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| The Ontario University System Leverages VFA’s Capital Planning and Asset Management Solution Posted: 03 Sep 2010 05:30 AM PDT
BURNABY, BC– September, 2010 –VFA Canada Corporation, the leading Canadian provider of solutions for facilities capital planning and asset management, today announced the Ontario University System, comprised of 19 universities across the province, is using its Capital Planning and Asset Management Solution (CPMS™) and is undergoing a facility condition reassessment to promote a better understanding of the impact of investment decisions. With VFA's sophisticated analytic tools to assist in making optimal planning decisions, combined with the most current data on their facility assets, the universities are now prepared to make the case for long-term facility renewal and planning initiatives. Each university in the Ontario University System, which encompasses more than 70 million square feet of facilities, had its own method for compiling data about facility condition—and different techniques for prioritizing maintenance projects and estimating costs. The disparate data from each school made it difficult for school officials to conduct long-term capital planning across the system. As a result, the data was not considered reliable. To promote the development of long-term facility capital plans for each of the universities, as well as for the system as a whole, the Ontario Universities have used the VFA system to provide consistent and comprehensive facilities data to the Ontario university presidents and the provincial government. The VFA system also provides best practice facility management tools to the universities' facilities departments. Initiated in 2001, the VFA system provided objective data which was used to obtain $93 million in deferred maintenance funding by the Ontario government in 2003, an increase of $40 million over previous years, and has resulted in an average increase of $80 million annually since then. Currently, VFA is reassessing 50 million square feet of facilities, as well as providing site infrastructure assessments, starting with Carleton University. All of the assessment information related to condition and maintenance requirements is captured in VFA.facility®, VFA's Web-based software for asset management and capital planning, which serves as a central source for managing and analyzing facility information. "Facility management and planning have become a compelling topic, attracting the attention of key funding sources, both internally at the universities and externally at the provincial government," said Darryl Boyce, P.Eng., assistant vice president, Facilities Management and Planning, Carleton University, Ottawa, Ontario, Canada. "Before we implemented VFA's CPMS, deferred maintenance was an unknown term outside of facilities departments. Now, the University Presidents consider the problem to be a high priority and the provincial minister is talking about it and more importantly, understands the extent of the problem." Accurate information about the condition of facilities and building systems forms the foundation for ensuring smooth operations today and planning for future needs. VFA helps clients plan the best assessment strategy for their needs, which includes a mix of different approaches for different types of facilities in higher education, as well as in the government, K-12, banking, healthcare and corporate sectors. "Implementing VFA's Capital Planning and Asset Management Solution helped the Ontario University System make the case for substantial increases in funding for both deferred maintenance and facility renewal," said Jerry Kokos, President and CEO of VFA. "This latest round of facility condition assessments is providing additional confidence that the data used for critical decisions is both current and accurate. As a result, the universities can continue to obtain the necessary funding to maintain these vital educational institutions." About VFA Canada CorporationHeadquartered in Burnaby, BC, VFA Canada Corporation is the leading provider of end-to-end solutions for facilities capital planning and asset management. VFA solutions uniquely combine facility assessment services, Web-based software and business consulting services to enable customers to manage every stage of the capital asset lifecycle — from requirements gathering and long-term planning to capital budget creation and spend management. More than 450 organizations in corporate, education, government and healthcare markets have relied on VFA solutions to strategically manage their capital assets. VFA's flagship software product, VFA.facility®, is currently used to manage more than three billion square feet of real estate. For more information, please call 888-685-3757 or visit http://www.vfa.com/index_canada.htm. Related Posts
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| Alternative Workplace Arrangements Require Strategic Planning Posted: 03 Sep 2010 03:30 AM PDT
This summer, the House and Senate approved two distinct, but similar, telework bills, H.R. 1722 and S. 707 respectively, that would require Federal agencies to create formal telework policies and programs. Final passage of the telework legislation is expected to save Federal agencies approximately $11 billion annually and contribute to the reduction of carbon emissions from commuting. This coincides with last month's announcement by President Obama that the Federal Government will reduce carbon emissions from indirect sources (e.g., employee travel, commuting, etc.) by 13% by 2020. In addition, according to analysis by the Telework Research Network, the five-year cost to implement the Federal telework program (Approximately $30 million) is equivalent to just half a day of lost productivity when Government employees cannot commute to work due to an extreme weather event like the blizzard that crippled Washington D.C. last winter. According to Kate Lister, lead researcher for the Telework Research Network, "The staggering costs of lost productivity from federal workers during last winter’s snowstorms — estimated by the government at $71 million a day — would pay for the five-year cost of the bill in one day". Related Posts
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