Innovation Leads to Integrated Facility Management
The Worldwide Facilities Group (WFG) of General Motors is implementing an initiative to incorporate all space information data describing its massive North American portfolio--some 190 million sf of space--into a single computer-aided facility management (CAFM) system. WFG spent more than $3 million in the last year gathering and maintaining the space data for all domestic non-manufacturing and manufacturing facilities.

Bio-Safety Levels Help Reduce the Risk of Laboratory Infection
"During the last few decades there have been dramatic advancements made in the technology used to contain microbes in laboratory settings," says Michael Kiley, Ph.D., Research Program Safety Officer with the Agriculture Research Services of the United States Department of Agriculture in Beltsville, Md.

Adds Consistency and Accountability to Facilities' Role in R&D
Following a merger that almost doubled Pfizer's size, the pharmaceutical giant's Global Research and Development (PGRD) division has established company-wide procedures to manage planning and design of new R&D facilities. This ambitious project is part of PGRD's mission to be the most consistently productive research organization in the world, says Charles B. Manula, Jr., director of Global Strategic Facilities Planning for PGRD in New London, Conn.

Porting the original scorecard system to the new ChevronTexaco BRES entity posed a logistical challenge, especially in places where both companies had parallel operations, such as Houston and Bakersfield, Calif.

Surveys Uncover Action Items, Scorecards Align Results with Corporate Vision
Observing the first anniversary of its merger in October 2002, ChevronTexaco Corporation (CT) is ahead of schedule in capturing $2.2 billion in synergy benefits by integrating operations of the two global energy companies. Even with a plethora of changes, the new streamlined organization retains a multitude of practices instituted by the original entities, including the balanced performance measurement system initially developed and deployed by former operating companies such as Chevron Chemical and Chevron Real Estate Management Company (CREMCO).

Tracking Assets Through Web Integration
The University of Missouri-Columbia (MU) has developed a groundbreaking model for online facility and space management. Scott Shader, assistant director of space planning and management, and his staff are responsible for tracking 50,000 records relating to more than 1,100 facilities spread across 36 campus sites. To manage this massive portfolio MU has linked an ARCHIBUS Web portal to the HR and Accounting modules of PeopleSoft, the maintenance management suite Maximo, and a searchable archive database called Findview. The result is a powerful Web-based system that ties together space inventory data, Human Resources, Accounting, building plans, and archived maps into a single resource.