James
Duffy VP, Business PROvision.IFTI.comIFTI/PROvisionDevelopmentSolutions You’re giving the company more and more time to make predictive information and give Facilities Management a leg up to say, “well, it looks like 70% of our facilities, that the paint is deteriorating more quickly than we thought, let’s hire a vendor and we’ll paint all the facilities again.” WGAN-TV Guest James Duffy VP, Business IFTI/PROvisionDevelopmentSolutionsPROvision.IFTI.com
Matterport Digital Twins for Facilities Management WGAN-TV Live at 5 Thursday, May 20, 2020 WE GET AROUND NETWORK
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WGAN-TV
- Dan, great to see you again, thank you for having me.
Our topic today, Matterport Digital Twins for Facilities Management. We have a Subject Matter Expert on our show today, IFTI/PROvision Solutions VP, Business Development James Duffy. Hey James, good to see you again.
Vice
- Yeah, thanks a lot Dan. So, IFTI has been like a solutions provider utilizing Matterport cameras and with our technician base of 300 technicians across the United States and Canada. And we provide enterprise level solutions for commercial companies that have a lot of spaces and need consistent deliverables across the Country.
- Terrific, I’m curious about how IFTI/PROsolutions actually ended up, in this business of having 300 Matterport Service Providers US, Canada. How did that happen?
| Guest:
Episode:
- So the nice thing is we understood there was a need out there and our company’s been around for over 20 years, doing another service concrete moisture testing for a lot of these national retail chains. And we saw a need for visibility beyond just camera photos and basic surveying. So we did our due diligence and research and we found Matterport cameras as a great solution not only for the visibility it can provide, but also with the point cloud. | Matterport Digital Twins for Facilities Management IFTI/PROvision Solutions President of Business Development James Duffy | 72 | Thursday, 20 May 2020 | PROvision. IFTI.com
- Hi all, I’m Dan Smigrod, Founder of the We Get Around Network Forum. Today is Wednesday May 20th, 2020, and you’re watching WGAN-TV Live at 5.
James Duffy VP, Business PROvision.IFTI.comIFTI/PROvisionDevelopmentSolutions
You’re giving the company more and more time to make predictive information and give Facilities Management a leg up to say, “well, it looks like 70% of our facilities, that the paint is deteriorating more quickly than we thought, let’s hire a vendor and we’ll paint all the facilities again.”
- You bet, James has been on our show twice before talking about one show dedicated to Matterport for As-Builts and a whole nother show for Matterport for Weekly Construction Documentation. James, before we jump into Matterport Digital Twins for Facilities Management, how about giving me an overview of IFTI/PROvision Solutions?
And one of the uses which is there is, there’s turnover amongst facilities people, and there’s vendors that need to service things, and it’s never the same person over and over again. So the hard part is, understanding what is there and having intuitive documentation.
- Yeah, so this is a mechanical room in a very large industry company building. And what you’re looking at is, all the makings of what make a building operate. So from electrical, to plumbing, to pressure, so everything that is there that allows you to make your normal everyday life happen. This is the mechanical room, which is kind of the heart of any building that’s there. So this is larger than others.
- I’m at provision.ifti.com and I selected the tab for Facilities Management. So I’m going to scroll down on the site for a Matterport tour. I’m going to go ahead and launch that tour, and perhaps you could tell us what we’re looking at for this space. What is this space?
So the nice thing is by getting a scan of the space, you’re clear of what is where, and the nice thing is you can utilize the MatterTags for documenting what it is you’re looking at. And not only doing that but taking it a step further, you can also embed any of the manuals. You can embed videos of how to utilize Sosomething.anyofthat knowledge that’s there, you can actually embed right there in the space. So you can be looking at it right in front of you but also looking at it on your phone, to have a clear understanding of what that is in real time and you know, the main thing is to prevent any sort of gap in communication of what’s supposed to be done and what’s there. So while you’re there or from your desk.
- Yes so, Facilities and Facilities Management for a lot of these enterprise-level places. So places that have multi-brand sites.
- So every building I go into, I never see that, but there is a mechanical, electrical, plumbing center that looks like this, the same size, bigger or smaller.
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And basically our project management ability to create you know, accurate CAD plans from them and So,everything.wehave a business model that we know how to grow and network and a taskforce that can live and do the quality control efforts that we have. And we spent the last couple of years building that up to, really being nationwide and a two-hour drive from anywhere.
