Ajay Bhatt, head, Administration & Facilities, Godrej Industries Limited

The biggest challenge the FM industry currently faces, according to Bhatt, is the lack of qualified technical and non-technical staff. This has increased the lead times in mobilising resources/staff after a project has been contracted. Increase in inflation and labour cost have forced many organisations to replace long-term contracts with mid-term ones. Secondly, few organisations have a singular vertical responsible for the design, project execution and day-to-day facility management. Along with diversity in leadership, thought process, investments in resources and time, out-sourcing these activities brings in additional complexity.

As an organisation, Godrej believes in the ethos of sustainability and a motto to preserve its natural surroundings. Taking this forward, the team placed various measures. The structure is equipped with BMS to evaluate and monitor energy usage and requirements, leading to overall energy cost savings by approximately 10-15%. “We also shifted our partial energy requirement to open access energy, resulting in another 8-10% of saving on annual consumption,” says Bhatt.

Maximising operations and maintenance not only encompasses technical issues but also financial, social, institutional and managerial ones. These must be resolved to be able to attain sustainability. The organisation attributes skill training, work flow, PM procedures, maintenance planner, inventory and purchase integration, measuring and reporting and ROI significantly.

With an ‘Operational Control Centre’, the entire system including energy management, lift controls, HVAC, lights, etc, is monitored and controlled from one point. Godrej also implemented an online medium for handling maintenance activities along with a 24×7 helpdesk integrating properties across Mumbai. This helped achieve maintenance, repetitive issue and formulating a preventive plan.

Total work floor/facility area managed: 20 lakh sqft and over 60 acres of land
Employees managed: 60+ (direct); 450+ (outsourced)