NEWS & ANALYSIS FMJ.CO.UK
ASSOCIATION NEWS
WHAT FMS NEED TO KNOW ABOUT ICMS 2 AND LIFECYCLE COSTING
Life-cycle costs is vital to the financial
management of construction projects and
facilities management, representing a crucial
consideration in whole-life cost decisions when
income and non-construction costs, such as
acquisition and financing, are included.
It also enables critical decisions to be made
about the importance of capital and longerterm
costs that could ultimately a ect an asset’s
performance, longevity and how resilient it is.
Other life-cycle costs could be part of facilitiesrelated
costs as well, such as environmental
sustainability and occupancy costs such as subtenancy
rent.
However, there is currently no international
standard for classifying and benchmarking costs
across all types of project or throughout the life
cycle of buildings or infrastructure – leading to
discrepancies in the accounting process or in
comparing and predicting project finances.
Recently published, the second edition of
the International Construction Measurement
Standards (ICMS 2) now includes other lifecycle
costs such as asset renewals, operations
and maintenance, and end-of-life costs. It has
been developed through a process of extensive
collaboration between industry representatives
from 46 countries.
EMBRACING TECHNOLOGY FOR THE FUTURE
PROOF WORKPLACE
8 NOVEMBER 2019
Since the first edition, the principle of ICMS
has been to ensure global consistency when
classifying, defining, measuring, analysing and
presenting the entire construction and other lifecycle
costs, at a project, regional, state, national or
international level.
ICMS 2 will help facilities and asset managers in the
following ways, including but not limited to:
• Benchmarking historical life-cycle costs, such as
renewals, operation and maintenance.
• Improved budgeting for future life-cycle costs and
cost subgroups that are in scope during a project’s
post-construction phases.
• Sensitivity analysis of the impact that changes to
particular project and facilities specifications have on
life-cycle costing.
• Due diligence on business case decisions, from
the perspectives of facilities management cost and
a ordability alike.
• Cost management of facilities management
categories, namely operation and maintenance, asset
renewals and other facilities management in scope.
• Demonstrating value for money over the entire asset
life cycle, not just the lowest-capital project costs.
Informed clients need robust data and cost
reporting for benchmarking purposes in order to
assess the financial viability of their projects, and
whether it is a ordable to operate and maintain,
use and renew or dispose of them. Using ICMS,
advisers on the capital construction project, lifecycle
cost and facilities management can provide
construction and cost information to their clients
at various stages throughout each project’s life,
thereby improving cost certainty and enabling
better-informed decisions.
ICMS are designed to be used, where applicable,
with building information models. Project values
and attributes are designed to be used with dropdown
lists to ease data input and subsequent
analysis. It should be noted, however, that almost
all building information models have the relevant
data classification, such as Uniclass or Uniform 11,
that is aligned to the New Rules of Measurement
and also mapped to the relevant ICMS cost
categories and subgroups.
Andrew Green RICS Technical Author of New Rules of
Measurement 3 and director of Atkins
Last year IWFM
published a
report Embracing
Technology to Move FM
Forward where we asked
practitioners to assess
the impact emerging
technologies will have on
the profession over the
next decade. The results were a bit concerning.
Only when it came to the most familiar tech tools
or those already in the FM operating sphere,
could respondents foresee them playing a
significant part in the future. Over half agreed
that technologies such as building management
systems, building information modelling, CAFM
and integrated workplace management systems
ranked highest, with a nod to people analytics and
cloud computing.
Outside the 50 per cent plus list were big data,
machine learning, automated vehicles and robotics.
Less than a year before we published our report,
Harvard researchers had described AI, specifically
machine learning, as the most important generalpurpose
technology of our time. This, noted Tech
Consultant Antony Slumbers in his talk to this year’s
IWFM Conference said it will be everywhere; like
the combustion engine and electricity it has many
capabilities and is being commoditised fast.
For our research, FMs ranked, from four possible
tech futures which they thought most likely. Most
were positive, favouring an incremental digital
upgrade, the second favourite choice was more
radical change through a digital reinvention (a
move to data science and analytics). Third was an
incremental digital downgrade (marginalisation
and deskilling) and least likely of all was the
radically negative digital displacement (facilities
management ceasing to exist).
According to Slumbers, techs will have a massive
impact, but not necessarily in the way we expect. AI
has vast capabilities; perception, communication,
knowledge, reasoning, planning, predicting. So
great segments of the work FMs do in their roles are
perfect for AI. But, what’s absent from all this, he
says, and the reason work is changing, is because
of creation. “Computers are rubbish at creation and
humans are pretty damn good at it.”
So, the change we will see, he continued,
is between old work: structured, repeatable,
predictable; and new work: design, imagination,
inspiration, empathy, social intelligence. According
to Slumbers, the future proof workplace has to be
designed for this new work; one which fosters skills
for collaboration, interaction, learning, engaging –
human work.
The trick will be changing our mindset from
one that sees technology as helping to do a job
(managing the building) to redefining the job as
one which helps everyone else do theirs (enabling
communities). It’s a shi that underpins the
repositioning to IWFM.
Our new research and development collaboration
with Microso will explore a shared vision of the
role of technology in high performing workplaces.
Building on the challenges identified in our initial
research, we aim to help organisations create
connected and successful workplaces. Our alliance
with the tech giant will combine the know-how
of IWFM’s industry experts with the capability of
Microso ’s Smart Buildings team to explore these
opportunities and challenges.
Chris Moriarty, Director of Insight and
Engagement, IWFM