Today, host Ed Buckley, the Vice President of Facility Operations at TD Industries, interviews Jim Whittaker, the Global Product Owner, Engineering Services at JLL with over 30 years of experience in FM. In this episode, Jim shares his journey, including his contributions to the IFMA Global Board of Directors and work in ISO standards. They discuss the evolution of facility management, focusing on the importance of data literacy, the integration of technology, and the relevance of standards like ISO 41001. The conversation also highlights the growing need for interoperability among systems and offers strategies for facility managers to navigate these changes.
Today, host Ed Buckley, the Vice President of Facility Operations at TD Industries, interviews Jim Whittaker, the Global Product Owner, Engineering Services at JLL with over 30 years of experience in FM. In this episode, Jim shares his journey, including his contributions to the IFMA Global Board of Directors and work in ISO standards. They discuss the evolution of facility management, focusing on the importance of data literacy, the integration of technology, and the relevance of standards like ISO 41001. The conversation also highlights the growing need for interoperability among systems and offers strategies for facility managers to navigate these changes.
Jim Whittaker: [00:00:00] Creating the ISO FM standards committee enabled us to create those standards to then add to those other elements that IFMA had been working on to be recognized as a true profession. The true goal beyond that was, how do we help facility managers really deliver value? And how do we look at creating standards to provide guidance, provide a framework and sufficient detail to enable global consistency?
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org to get started. Today, host Ed [00:01:00] Buckley, the Vice President of Facility Operations at TD Industries, interviews Jim Whitaker, the Global Product Owner of Engineering Services at JLL. In this episode, Jim shares his journey, including his contributions to the IFMA Global Board of Directors and his work on the ISO standards.
They discuss the evolution of facility management, focusing on the importance of data literacy, the integration of technology, and the revelance of standards like ISO 41001. The conversation also highlights the growing need for interoperability among systems and offers strategies for facility managers to navigate these changes.
Now, let's get into it.
Edwin Buckley: My name is Ed Buckley. I'm your guest host today. And it's my great pleasure to welcome Jim Whittaker, who is the, among other things, the IFM engineering products lead for JLL. And more than [00:02:00] that, has been a major feature in our industry for at least 30 years, driving the industry forward.
Welcome, Jim. Do you want to say a few words about yourself?
Jim Whittaker: Thanks, Ed. Yeah, thanks for the intro. 30 years plus makes me sound kind of old, but I've had a great opportunity over my career to work with some really smart folks across the FM industry practitioners, consultants, but also through our work with IFMA on the Board of Directors.
I was past chair of the IFMA Global Board of Directors. And through IFMA was given an opportunity to head up the U. S. delegation to ISO, Facilitating Management Standards and other boards for the National Academies and National Institute of Building Sciences. So a pleasure to be here.
Edwin Buckley: Very awesome.
Thank you. And actually you're a published author as well, and I have a confession. So you published your book probably just over a decade ago, and that was at a time that I was working workplace for [00:03:00] Ericsson. And it actually set me on the journey that I've been on to where I am now VP of Facility Operations at TD Industries.
Very much focused on maintenance, the critical and environment, the infrastructure for our clients. And what's becoming an obsession around things like internal air quality and the use of technology. So, so I'm just gonna read out the title for anybody that would actually like to get inspired by the book as well.
So achieving performance as a goal. Achieving excellence in facility management in that book. You spoke about a lot of challenges and ways of managing our facilities in a more high performance way. So what's changed since then? This is a pretty fast moving industry these days. So, if you wrote this book today.
What would you change in the book?
Jim Whittaker: There have been a lot of changes in the past decade. When I wrote the book, it was about the journey, as you mentioned, that at your time and that time about the journey. At that time, it was [00:04:00] really about, I think facility managers were struggling to show the value of what we were doing in the industry to Deliver value to our clients, our demand organizations.
So at the time it was a kind of an advisory consultative approach to understand the baseline of where you are today in the facilities realm. Look at where you want to go and vision of desired outcomes and create that journey map or a baseline in a road map. To achieve that journey and achieve those outcomes.
So it looked, it started with IFMA competencies and ISO standards to build a capability maturity model. Pretty broad across the competencies and looking at technologies and how to do that. I think the thing that has changed the most over the decade is, maybe a decade or a little more than that, you know, we were struggling to have [00:05:00] good data.
You create the baseline and really drive those outcomes. Today we have a huge acceleration in the growth of technology point solutions that has created an enormous amount of data. Unfortunately, that data is not well contextualized that well normalized. So it's how do we integrate those data?
Into the systems approach and again, deliver that value, though, I think what's really changed is our growth and rapid acceleration and the use of technologies and the amount of data that we've generated that could be useful and really delivering on those outcomes and showing how we're driving high performance and facility, not quite there yet as an industry, but a lot of changes and I think growth in the right direction.
