University of Texas Health Science Center-San Antonio Facilities Management Assessment

Starting Position

University of Texas Health Science Center-San Antonio (UTHSCSA) leadership engaged Mindstream to assess its facilities management department. UTHSCSA requested we identify cost savings they could quickly implement without disrupting service.

Assessment

After an initial review of the department’s organization and services, we focused on how the department processed service requests for renovations and maintenance. Renovation and maintenance service requests were departmentally funded – and a major expense for UTHSCSA’s Colleges of Medicine, Dentistry, Nursing and Biomedical Sciences.

In the five years of data Mindstream studied, UTHSCSA Facilities Management processed approximately 3,000 service requests annually, ranging from $500 to $1 million. Our in-depth analysis found that the majority of these requests were processed outside time and/or budget constraints, causing delays, cost overruns, and intense customer dissatisfaction.

Findings

Our assessment showed that:

• Service requests varied considerably in scope, making processing cumbersome

• These variations led to significant differences in how the department processed requests – despite  workflow software that should have standardized processing

• The amount of process variation caused a high process error rate

• The high error rate caused a high rework rate, further clogging and slowing the process

• Slow, uneven communication caused even more rework

Recommendations

We recommended UTHSCSA:

• Outsource certain types of service requests, rather than completing them in-house

• Reorganize the department

• Re-engineer the service request process

Impact

As a result of our work, the department now processes service requests within target timeframes (96%  on time) and with considerably fewer errors. In addition, customer satisfaction has soared and cost overruns plummeted.

The department achieved $1.4 million in first-year cost savings, which came chiefly from

• Drastically simplifying the request process

• Substantially decreasing rework needed to fix process errors

• Completely eliminating paper forms and paper document file copies

• Reducing the number of administrative staff needed to process requests, and redeploying facilities workers to more productive work 

The post University of Texas Health Science Center-San Antonio Facilities Management Assessment appeared first on Mindstream.

Texas A&M University System Facilities Planning and Construction Closeout Process Improvement

Starting Position

Mindstream was engaged by Texas A&M University System (TAMUS) leadership to assess its Facilities Planning and Construction (FPC) department, which was responsible for managing new capital construction projects at TAMUS’ eleven universities and seven state agencies across Texas. In fiscal year 2012, FPC managed a construction program of $204.4 million. The goal of the assessment was to reduce the cost of new construction.

Assessment

Our initial review of department organization and services indicated issues with how the department closed out construction projects. Capital construction closeout includes the steps after substantial completion of a new construction project, such as

• moving into a building

• closing the construction account

• returning any remaining money to the institution

• paying all vendors

Construction closeout costs had been a source of concern for several years for TAMUS member institutions.

Findings

Our assessment showed that the construction closeout process was ill-defined and poorly understood by member institutions, causing new construction projects to close in an ineffective and untimely manner. This resulted in:

• Expenditures that were not prioritized – or did not add value at all

• A large number of acceptance issues, which created intense customer dissatisfaction

• Ineffective and inefficient load balancing within the department, as FPC personnel struggled to manage new projects while continuing to deal with projects that should have been closed

Our detailed five-year analysis of construction closeout processes indicated that contract change requests made after substantial completion were driving cost overruns. In fact, member institution requests comprised most of those costs.

Recommendations

Our team gave TAMUS detailed recommendations to:

• Implement a policy to dramatically reduce non-value-add expenditures at the end of project

• Enhance project management by using appropriate software tools for project control and cost containment

• Improve process management by standardizing processes and eliminating wasteful steps

Impact

Following Mindstream recommendations substantially reduced change requests by 34.6% and cut costs by approximately $9.2 million over two fiscal years.

The post Texas A&M University System Facilities Planning and Construction Closeout Process Improvement appeared first on Mindstream.