The conversion, which is scheduled to be phased in from July 2003 to January 2004, removes the applications that serve as intermediaries between the data that is available on the Web and the people who provide the data.

As employees become less reliant on locally installed applications, they reduce the burden on the company's IT support staff, freeing IT employees to maintain the various servers that house applications, databases, and the Web itself.

"The key for us was to give the responsibility for doing the work to the people who were closest to it," says Andrew Williams, the University's director of Space and Asset Management. "It's low-tech for the users. You don't need huge powerful systems to run it; you just need a browser.

"If employees are on the road, they can work from their hotel room," he continues. "They can work on weekends and in the evenings at home if they have to, without coming into the office. Despite the initial rolling of eyes and shaking of heads at the idea, a lot of people do it."

Managing Many Diverse Assets

The University of Cincinnati, founded in 1819, is a state university enrolling about 32,000 full-time-equivalent graduate and undergraduate students, with 12,000 full-time employees and an approximately $800 million endowment.

The 137-acre main campus includes 64 buildings containing 7.5 million gsf. The adjacent medical center comprises 3.9 million gsf in 19 buildings on 57 acres. The four remaining campuses, including the Genome Research Institute and the College of Applied Science, occupy 1.3 million gsf in 40 buildings on 370 acres.

The inventory of moveable capital assets—those purchased for more than $5,000—is valued at more than $120 million. Non-capital assets total $77.6 million, and fixed lab equipment adds another $15.5 million.

Keeping track of these assets is a key consideration at the rapidly-expanding University, where eight buildings have been demolished for reconstruction just since January.

Why the Web?

Williams began displaying space management information on the Web in 1997 and deploying applications using FacilityCenter® software from TRIRIGA in 1998.

"We did most of the work ourselves, building a customized user interface for space management," he explains.

When Williams first arrived at the University, space management information was stored in a mainframe computer. The University would send a green-bar printout to cost centers across the University for review every year or two. Problems arose because people used inconsistent abbreviations for room types, or wrote down room numbers that didn't exist, he says.

"Sometimes mistakes were corrected in the database, sometimes they weren't, so people stopped bothering to mention them," he says. "We made the data more transparent by putting it on the Web where they could see it and say, 'Hey, that's wrong; that's not a conference room or that is now two rooms instead of one.' Within a day or two, someone would come out and measure the room to be sure, and the information would be corrected on the Web immediately. We created value in the process.

"Now they're getting used to seeing us around," Williams continues. "That creates a relationship. It lets people know that what they're telling us is important and not being ignored."

When the Public Safety Department saw how FacilityCenter handled asset and space management, it contracted with Williams' department to create a similar system to manage the distribution of 8,000 door keys on campus. Through the FacilityCenter system, Williams linked the departments, buildings, and rooms in the space management database. Each room is assigned to a department and only that owner is permitted to order a key.

"This has done a great job driving accuracy in our database," says Williams. "People had been ordering keys for years for rooms that they did not own. This created clarity of ownership."

Another database that interfaces with Space and Asset Management is the system that manages the University's grants. Research at the University is funded by federal grants, so research is subjected to a great deal of financial scrutiny. This scrutiny includes a Facilities and Administrative Cost survey, which requires the University to give an accurate accounting of the spaces and assets used under each grant. The federal government recently increased the University's reimbursement rate because it provides such accurate accounting, largely due to the integration of the databases.

The University's use of the Web will expand by the end of the summer to include a database inventorying all the chemicals used in all the labs and stored in all the storerooms at the University, which will also be integrated with FacilityCenter.

"This will improve the accuracy of the inventory. And it will provide better access to chemicals that are kept by other departments," he says. "The entire inventory will be recorded in one place. If you need a chemical, you can see if it's stored someplace else at the University."

Williams also plans to integrate FacilityCenter with three scheduling products called Series 25: Schedule 25, a classroom scheduling algorithm, which finds the best location for a course; Model 25, which allows the user to input scenarios such as reassigning classes after taking an entire building offline; and Resources 25, which allows a user to request rooms for classes or events and also reserve equipment, specific room set-ups, or get necessary approvals.

Series 25 is being implemented gradually and should be fully online in fall 2004.

"The University hopes to use it for all scheduling, including special events, approval, and billing," says Williams.

From Web-Enabled to Web-Based

The University's current system is merely Web-enabled, however, meaning that the data is not native to the Web, and must be imported from a back-end system and reformatted, explains David Karpook, product marketing director at TRIRIGA®. The University will be converting to TRIRIGA's new FacilityCenter 8i system, which is written exclusively in Web language, exposing the entire application to the Web. It can be accomplished with the University's current hardware, and most of it is being designed in-house.

"This allows us to customize ourselves, which saves money," says Williams. "We are always on an upgrade path. This is an extensible system," he adds. "We can build our own applications and they will be part of the environment rather than the poor step-children."

"The University can now change the application to fit the business process rather than vice versa," adds Karpook. "This increases a university's or a company's ability to react, rebound, and respond to changing conditions. The Web makes up-to-date information readily available instantaneously."

When it is fully implemented, FacilityCenter 8i will allow the people in each department#151;the ones responsible for maintaining data such as space usage and personnel changes—to put it online. They no longer will need to rely on someone else to translate that data for the Web.

It also will allow the people who work with that data to access it online and customize it for their specific needs. In the past, for example, employees in the planning office could access AutoCAD drawings of any building on campus. But if they did not have an AutoCAD application on their computer, they could not do anything with that data. FacilityCenter 8i will allow them to save the images as Scalable Vector Graphics, which, among other features, makes all text in the graphics searchable.

A Web-based system that utilizes an integration strategy known as Web Services also makes the integration of various databases and applications easier to accomplish. That gives individual departments the freedom to choose best-of-breed applications without worrying if they are compatible with those being used by other departments.

"Back in the days when they were relying on local machines or networks, it was very easy for a customer to become locked in, unable to make choices for different functions because the applications didn't work together," explains Karpook.

Switching to a Web-enabled system in 1997 was "revolutionary," says Williams. Making that system truly Web-based is more "evolutionary." Still, Williams is careful to make sure that employees at the University are kept informed as the system is phased in so that they buy into the changes.

"Never underestimate the power of the slightest communication," he says. "People like to be kept in the loop."

Williams also recommends that anyone planning such a conversion win over the employees early on in the process.

"Stage it so you can have a series of quick wins so people can see tangible results soon after you start spending money," he says. "That staves off a lot of criticism. At the same time, you need to make it clear that the system needs to roll out in stages; that you can't just flip a switch and there it is."

By Lisa Wesel

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