Case Study: How One Shopping Centre Identified Three Major Issues With Its FM Operations Within A Week Of Implementing A Contactless FM System

Last month, Péarlaí’s advanced and innovative contactless facilities management compliance system was installed in a shopping centre in the north of Ireland. Péarlaí’s system guarantees to improve compliance and identify areas of improvement in the day to day running of a facility. The centre manager was adamant that their staff were completing their tasks as necessary. However, issues were found with compliance, efficiency and how often the centre’s cleaning and security staff were completing their tasks, and using the indisputable data generated from Péarlaí’s system, these issues were subsequently able to be quickly resolved. In fact, the overall daily compliance of the centre increased by 27% within the first week of installation. 

One of the first issues identified by the client thanks to Péarlaí’s system was that the centre was over-staffed on weekdays, and under-staffed on weekends. This was discovered when compliance data for tasks such as security staff patrolling checkpoints around the centre was close to 100% during the week, but staff were missing many of their required checkpoints at the weekend and compliance figures dropped. It was found that compliance was so high because three or four staff members were hitting each security & cleaning checkpoints at each half-hour interval on weekdays, and in comparison, there weren’t enough staff to hit every checkpoint at each interval on weekends. Identifying this issue helped the client to allocate more staff on weekends and make the centre’s operations equally efficient throughout the week with no additional cost. 

The client was also adamant that the centre’s ride-on cleaning machine was being used daily as required, as every morning the centre manager would arrive at the centre and see the staff member in charge of the machine using it, and assumed it was being used all around the centre. However, when one of Péarlaí’s small RFID tags was attached to it, it was found that while the ride-on cleaning machine was being used every morning, it was only ever being used in one of the four areas it was supposed to be. The centre manager wouldn’t have known this without seeing the compliance data for each of the areas where Péarlaí’s readers were strategically placed to pick up evidence that the task was being done. Thanks to Péarlaí’s system, the centre manager can now tell that the other 75% of the centre is being cleaned as required. 

The third issue discovered at the centre using Péarlaí’s system within a week of installation was on Thursdays from around 5:30pm onwards as well as all day on Sundays. At these times, staff members’ compliance for their required tasks would begin to fall, because there were no management staff present at these times. Again, the centre manager wouldn’t have known this was happening if Péarlaí’s system hadn’t been put in place. With Péarlaí’s system this could clearly be seen as during the first few hours on Thursdays, compliance was close to 100% and then suddenly dropped to around 40% after 5:30pm when there were no management staff in the centre. Similarly, while most times during the week compliance figures were around 90%, on Sunday compliance would also drop to around 60% due to management staff not being present. Now as a result of the accurate data from Péarlaí’s CAFM (Computer Aided Facility Management) system, management staff at the centre can identify and resolve issues like this and ensure compliance remains high at all times and their expectations are met. 

Within a week of installing Péarlaí’s innovative asset and compliance monitoring system, three compliance issues were identified, and the centre manager was able to take steps to resolve these issues and ensure a more efficient, smoother-running business. The following Monday, the centre manager called to say Péarlaí’s system was “the best CAFM system [he had] ever seen, and that it “should be installed in every centre in the country”.