Post-IFMA Facility Fusion Conference Chat with Arundhati – Part 1

[jessica_smith]

For those who attended IFMA last month, you may have run into Autodesk’s Arundhati Ghosh. Arundhati joined Autodesk in July 2022 as one of Tandem’s Customer Adoption Specialists.

She and I chatted shortly after returning from IFMA’s Facility Fusion. She was so energized by the conference that we thought we’d share our conversation with the Tandem community. So, enjoy this lovely, laid-back catchup I had with Arundhati.

Since we’re now posting this on the forums, why don’t you introduce yourself to the audience?

I’m a Customer Adoption Specialist with Tandem. My background is in Architecture, Construction Management, and BIM-FM. I’ve been in this world for some time, so transitioning into the world of digital twins was the natural next step for me when the opportunity came to join Tandem.

I love the creative process of architecture and construction! I have experienced the innovation of a design process and the rush of being on a job site. But I always wondered, “So, what’s next?”.

The facilities management world has been attractive to me because that’s really where things become real. Throughout my background and career, finding that ultimate end to a movie- “What? What’s that end result?” In other words, what happens after the handover? So that’s why I really like this field. Having that intersection with technology, sustainability, and looking forward is just fun. It’s the mishmash of disciplines coming together, and that interaction is what I love about this space.

I also have a passion for sustainability and for women in the industry and how they grow in the industry. So those are kind of few things that drive me.

They’re extremely few people that can say, “I am super interested in facility management.” It’s so awesome to hear, especially when it is a super male-dominated industry.

That’s like part of my being. I love that challenge. I’m like, “Okay, all right. Let’s figure this out. Let’s get more women. Why are we in this field?

What did you think about IFMA’s Facility Fusion Conference? What were some of your take-a-ways

This was my first time being a member of this community. I’ve always seen it from the outside.

The first day we hosted the digital twin Table as part of an event called the Workplace Evolutionaries Mosh Pit. It was a very interesting event. There were 10 tables; each had a specific discussion topic ranging from digital transformation, change management, healthy buildings, circular economy, BIM, and digital twins. Each table could accommodate up to 10 people, and attendees would rotate through each table in a “choose your own adventure” way. My job was to facilitate conversation and guide the group in an unbiased fashion. It was interesting to see the variation in how FM practitioners understood what a digital twin is and its potential value to their business. The first adventurous group, which happened to be attendees with highly technical backgrounds, discussed having automated, predictive maintenance through digital twins. The following groups consisted of maintenance managers and workplace managers dwelling on how there are several definitions floating around in the industry; some were comparing it to BIM, laser scans, AR/VR, or a central source of truth. One comment was, “Oh, it’s such a broad term!”. The themes that came up consistently were the importance of integrating into the FM software ecosystem and enabling data-driven decision-making for predictive maintenance workflows.

I spent the second day attending a few sessions, interacting with professionals, and visiting the Hilton Hotel in San Francisco! I gained an understanding of some decisions an FM makes on their feet. You regularly deal with poor facility data and constrained budgets while ensuring the health and safety of occupants are top priorities, and all this while also making sure your documentation is complete for proper reporting to the C-Suite. The reality is that you can’t wait for somebody to come up with the perfect solution for you. [Owner/Operators] must continue doing your job every day, being able to make decisions, and you hope that that’s the right decision. Realizing this, I asked, “Aren’t you guys burnt out? I would be if I were in this high-risk, stressful job all the time.” And they said, “Yeah, it depends on the facility type. What would be true for one facility manager, like managing a court system, may not be true for a facility manager operating rental properties.” It’s different personas with very different needs.

I think for me, I gained empathy for the facility manager role. That’s probably my top takeaway. Simply put, I understood more how much FM professional’s work is a jack-of-all-trades. You need to know a little about a lot of different things – MEP, architecture, finance, maintenance, state & federal regulations, to name a few - and you must find the right partners and vendors to support you through this process. It is an interesting role, but it’s rarely visible to the public.

The final takeaway was the tech fatigue they must have with so many vendors on the exhibit floor; each one of them will claim they have a different solution. There were several IoT vendors whose products were very similar. Choosing the technology for your organization must be challenging...

It is, but mainly because of cost, right? Because facility orgs are entirely overhead. Like we don’t make the company money, we can save them money, but they don’t make them any money. Right?

Right! One person was telling me about how he had chosen a new CMMS. I asked him, “Hey, how did you go about making this choice?” They answered, “Well, I sent out 20 emails, and [the chosen vendor] was the only one who responded.” So yeah, this is just too much, too little. And to your point, it’s all overhead and with little to no budget in some cases. So, I like the effort that IFMA is putting into elevating this role and making it more visible. 

Agreed.

You know, architects/engineers, and contractors typically get most of the attention. Their jobs are easily understood by those who may not even be related to this industry. We think of a facilities manager as someone with a wrench, which is definitely not the case.

Facility folks do get upstaged quite easily.

Consider [the facilities team] to be a part of this industry. We always talk about Owners like it is one person. It is a whole entity with very different stakeholders having their own value drivers. Facility Managers must be brought into the fold as well. They are WAY more than just people in the background fixing things because that’s not what it is.

That’s so true!

Author Jessica Smith
Driven by her experience and passion in facility management, Jessica joined the Autodesk Tandem team as a Support Program Specialist to help extend technology to building owners and operators. Before joining the Tandem team, Jessica was a Facility Coordinator for Autodesk. While in facilities, she focused on and worked with various systems such as Lutron, BIM 360 Ops, FM Systems, and Centrica, formally known as Panoramic Power. With all this are her fingertips, she works on streamlining processes between systems.