3 Districts Implement Smarter Buildings Technology in Response to Shrinking Budgets -- THE Journal

3 Districts Implement Smarter Buildings Technology in Response to Shrinking Budgets

By Leila Meyer
01/30/13

Three of the country's largest school districts have implemented Smarter Buildings technology to help reduce costs and increase revenue from their facilities. The technology is helping them manage leases, prioritize infrastructure upgrades, and improve building maintenance processes.

The School District of Palm Beach County (SDPBC) in Florida, Portland Public Schools (PPS) in Oregon, and Clark County School District (CCSD) in Nevada are all using Smarter Buildings technology from IBM. SDPBC and PPS are using IBM TRIRIGA facilities management software for improving operational, financial, and environmental performance of the facilities. CCSD is using IBM Maximo asset management software.

The School District of Palm Beach County began leasing out its rooms and buildings to commercial and non-profit organizations outside of school hours as a way of generating revenue to offset costs. However, the district found the leasing and contract processes time consuming and expensive, so SDPBC implemented IBM TRIRIGA facilities management software across its 187 schools to help reduce administrative paperwork and manage the costs of leasing facilities. Since implementing IBM TRIRIGA, the district has increased its leasing revenue and expects to generate $4.5 million this year.

Portland Public Schools is using IBM TRIRIGA to help prioritize upgrades to its aging facilities, which are are 70 years old, on average, and need to be modernized to support new technology. The district is also using the facilities management software to more efficiently identify locations where structural updates are required, increase the speed of infrastructure repairs, and predict when general repairs are needed. Since implementing IBM TRIRIGA across its 81 schools, the district has reduced its facilities management costs by 15 percent and improved the speed of its modernization efforts by 46 percent.

Clark County School District is using IBM Maximo asset management software to prioritize and respond to maintenance requests at its 392 schools and administrative buildings. According to a prepared statement from Cynthia Atterberry, work management coordinator for the district, the software's analytics capabilities have enabled the district "to go from just reacting to emergency work orders to making data-driven, even predictive decisions on maintenance requests."

Further information about IBM's Smarter Buildings solutions can be found on the company's Smarter Buildings portal.

About the Author

Leila Meyer is a technology writer based in British Columbia. She can be reached at [email protected].

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