunities?

In addition to software, ARC Facilities team members are more active than ever in the industry, highlighting challenges, best practices, and solutions, or spotlighting key leaders. Our Women in Facilities spotlights have celebrated several amazing women this past year, and we are actively working to showcase several more. Our team will also continue to share best practices and solutions related to the critical issues facing our industry today as the greatest labor shortage in recent history happens at the same time as the great retirement.

What has been the most positive feedback you’ve received from clients?

From Byron Woods, Dean of Facilities, College of the Sequoias:

We have about 45 [people] in our department. We have five skilled maintenance workers that serve the 700,00 square feet across the three campuses that are 20 miles apart. The ARC Facilities app allows us to be everywhere at once. If they have a question, I’m able to pull up that information and communicate it to my team immediately. You can literally see inside every single room from different angles to be able to document just what it looks like inside so that when we get a work order, I can pull up the picture in that room and say, oh, the ceiling tile is damaged. I can have notes on what type of ceiling tile it is, what type of flooring it is, what the paint colors are. It’s always going to be in there. And if it changes, I can just update that pin.

We’ve gone in and created color coded layers for irrigation, sewers, and we’re dropping in manhole pins, shutoffs. If something is going to leak and you know where to turn it off, we know the zones.

Those are all just little details that are right there. We don’t have to walk over there to do it. Just having that information easily accessible is priceless. When you have this information, you can sleep better at night knowing that you know where to find it.