Foreword – A touch of green
This month, our newsletter has strong green overtones! Last month’s Reliability article on “Saving the forest” drew a lot more attention that expected, partly thanks to its environment-friendly approach (although the article was really about using mobile solutions to manage the inspection process, with only marginal savings in paper consumption). I also spoke at three conferences this month, two of which were focused on the operation and service aspects of Green Buildings (the third event showcased our technology for FM suppliers, a related topic), providing material for this month’s articles.
June also saw very interesting developments in our business, with another massively large scale facility management contract (with Carrefour China, 185 stores) and a number of smaller deals with industry clients. We have recently restructured our team to allow stronger focus on those two separate business segments, which obviously have a lot in common (the need to implement sound maintenance methodologies and habits, the use of technology to reach that goal) but also differ, mostly in terms of scale (number of sites being managed centrally) and depth of requirements (industrial facilities being technically much more complex). New partners have also joined our VAPP program, enhancing our own capabilities in those two directions.
Summer has come in most of China, with high temperatures and, once again for some of our industrial customers in certain cities, the infamous power cuts, as local governments struggle to meet their energy targets. As the year before, energy savings have become once again the “hot” topic at seminars and in the papers. Again, the topic of “green”, as green buildings are supposed to be, above all, energy efficient (which is not always the case, more on that in our Reliability article). This year, some of our customers have been able to negotiate with local officials to avoid power cuts, by demonstrating their efforts to reduce their energy consumption. Computerized records keep track of what has been done and the resulting improvement. Visibly well-maintained equipment, especially for big energy consumers like the HVAC and water treatment systems, gets the attention of local authorities, compared to perhaps the neighboring factory, whose compressor restarts every 5 minutes due to poor maintenance. If virtuous companies can avoid power cuts and only bad pupils get punished, we are clearly heading in the right direction.
Quick overview of this month’s issue: Reliability article on “Green Buildings: the operation and service perspective”, Partner article on Terao Green Engineering Building, a newcomer to our VAPP program further to our recent efforts to team up with firms involved in design and construction, Customer Story on… Siveco! It should not come as a surprise that we use our own solutions, when delivering onsite audits. Tips & Tricks features the “Free Modules” of COSWIN, which combined with other tools offer almost endless possibilities. Finally the usual Latest News.
For those readers who worry about my recent interest for green issues, feel reassured: I am going whale hunting in the North Sea for the holidays!
Enjoy the reading!
Bruno Lhopiteau
General Manger
Siveco China
General Manger
Siveco China