- Okay terrific, let’s jump in Matterport Digital Twins for Facilities Management. I’m a Matterport Service Provider. I’ve been scanning residential real estate, what are Facilities and what is Facilities Management?
So you know, it could be a dozen, it could be hundreds, it could be thousands, where they have to manage multiple assets. So they obviously can’t be at one place all of the time, so they have to rely on organized information to help them with two things, predictive information because as soon as you have a space, it is going to deteriorate over time, so they all have a life cycle.
And also reactive work of something happened at the facility whether it be something that’s naturally occurring like the paint is getting worn and it’s time for a refresh, or something with a busted pipe and they have to figure out who’s the right vendor to help fix something. So basically keeping the machine which are the physical spaces humming, is what Facilities Management is.
- Okay, I thought it might be helpful if we took a look at an actual example. I thought we’d start out on your website, I’m at-- Dan, I’m glad you knew how to find it, thank you.
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- Yeah so, every client changes what information they’re already capturing in some way that is effective for them. But what we’ve seen for a lot of our customers, one of the simplest that’s most utilized is the electrical panels.
You’re giving the company more and more time to make predictive information and give Facilities Management a leg up to say, “well, it looks like 70% of our facilities, that the paint is deteriorating more quickly than we thought, let’s hire a vendor and we’ll paint all the facilities again.”
- That’s right, just think about your home. You have a boiler, you have an electrical panel. They might be separated or they might be in a closet somewhere, so the bigger they are, like everything goes to scale.
So when you’re scanning a space like a tip is, you’ll get it most of the time the panel is closed. Well if you take another step and scan it over a second time with the panel open, then not only the Facilities Management can understand what’s inside and they could read the labels of what’s there, but that also helps them communicate to the electrician of what kind of voltage is there? Amperage, what can fit into that space? So being able to not only scan it a second time with it open also taking out your phone and embedding a picture because, if you notice with the Matterport camera, it has clear definition but, it cannot read within a millimeter of chicken scratch that somebody wrote eight years ago, but your phone probably could. So make sure you bring your phone when you’re going out and working and capturing what’s inside the panel as well. And usually on the inside part of the door there’s something they call a schedule. So that gives you all the information, there might be multiple pages. So usually taking those out and giving that full documentation for all the information that is there for the electrical panel is what a lot of customers and facilities managers will need. That would be like the most obvious one.
- Right, so the clear thing is, think about what they were using before, how were they documenting the Sospace?that will give you a better understanding so before, how they would label a place would just be imagined in a file folder of; I have a floor plan and these are all the pieces of equipment that are in there. And then maybe attached to that is a manual of what it is. But what it doesn’t give you is the condition of it, in real time with that scan. So, what you’re doing is taking those things that used to just exist in a file folder and may or may not be organized into something that is organized because it is the space of where it is.
- Okay and so how about maybe if we could list the kinds of documentation that Matterport MatterTags facilitates. What are the different things that come to mind that are helpful to label?
- Okay, so I understand in the space that we just looked at, electrical, plumbing, mechanical, commonly referred to as that MEP, I can understand that we have MatterTags that let you label those things. And you mentioned in one case the electrical panel, what are the different uses of all these things that we might label with information?
James Duffy VP, Business PROvision.IFTI.comIFTI/PROvisionDevelopmentSolutions
- Okay, let me see if I can go through a list and maybe have a conversation around some of these items.
So, you’re transferring over it from a process oriented in a folder system to also having that Digital Twin of a living documentation and providing all the same information of manuals how to, with also the addition of you can overlay and add video to it as well. So you can even talk about how you’re supposed to operate something.
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So, it’s like it’s the value that’s already there and most likely they’re not just asked, we’re not tasked to just do a unit task or a thing of just one thing to capture everything and help us with the solution for our needs. But then we have all this other added value.
- Yeah, it is a nice feature to have that measuring tool right there to kind of let you know in real time, what space is available for, say if you have to pull an old piece of equipment out and they’ve changed the way it’s shifted in a space and they live as you saw in the example that we have. There is little room right? No one is wasting space anywhere. So getting a chance to figure out what fits and what’s there. And you know the nice part of the capabilities of the room, you might need a new as-built for the new as is conditions because the floor plan they might have is, well, this is what the space looked like when it was empty. Well, now this is what it looks like when it’s filled. So what’s left and how they can reorganize it. So the nice thing is not only just having that visual but, on the back end, you can also get them upgraded “as-is” drawings of what’s in the space or how they can basically reimagine it.