Edwin Buckley: So, so I think one of the things that you've just mentioned there with the, I [00:06:00] guess it's data familiarity or data literacy that's one of the things, one of the areas that I've found myself coming across lately, and with trying to recruit facility managers who have a degree of data literacy, it feels to me like the competence is required to be an FM , changing along with the capabilities that are coming along, what are your thoughts about, what an FM needs to know today to be successful in their environment?
I'd be fascinated to get your thoughts on that.
Jim Whittaker: Yeah, the core competencies are still there and what we need to do to deliver services and complete our job to be done as facility managers. So all of our processes around real estate, leasing transactions, project management, operations and maintenance sustainability are still there today.
Still the strategy, the framework is correct. I think the big, biggest change is in [00:07:00] again that literacy of data. And how do we really use that data to help achieve those outcomes? It really has changed and I think one of the key things is. There's the explosion, not only of technologies and point solutions that enable us to do our job, but how that requires us to be more literate about data topology.
Again, the contextualization and the integration of a lot of those solutions. Again, 10 years ago, a little bit more, we used to think of the whole realm of FM technologies was centered around computerized maintenance management systems, CMMS. or Integrated Workplace Management Systems, IWMS, and some others.
Today, there are literally thousands of technology point solutions for the FM. And the understanding of how those technologies can integrate and [00:08:00] exchange information and data to drive better analytics, better results. But I think the other thing, too, is you've mentioned data literacy. To me, it always starts with the end in mind.
What are our desired outcomes? So we as FMs, you know, we're there to do our job. We're there to make sure we provide healthy, safe, secure, resilient, reliable facilities. They've got to be fully compliant. We need to protect the asset value of our portfolio. And we need to operate those facilities effectively and efficiently.
As well as drive sustainability goals and experiential goals. So if we start with that kind of outcomes based performance measurement frame of work and then drive down on what are the key performance indicators that drive success and then the data topology, what are the data inputs and the metrics required to deliver those KPIs and show those outcomes.
I think that's the [00:09:00] change. And that's what is new to FM's in terms of literacy around data and how that data can not only help us drive outcomes, but use the data for better insights, better decision making. And today, even when we start to, I'm sure we'll get into the topic of AI, it's on everybody's mind, you know, how that data is contextualized into different data architectures.
To best utilize all that aggregated centralized data to use AI platforms to help us do our job even better.
Edwin Buckley: So before we geek out on AI, I think one of the areas One of the topics that you were talking about in the conference is that there's really a lot of people involved already. As I've looked back across my career with all the systems that we've tried to deploy, at the end of the day, it comes down to, or has come down to the availability of sensors [00:10:00] and the availability of people who are willing to enter data in a way that it can then be used later on. So I guess with AI that might now give us the ability to look at. I think the terms unstructured data that might be locked away in a CMMS system in a note in a file that's attached to that CMMS system somewhere in the deepest, darkest depths of it.
That was yeah. Written by a technician who just turned up on site for the day and really didn't know what equipment they were looking at. Would that be correct? Do you see that's where AI may actually help us, or is it just going to hinder us even more?
Jim Whittaker: I think it will help us. We're doing a number of things on the AI front.
And there's, you know, there's different ways of looking at AI from predictive to prescriptive to generative AI and what we want it to do. But I think, Ed, you mentioned something else I think that's really important and relevant is that today, and especially after the disruptive event that was [00:11:00] the pandemic, you know, now, Three, four, five years ago.
It really takes us into a new way of working in the facilities realm. We, you know, talk about hybrid work or a new way of work, but it's definitely more dynamic than it used to be. And that gave us the focus to look at what you mentioned is with a dynamic way of doing business, we need more agility in how we use the data.
So it's not just batched work order data and information out of CW, Steam, MMS, and IWMS, but it's also sensor data and building automation data. And again, those are often different repositories of real time continuous monitoring data. And how do we incorporate that and use that in optimizing our performance, our productivity, but also those insights.
So there's been an enormous investment in IoT sensors. There's hundreds of sensor [00:12:00] manufacturers out there. We see hundreds of thousands of sensors being installed into buildings on top of building automation systems. And again, the key element is how do you integrate that data? How do you trend that data to be able to utilize it for process improvement and insight?
And again, it gets back to that contextualization. And a new dynamic way of working in the FM realm
Edwin Buckley: as I'm listening to that, I'm thinking of one of the challenges that myself and others face on a daily basis, which is the plethora of technology companies who wish to sell us stuff. Individual point to point solutions.
And I think back to my days, actually, in the technology industry the firm I used to work for we needed to be interoperable with other telco technology providers. And so we actually had a number of data centers where we would bring in our competitors equipment, [00:13:00] their software, their technology with the sole purpose of ensuring that we could be interoperable because we're this big patchwork across the entire network.
