WHAT YOU SHOULD KNOW
Making the Most of the IWMS Data Investment
Standardized Data and Business Processes through ARCHIBUS demonstrate real value.
Delivering high performance information as a service is critical in enterprise applications. Nowhere is that concept more on point than in instances of Integrated Work Management Systems (IWMS), where tools like ARCHIBUS reach across diverse organizations to support quality data analytics through processes that are uniform and evenly applied.
The term “alternative workplace” is a buzzword these days across the Federal facilities marketplace. It is perhaps unfortunate that organizations can adopt these concepts and implement changes, yet never really know if beneficial financial results have been delivered to an agency’s bottom line. ARCHIBUS helps make sure that users have quality information supported by beneficial rigor along with processes for using the data which are as reliable as the data itself.
There are prominent systems in the federal real property community today that are neither housed nor managed through a normalized database, where each record exists once and only once. This single reality is why many agencies are choosing to move towards commercial off-the-shelf (COTS) solutions, like ARCHIBUS. With ARCHIBUS, there is one database and each record is unique, related to others in prescriptive ways – no redundancy and no opportunity for error.
Furthermore, ARCHIBUS lets users proscribe standardized workflows and business rules that can be uniformly implemented across a large and geographically dispersed organization. Further, processes can be created which are centrally managed so that work activity is consistent, checks and balances (and approvals) are embedded, and the organization as a whole relies upon the corporate asset of a single data store. The need for outlying spreadsheets and “pocketed data” disappears and the promise of IWMS is fully realized.
Configuring ARCHIBUS to control how data is managed and applied means that new and recurring IWMS activity can be accomplished with meaningful results. The true net financial gains achieved by managing facility space, work that occurs within that space and the financial processes (leases and organizational chargebacks) that govern space utilization, are all readily accessible by planners, operators and managers.
Of course, implementing any enterprise COTS solution must be disciplined from the beginning. The systems and software plus training require budget priorities and unwavering executive leadership over an extended period until operations are stable and become ensconced in an organization’s routine. And the most important discipline revolves around professionally collecting and validating data that ARCHIBUS (or any IWMS solution) will use in supporting the enterprise.
In spite of the upfront strictures, the return on investment with an IWMS can be huge. Using ARCHIBUS as a tool to assist in right-sizing a portfolio, helps guarantee that all costs are accurately captured for each organizational component and performance appropriately reported over time. Such a system can provide critical help for managers who must reduce costs both today and in the future. Accordingly, the true value of IWMS is that facilities fulfillment and sustainment costs can not only be reduced, but also held at optimal levels into the future.
Contact Sunil Kaushal at sunil.kaushal@vistatsi.com for additional information on ARCHIBUS implementation.
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