- That’s right. So, they would have that information, and the nice thing is to think about it, for our customers it’s highly unlikely that we would go into a space and just scan one room. We would be capturing the whole asset and then what we would do is kind of relabel and make sure like that facility’s management, they know where the mechanical room is, and then they can assess like you know, document what is there.
- Correct, yes. - So at a very basic level, there’s some level of hey, I’m in Chicago, the room I’m looking at is in Atlanta. I can virtually walk around the space and get some sense about whether we’re going to have some room or not have room for something even to take it to that renovation stage to figure out how we’re going to add another water tank or whatever it might be.
So is the Matterport tour, the Digital Twin, documented and then having this measurement capability, does that help in terms of if there’s some renovation plans getting some key measurements? Is that an example of a use case, it doesn’t quite jump out of a file folder system versus the Digital Twin?
Planned renovation, so is it typical that an MEP room like this might have a piece of equipment that gets added? Get to know what the size of that space is and the person who needs to know that information may not be on site, maybe literally in a different State.
- So that would refer back to the show that we did previously on “As-Built.” So, a Matterport Digital Twin literally is an “As-Built” where the Matterport MatterPak data can be exported, and then an architect can bring that into a CAD program like Revit, in order to reimagine the space and add some other piece of equipment to this space.
- You mentioned turnover of staff and at the same time I think you mentioned a little bit about maintenance schedules.
- So, it’s usually done where we’ve seen it as not adding... So this is more on the customer and once they have a will like you know, of becoming an Account Collaborator so they can constantly reimagine the MatterTags as it goes through time because if the space hasn’t changed, but the information has, you know. Enable them to help them understand how to do that themselves but, when you’re starting off and you’re giving it to them, they can already just add and then add in that information to the same thing to keep the schedules there.
You’re giving the company more and more time to make predictive information and give Facilities Management a leg up to say, “well, it looks like 70% of our facilities, that the paint is deteriorating more quickly than we thought, let’s hire a vendor and we’ll paint all the facilities again.”
So is ongoing maintenance, is that part of the documentation for MEP?
So, would it be typical to document a space on Oh, this device here it needs to be serviced every six months, this one needs to be serviced every three months, this one needs to be serviced a year. Here’s the vendor that does that service, here’s their phone number, their email, their contact, the last reference point of contact.
- That’s right so, and a lot of nice customer service features. It’s kind of depending on everyone’s bandwidth of what they can do and can’t do, if you can help them up saying, hey, give me an inventory of what you need documented and I can do that for you. Or, you know, let’s get the space and I’ll show you how to do it yourself.
- They’re different from the group that works on mechanics. So I guess the part of what this is doing is aligning the different groups, through a common way to communicate about a space.
James Duffy VP, Business PROvision.IFTI.comIFTI/PROvisionDevelopmentSolutions
- Okay, I mean-- You can kind of customize it that way.
- And I think you solved a problem that I hadn’t anticipated. But I was going to scratch my head going, Oh my gosh, I don’t know anything about this equipment. I mean, I know I can add MatterTags to the label, but what that thing is I’d have no idea. So the good news is, using the Matterport Collaboration feature is really to invite the client to collaborate and teach them how, which is not that hard, to add MatterTags, so they’re the ones that curate what they want to do in terms of labeling.
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But all the critical information that isn’t going to go anywhere with that space, like the who to call, how to operate something, the manual, like all of those things should be curated with that piece of machinery because none of those things regardless of who’s there is going to have to tackle the problem the same way. So, having those basic foundations of information living on it are the most critical.
- Yeah, maybe a combination. Back to this list, I mentioned renovations and ongoing maintenance. We touched on training, I guess I could imagine a room like this that touches a lot of different departments within a building, within an organization, electrical is different than the group that works on plumbing.
- Yes .
- I understand using Matterport for construction documentation. Would a MEP room, mechanical electrical plumbing room, be rescanned more than once.
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- You mentioned that the Digital Twin for the facility is well, it’s new and it was replaced, I guess I never really thought about it well, how does a facilities manager keep track of everything?
- That’s right. So, if you’re always thinking of the asset lifecycle, when the company or the owner has the building for that lifecycle, Facilities Management is the department that’s in charge.
And so if it previously has been done with file folders in notes, what’s wrong with that process? Why shouldn’t all the manuals be in a file cabinet? Why not in a file folder? So what problem is Matterport Digital Twin for Facilities Management solving?
And the timing of a lot of these things is critical because a majority of Facilities Management is reactionary, rather than proactive. And that’s what all that information is.
