JFC & Associates has stayed busy in recent years as the facilities management industry experiences a trend of qualified technicians retiring from the business, taking their expertise with them. At the same time, regulatory requirements for workplace and environment safety are increasing. Adding to the challenge is that many business owners and facilities maintenance personnel are hamstrung by inefficient, manual processes for asset management on one extreme or overly complex, expensive technology solutions on the other.
That’s where JFC comes in. The company helps clients improve their situational awareness, business processes, and costs of maintenance and operational activities related to their physical assets. John Connell, CEO at JFC & Associates, founded the company in 2001 and has built its reputation as an agile, innovative consulting and solutions provider for enterprise asset management (EAM).
With expertise in EAM software including IBM Maximo and Infor EAM, the company recently advanced its position on the leading edge via a new partnership with Matterport. Using Matterport digital twins, comprising photorealistic, 3D models of a structure and the equipment within, JFC is poised to help its clients reap the benefits of greater asset visibility, control, and automation.
We’re shifting the approach to asset maintenance to be much more proactive so organizations can avoid failures and the resulting impacts,” says John Gould, VP of EAM Services & Business Development, JFC & Associates. “A key to this is giving organizations real-time access to information, right on mobile devices, including powerful visualization integrations using Matterport digital twins.”
Streamlining Facilities Management
With JFC’s new solution, facilities personnel can tap on the image of a piece of equipment in a digital twin to access information and initiate workflows in Maximo. “The person responsible for a space can understand what’s happening there by looking at it with high definition, 3D visuals. They can recognize what assets are present and plan their work better because they can see how everything is situated. That means they can bring the right people and tools when they go there,” says Connell.
A technician might view the information on a mobile phone or tablet instead of carrying more paperwork. A manager can view from their desktop PC. “Ultimately it can give the client better decision-making capabilities, because they have all the data at their fingertips in real-time,” Connell says.
JFC’s award-winning CONNEX solution, which integrates IoT sensor data with Maximo, also connects that meter data in the digital twin, where it can be easily accessed for virtual visual walk-downs, surveys, or everyday management needs. Automation and rules-based workflows in the software make it easy to create a new work order, initiate a service ticket, send a message, make an automated phone call, trigger a notification or alarm, and more.
The company received an enthusiastic reception at the recent International Facility Managers Association (IFMA) conference. “The feedback we received was very positive. People were excited to see how you can visualize mechanical spaces and other facilities with the immersive photographic imagery of a digital twin, with clickable tags tying directly to your asset data. You can use it for so many things, from training to confirming lockout/tagout procedures and checking spare parts inventory, to other essential activities,” says Gould.
Additional safety and OSHA use cases include leveraging sensors and mapping their locations and data on a digital twin for Legionella testing. In addition, the digital twins are useful for mapping exits for familiarization training or fire extinguishers, smoke detectors, and AEDs for fire protection and safety needs. Confined and hard-to-reach work areas are particularly apt for capturing digital twins, helping mitigate risk of accidents, and enabling remote measurements on the fly through the software.
Further use cases for facilities management range from validating inventory item locations with live quantity updates from Maximo storerooms, developing ADA maps for elevators and escalators, visualizing IoT devices with live detail, performing conditional assessments, and training.
Cost-effective and Simple for Better ROI
“It’s very powerful how it comes together. You can look for an asset in Maximo, then pull it right up in the Matterport digital twin and zoom in to see it in detail,” Gould says. Benefits that JFC’s clients are anticipating include better productivity, safety, asset uptimes, asset lifetimes, space utilization, situational awareness, and data quality.
JFC chose to develop its solutions with Matterport API and SDK partner tools instead of more complex and expensive alternatives. “We found that some competitive possibilities would have been much more intensive in terms of rollout and ongoing maintenance costs. Our partnership with Matterport enables a rapid time-to-value, aligning with our client focus that’s been at the core of our 20 years of success,” says Connell.
JFC & Associates is a Matterport Platform Partner that leverages Matterport’s APIs and SDKs to build and commercialize their apps and integrations with Matterport’s market-leading spatial data platform. As a Platform Partner, they gain access to a range of commercial benefits, such as Matterport’s distribution network and enhanced support as well as co-marketing and co-selling programs to help them successfully monetize their applications. To learn more about the Platform Partner Program and apply to join, visit https://matterport.com/platform-partner-program
ABOUT JFC & ASSOCIATES
JFC & Associates creates end-to-end solutions to keep critical assets operating at maximum efficiency by integrating Enterprise Asset Management, Internet of Things, and Artificial Intelligence technologies.
https://www.jfc-associates.com/
HEADQUARTERS
St. Petersburg, Florida, United States
PRODUCTS
Matterport SDK; Matterport API
RESULTS
- Enables greater asset visibility in immersive 3D for better situational awareness
- Drives efficiency by streamlining control and integrating automation
- Supports higher asset uptimes and lifetimes
- Improves regulatory compliance
https://matterport.com/industries/case-studies/jfc-associates-improves-enterprise-asset-management-matterport-developer