I don't see that today. Inside FM, it's been a major point of concern for me, and I'll say a major point of frustration. The number of systems that really haven't talked to each other. It's And yes, the data is in there, but at the end of the day, you're left with the frustration that you have to pull individual CSV files away from each individual system, then manually manipulate it to bring it together.
And at that point, find that it's actually still slightly off, and the baselines are slightly different, and you've just wasted a lot of time for very little insight. How can we overcome that? Because if we don't? I don't know that we're going to get the benefit of the technology and the way that other industries have.
Jim Whittaker: Completely agree that you're, you know, there's a lot to unpack there.
But I think that let me [00:14:00] summarize and look at it this way. I think there's good news and bad news or challenging news opportunities. First, the good news. I think we've come a long way. And not only interoperability standards, things like BACnet, LongWorks, the protocol, or the hardware and software connectivity.
So there's a lot greater interoperability in those standards there with a lot of those technologies in place. I think there are also good data standards now in place and available for FMs to go. Things like OSCRE and ISO and others. And provide the framework, the protocol, the standardization that makes it easier to exchange information between those applications.
I think if we look at what we really want to do is go back to that, you know, again, that end in mind those desired outcomes and think of it in layers. And, you know, I'm going to simplify into kind of three layers. The core [00:15:00] foundational layer is the ingestion of data, and this is where we look at how do we connect technologies, building automation, IoT sensors, non real time solutions like CMMS, iWIMS, and other applications to be able to aggregate all that data
into a central data lake, data repository, an IDL or we enterprise data platforms, cloud platforms. There's a lot of security requirements and variations in that. But if we look at the lowest layer ingestion into a contextualized IDL or data layer in data lake, then we can aggregate that more consistently and then look at an extensibility layer into applications.
That then drive what we're looking at. There are a lot of energy management applications or EIS systems that we can look at analytics and BI dashboards around energy performance. We have a lot of engineering and asset [00:16:00] management applications, a lot of leasing, you know, all of those other kind of point solutions driving the analytics and centralized dashboards.
So if you again look at it in that architectural schema of ingestion, contextualized, well managed, governed data, and then a data lake, and then being able to extend out into application or analytics profiles to be able to give us not only the insights, But again, optimized performance. So the challenge I think is the FM understanding where to find those standards, how to look at interoperability issues get guidance and help on connecting all of those.
So you can most efficiently integrate the data and normalize that data for broad use. And then again, there are a number of good. Analytics platforms or building from [00:17:00] intelligence platforms to drive those outcomes and again, drive into work order applications or other management applications, handheld applications in the field to optimize performance and productivity.
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Edwin Buckley: So what I'm taking for that is we actually need to get a good data scientist or a good analyst to help us out. I think at the [00:18:00] expense of us geeking out here and potentially losing some of the the FM's on the call, I think that goes back to the comment you made earlier about the competencies. There are different competencies that are required.
I love your Thought your consistent thought about, start with the end in mind. I kind of see that's the real role of the fm. You need to be very clear what you want the data for. I've made the mistake myself of seeing the bright, shiny object, bringing and bringing a software system in or bringing an application in o only to find the read didn't quite deliver what I wanted.
But the actual exercise of going through that procurement helps me understand or doing the procurement properly with some folks from I. T. with some folks from procurement actually went through the process of being forced to think about what was I going to do with it at the end? And in fact, did I really need to assist that particular system to do it?
And when the data came in, could I actually action it? Which I think, as we know, with some of the older [00:19:00] buildings that we deal with, It's great to say that we can be we have a lot of analytical horsepower there, but if we don't really have a way to pull data in from the building, we're still somewhat using rules of thumb and the like, although all proxies I do have, I have a slightly controversial question for you harking back to my telecom technology days and that considerable effort to ensure intra operability between systems.
Why do you believe it's the case that still many providers in our industry insist on proprietary systems?
Jim Whittaker: I think the bottom line to me is stickiness. You know, I see, you know, going back to, you know, what you said just a little while ago is You know, the FM really needs to look at the overall outcomes and, you know, look at the architecture of how things fit together.
I get probably two or three [00:20:00] requests for meetings every week on new technologies that have come about, and they often come about from other industries. A new shiny object in HR or telecom or manufacturing comes over and says, Hey, we think this would be applicable in the facility management realm and not fully understanding the interoperability requirements.
But also I think the proprietary nature because of so much competition, every third party solution developer is looking for that stickiness. How do they make their application sticky? The best way to do that is proprietary IP and get you locked into buying that shiny object and having to rely on their proprietary solution for a number of things that locks them in to the future and growth and not allowing, you know, that simple data, you know, [00:21:00] migration and others to be locked in.