The nice thing is if you can give time back to those Facilities Managers have, instead of just having the curated information of what a building is but no context, by then being able to manage and not only understand what’s there, but see the condition, understand what’s going on, you’re giving that company more and more time to make predictive information and give Facilities Management a leg up to say, well, it looks like 70% of our facilities, that the paint is deteriorating more quickly than we thought, let’s hire a vendor and we’ll paint all the facilities again.
But for the living things of keeping them going, they would want to keep, who are the people that service this equipment at the ready, and when you have that space, you can document their work of how they do it. So if you’ve ever tried anything at home or try to, there’s always like, jiggle something this way or explain it in a nuanced way, you can embed that information that would be lost and you would start all over again, every time. You can capture and curate that information in a scan, in a way that you’ve never could otherwise and I think it’s a real change factor that prevents like you said, that staff turnover or getting you know, good vendor one day and making sure that they can replicate that results another time, that it needs service, things like that.
- So really you, what is really solving is a bottleneck. So the curator who’s owning all that space that put them in the folder, while you’re leaving it there, while you’re relying on that person, to make sure that that information is disseminated each time for all of these spaces.
- I could see it happening where you would want to as the site changes and as you add in different machinery, I would definitely see a reason because what you don’t want to have is outdated information. So the capability is so readily available that you would want to enable your customer that is doing it once to let them know.
Now, if they’re going to remodel or redesign a space, it went from Facilities over to Architecture and Design, well then they’ll manage the reconfiguration of the space and get new vendors, electricians, plumbers to help that unfurling.
Hey, I can always come back and rescan it for you, anytime you change out any of the information so you can keep an up to date copy of what’s there. I think about a space like this, the local building person that takes care of it. How much of decision making is actually done remotely?
Or you know, the electric is due on a bunch of facilities and it looks like you know, we’re going to add some more features which we’re going to need to up our amperage like, by you being able to visualize that and see where the reality is, it’s going to give you a leg up on making better decisions for the future rather than just waiting for a problem to fix it.
- Yeah so, usually there’s like a Facilities Manager. So if you just, you know, imagine this, and they have vendors, or they’ll have a Facilities Management team, like a custodial person, kind of taking care of the decision. And what is usually happening and because most of the work is still reactionary is that the Facilities Manager is going to get a phone call from that custodial person saying, hey there’s an issue, I’m hearing something, something’s wrong. Well, what are you talking about?
You’re giving the company more and more time to make predictive information and give Facilities Management a leg up to say, “well, it looks like 70% of our facilities, that the paint is deteriorating more quickly than we thought, let’s hire a vendor and we’ll paint all the facilities again.”
James Duffy VP, Business PROvision.IFTI.comIFTI/PROvisionDevelopmentSolutions
- For companies that have now switched to Matterport Digital Twins, from a file folder or file cabinet, do you hear any aha moments? From them where it has created new; better; save money; save time - any kind of reaction that you get feedback that if the PROvision Solutions hears?
- So it’s not like, I would ever throw a customer under the bus but, some of the nice things are, I didn’t know that we had that there!!! Like, so it’s clear from asset documentation of, really what is in a space and what they’ve had in their files, can be so outdated. So getting them up to speed just on what is really there is important.
Well, instead of just relying on that custodial person to, make sure that they’re effectively communicating what it is they’re looking at, you can in real time be talking on the phone with them, looking at the space, and all of those things that you know about it are going to be you know, jogged up right away. And you can walk that person through, hey, have you tried X, Y, and Z, before we have to call someone? And if I do have to call someone, I might have the information right there on a tag of, in case of a problem contact that person, and then they can send it to them, giving them the go ahead for it. So it really helps with the context. And if that custodial person also has a phone, they can take a picture of what happened. And they could also look at what it used to look like, and know right away that there’s an issue here. And I can imagine in this MEP room with all these pieces of equipment, there must be tons of Andmanuals.Iimagined today those manuals are all online. So is a lot of the documentation that ... IFTI/PROvision Solutions is seen as documentation that links to online manuals rather than, figuring out where you’re going to store all these manuals that are probably out of date as soon as the manual is published?
So, if you’re already directly doing it as part of your maintenance and operation for curating that space, you’re just speeding up a whole lot of hassle that will happen later on if you didn’t.
And then the second thing of what they really like is, when they’re thinking about a space, is to add the video of talking about their knowledge and transferring that to the space. So it doesn’t just live within a person, it lives for space. So that really helps enable you know, that asset lifecycle moves in a more precise motion because they love that they could share this in a context that’s great and somebody doesn’t have to wait for them or they can forget about it until, you know, it’s ready to go.
