Digitalization and added value in facility management
INTERVIEW Jérôme Paquot - FM Magazine 39 -September 2024
In a sector undergoing rapid transformation, digitalization is becoming an essential lever for offering ever more adapted and efficient facility management services. In this article published by FMMagazine, Jérôme Paquot, Head of XLG, shares his expertise on the impact of new technologies and AI in the management of buildings and associated services. From customizing digital tools to meet specific customer needs, to integrating innovative solutions such as conversational AI and robotics, he discusses the challenges and opportunities of this digitalization to create real added value. Explore how XLG is using these advances to enhance the quality, efficiency and personalization of its facility management services.
Jérôme Paquot / XLG - "Digitization often helps the facility provider more than its beneficiary, the customer. With this in mind, we asked ourselves how our digitization strategy could also create value for the end-customer. Clearly, this required some form of customization of our tools for our customers. In other words, integrating their real needs according to their specific IT requirements, premises, security standards and so on. Our dedicated mobile apps enable us to define with them the preventive and corrective maintenance required, and to offer them reporting in the form of a dashboard that includes THEIR performance indicators. This customization of our tools creates real value for the customer. Each new project is associated with a specific technical and digital solution, enabling us to draw up precise schedules in advance and pre-program the necessary resources.
J.P. - "AI has yet to produce any revolution. Open AI 4.0 is, however, promising in terms of improving conversational audio. In this new version, the human can interrupt the AI during a conversation, and the AI adapts to the person's speech in real time. This opens up the possibility of direct contact between the AI and employees in the field, via their mobile phones, to talk about planning, work in progress, clocking in and out... On the other hand, AI will be able to take a maximum number of telephone calls and data-related requests from anywhere. Another project under study: hands-free communication for our workers in the field. AI will enable us to converse with them via airpods. The technology will greatly enhance conversational communication, with the added bonus of being multilingual. We're also banking on AI to integrate a maximum number of variables into the scheduling of team rounds in different locations. Software will calculate the best routes, and AI will help set all the parameters required for interventions.
J.P. - "For FM, at XLG as with our customers, the keystone is planning and its optimal management. XLG knows a thing or two about this, as an expert in flying teams and multi-site working. Since January, the ONSS has launched the Checkinatwork obligation. All our cleaners must check in and out at the start and end of their shift. The ONSS has provided us with an app that we have integrated into our ERP. This improves monitoring of the 2,000 people we put to work every day. We always test our new tools internally first. For example, our "passage sheets", equipped with NFC chips and QR codes, are designed for our surface technicians in charge of cleaning areas such as washrooms, kitchens, etc. They slide their smartphones in front of these sheets, which are then read by our staff. They slide their smartphones in front of these NFC chips. This generates a tag that registers their passage. Then, anyone can scan the QR code to find out when the area has been cleaned and leave positive or negative feedback, a question, etc. The FM can use this information to improve service.
J.P. - "Robotics is evolving, but it's still very costly. When it comes to automated supermarket cleaning tests, robots still can't do it completely autonomously. They still need a human presence. The same applies to robot vacuum cleaners in offices, with mixed results. In fact, robotization can only work in an integrated approach. In other words, buildings must be designed from the outset to accommodate robots.
Text Fernand Letist and Tilly Baekelandt - Read the full article on fm-magazine.be
