February 2, 2004—ARCHIBUS, developer of the global facilities and infrastructure management solution ARCHIBUS/FM, congratulates the State of Minnesota ARCHIBUS/FM Users’ Group (SMAUG) on receiving the Collaboration Award at the recent Minnesota Government Information Technology Symposium in St. Paul, Minnesota. The Minnesota Government IT Recognition Awards distinguish outstanding achievements by governmental units in Minnesota. The Collaboration Award recognizes IT projects that create partnerships between two or more levels or types of government entities.
The award recipient, “Multiple Agencies Resource Sharing—Computer Integrated Facility Management,” is a collaborative work by the State of Minnesota’s Administration, Corrections, Human Services, and Veterans Home Board departments, which all united with local reseller Applied Data Systems in 2001 to form SMAUG. The four state agencies, which had independently purchased and implemented a Computer Integrated Facility Management (CIFM) software application in 1999, combined their technology and agency resources to help acquire facilities data, standardize the structure of agency databases, and streamline access to real-time reports.
By combining labor and financial resources to maximize the results of each agency’s individual CIFM implementations, SMAUG activities have resulted in:
- standardization of data and data entry practices;
- streamlined workflow (currently 7,600-plus work requests per month), increasing productivity, improving response time, and saving money at all agency sites;
- a 75% cost reduction in joint agency training; and
- a 66% cost reduction in joint agency work flow modifications.
Other benefits of the collaboration include: standardization of coding protocol; increased asset life expectancy and efficient operation due to a jointly developed equipment preventive maintenance program; jointly developed forms, reports, and routines; work flow streamlining; a non-vendor support network; and joint training classes.