So it, it helps them, you know, with the competition and being, you know, available and, you know, for FM's and in that process. I think that's one of the key things we see. It's either unfamiliarity with the, you know, what we need to do is FM's and managing buildings because they're creating solutions.
You know, slightly on the periphery of the built environment or again, how do they create, you know, long term stickiness with their application? It's very easy to say, Hey, we can end this out with another application.
Edwin Buckley: Yes I've I've dealt personally with the, we can be interoperable, but you need to bring the other systems to us and we will integrate it for you.
And someone somewhat lock you in over time talking to standards. You mentioned at the start or we spoke just before the podcast about your involvement with Technical Committee [00:22:00] 267 of International Standards Organization the early work on ISO 41, 000 series, which is the FM series.
There's a few of us who are lucky enough to start building on your work with the latest round of updates to that. What if you wouldn't mind sharing just a few thoughts for our audience on what ISO 41, 000 is? Why the FM should be downloading a copy and taking a good look at it.
Jim Whittaker: Sure. A little bit of background to maybe highlight this and why it was created.
And I think there's a couple of key things. Initially, you know, one of the periphery goals and objectives of creating the ISO technical committee around FM was years ago. Again, we were struggling as a, is it a profession? Is it a discipline? And to be an FM profession enlisted in various [00:23:00] parts of the world, or even in the US as a, you know, a Department of Labor profession, you needed to have a number of things.
You had to have trade associations like IFMA. That brought people together in education. You needed academic elements in the IFMA credentialed FM degree programs was part of that. The other element was in terms of certification, credentialing, and trade associations. was standards and global standards.
Socreating the ISO FM standards committee enabled us to create those standards to then add to those other elements that IFMA had been working on to be recognized as a true profession. The true goal beyond that was, how do we help facility managers really deliver value? And how do we look at creating standards to provide guidance, provide a framework and [00:24:00] sufficient detail to enable global consistency?
You know, when we look at, you know, benchmarking, you know, even fairly narrowly focused is very difficult, often for many of the reasons we were just talking about. As you go globally and you look at national standards and different ways of working across the globe, it's extremely difficult to not only benchmark, but as a global organization, how do you operate across the globe?
So the ISO standards are truly important global consensus standards that create a framework to enable the optimization of how we deliver FM services. The thing I love most about the simplification of the ISO standards is it's built around what we call a plan do check act model, which is, you know, when we look at the number of standards, there's, I think there's well over 24, 000 ISO [00:25:00] standards across various industries across the globe.
But there's less than a dozen management system standards. Things like ISO 9001 quality management, I think most people are fairly familiar with that. The 14, 000 series on environmental services and health and safety asset management system standards, ISO 55, 000. And then ISO 41001, which is around facility management.
Standards. And what I love about that is it creates a framework to hang all the other more detailed technical standards off. So to take a look at kind of breaking down 41, 001 is a management system standard. Really, what it does is it gives a framework to look at understand the context of your organization.
What are the goals and objectives, the outcomes that we were looking at, understanding and get leadership commitment and buy in and understanding from a demand organization or the client and you know, how, what [00:26:00] we see is success. And then all the planning elements of what we need to do across the FM spectrum from operational planning to capital planning and real estate, et cetera, portfolio planning.
Then into identifying the resources to be able to eventually execute and then audit, check how we are executing and how we're performing and where we identify nonconformance to that corrective action driving back into how do we continually improve our process.
So it's a great framework to very simply kind of structure how we operate as FMs. And then we have a number of the technical standards that you've been involved with as well, building out around sourcing and performance measurement and technology on and on. They give you more detail on global best practices of how we do those.
So I found them, you know, it was a lot of work in the development, but [00:27:00] rewarding, and I would certainly encourage anybody to look at those standards and see how they apply.
Edwin Buckley: Great. Thanks, Jim. And we have just scratched the surface of a number of important topics that are impacting our industry today. The need for interoperability.
The need for our FMS to focus on strategy and for the sake of what to bring in other skill sets and drive our competencies. And just to finish off, I guess, to use the plan do check act that you just mentioned to just close out. I would ask our audience to plan to attend world workplace in October.
We actually do have a panel session. If you're interested in learning more on interoperability and standards check after world workplace, go back to your facilities and your systems and see how you stack up and then a act make the changes that you need to make in order to continue the journey.
So this has been fun. [00:28:00] It's always a pleasure to chat with you, Jim. I just want to thank you and thank our audience for listening. And here's to World Workplace in October 2024.
Jim Whittaker: Thanks, Ed. Pleasure chatting with you. Thank you.
Host: Thank you so much for listening. I hope you really enjoyed this episode. And as always, please don't forget to rate, review, and subscribe to the podcast for more incredible content.