FMJ Facilities Management magazine providing industry-specific intelligence to FM and property professionals
Founder and Managing Director of Okappy, Richard Harris reviews the most significant technological changes that took place in 2022 and what FMs should look out for this year
Technology is constantly evolving, with every new invention comes a new possibility and a new way to streamline processes. Looking at the industry as a whole, we’ve seen big changes across the board over the past year. In particular, we saw the continued growth of market networks. There’s also been a lot of interest in Web3, the Metaverse and Blockchain and how these platforms can revolutionise a businesses’ day-to-day process.
We also saw a lot of machine learning and data analytics, which is trying to use the data that we’ve got more effectively. The network and the connected approach is trying to bring all the data together and have a single view or a golden source of data.
RISE OF CHATGPT
I suppose the biggest thing, particularly recently, is the surge in interest in ChatGPT [a natural language processing tool that can create content, images and even code on demand via conversations with a chatbot] and other Artificial Intelligence (AI) programmes. It seems to have really stepped up in the last few months. We’ve been looking at AI from a perspective of customer support and being able to answer questions quicker than before.
In the past, we’ve found programmes to be quite clunky and not very accurate or efficient. We’ve been experimenting with ChatGPT and it’s a whole new level of AI. I think it will change things in certain industries. The speed with which it’s taken hold in the last couple of months has been a big surprise.
In a lot of our industries, we didn’t see massive change, and FM is the same. I think most of the change we’ve seen has been in construction, although it’s been very small scale trials. We’ve seen robotics, drones, 3D printing of structures, different types of materials and IoT sensors.
From our perspective, the market-network side is growing and collaboration is still there, and that’s not going away. The rise of Augmented reality (AR) the integration of digital information with the user’s environment in real time – is also very interesting for our customers. We can use it to show relevant information to technicians on their display.
I recently read an article that a construction firm has hired a major player from the automotive sector. The automotive industry is seeing productivity increase as the use of technology within the industry also increases. I think this shows how other industries can learn from the automotive industry and why collaboration between industries is key to moving forward.
IMPROVING PERFORMANCE
Because we are getting so many jobs through the platform now, with some customers having thousands of jobs per month, we really had to concentrate on improving the performance and processing functionality of Okappy.
Security improvements were really important as well, particularly after the Ukraine invasion. There’s been a lot of talk about malware and viruses. It’s something customers don’t see, so it can be tricky to convince them that they should consider different passwords or rotating them.
We’ve also looked at being able to manage customers’ asset inventory. We’ve also done a lot of work enhancing location tracking, seeing where vehicles and engineers are and improving that. We’ve seen that our networks have been growing and more people have been using Okappy to build their network as well as processing jobs. I think connected software and collaboration is something that’s going to stay.
NEW TECHNOLOGY CHALLENGES
I think there’s going to be a lot of ideas and products built off the rise in AI. When you see these big changes there is always a catalyst, such as the iPhone, it came out and suddenly we’d got loads of apps. We could see the same thing with AI with ChatGPT.
Messaging is something we’ve built into our own platform and we want to push it as an alternative to move away from WhatsApp and iMessage and have distributed platforms that different clients can hook into. It’s about not having just one big player and everyone has to use that, it’s about having distributed products which will all link together.
FM’s top priorities for 2023 will be about trying to manage what they’ve got. Technology can often take a backseat in FM; we should prioritise it more, take a step back and think about how we can use technology to really grow or improve the business.
I’d also love to see FMs make assets and equipment more effective. Getting information that much quicker and being more analytical in terms of how resources are scheduled or where it’s sent. It seems the network and marketing side is obviously something that we’re keen to push.
Most of the technology changes seem to just be a lot of hype at this stage. It’s not that the technology isn’t transforming, but the businesses aren’t transforming off the back of it yet.