- That’s right. It’s an easy way to hold it and solve it because you’ll have that physical one when you buy any sort of equipment like that. But having the digital version of that manual and having it downloaded and then uploaded onto a MatterTag, you’re ensuring you’re syncing up the right system with the right piece. So you could have 15 facilities, they all have an HVAC system, but they all have it from five different companies, and which one is which year and everything else.
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Because the manual says in one way. Reality of how that fixes in a space is completely different. So being able to share that knowledge transfer and nuance is critical for a lot of companies because it prevents a lot of headaches, and then usually a lot of other extra cost if they don’t know and then they have to hire someone all over again, to do some regular maintenance, which is basically you know, why they’re there in the first place. So it really helps with, you know, keeping those contingency costs down.
- Is that literally happening? - Yes! - Their record-- Yes, so just imagine like you, and it’s like, it’s easy to put it in context. So imagine you had to build something, and you did the manual and you’re like well, what was it like to do this? Where do you need to start? How do you finish these are the steps you need to take?
- The #1 thing that you’re going to eliminate for them is the number of site visits that they would need to so just imagine, especially for enterprise clients, it’s one or a few people traveling to multi sites, and all that travel time in between and it’s basically a rotating shift.
- So, I am sure that there are people that will always be worried about how to utilize technology and make it more efficient for their job.
Do you get any pushback or struggle from the on-site person to come in with a new way of doing Facilities Management documentation?
-
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So if you can help reduce the site visits because they know what’s in a space and they can communicate it, like that will be the number one thing. And then the secondary part of once you reduce the site visits, is curating the space.
Is there some tremendous pain point which motivates somebody to say yes, let’s go shoot a Digital Twin of our facility?
Okay! ... We’ve switched to the Matterport Digital Twins facility. What is there like a key , here are the three reasons that ... totally make sense either from saving time or saving money or enabling something to be done better or faster?
- I guess I could imagine if I was a Facilities Manager for a specific building, I might have some concern for my job if, or my job security might be, “Well, all that knowledge is in my head about how to run this place and where the manuals are and how to start these pieces of equipment.”
Because there’s just two ways to always look at it. But we always look at it with our customers, this is going to help you with that knowledge transfer to share it because how are you spending your time and it should be taking care of problems and getting to problems before they occur. So if you’re spending all your time just fixing something, and not getting to the, hey let me help prevent future problems, people will pay the same person to prevent problems rather than adding more costs to you fixing them because, it’s the same but you’re actually doing the company and yourself a service. So it’s probably just a better way to think about it.
- And so I mentioned I’m in Atlanta, doing a lot of let’s say, a typical Matterport Service Provider may be doing a lot of residential real estate, see what you’ve described in terms of Matterport Digital Twins for Facilities Management is an opportunity, where do you begin? What’s the title of the person to talk to? Where are these people?
- Yeah, so the nice thing is to remember for Facilities Management is every building has one. Okay, so even at the residential it could be, the parent or the owner of the place. They’re the Facility Manager for their individual space. But for you know, commercial spaces, the facility ... Director of Facilities is a good place to start and to say and ask them, you know, how are you documenting your assets? Which is the space and everything in Andthere.we could save you time and money, by giving you that Digital Twin of your space, to help you understand what’s going on under those conditions.
And the nice thing is, you can start with them, but you can start with anyone else that needs that visual of the space and you can also let them know of, hey while we’re capturing that Digital Twin, can you share this with the facilities department because they will also have a view and a use for this.
- That’s right. So imagine you had to travel because there was an electrical problem and you had to go meet the electrician to explain to him, this is what it is.
So I started with you know, Business Development or Marketing needed it, say listen Marketing, you could also share that mechanical room that would be a real value to Facilities.
- So it may have really started with an as-built, somebody wanted to do a renovation, but the department that does the renovating is different than the Facilities Management, and may not be aware that this Digital Twin of the space has tremendous value to a different department within a large organization.
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James Duffy VP, Business PROvision.IFTI.comIFTI/PROvisionDevelopmentSolutions
You’re giving the company more and more time to make predictive information and give Facilities Management a leg up to say, “well, it looks like 70% of our facilities, that the paint is deteriorating more quickly than we thought, let’s hire a vendor and we’ll paint all the facilities again.”
Now just imagine you got on the phone and say, hey I’m going to send you a link, I’m going to show you exactly what this electrical unit is, so you know what kind of tools you need to bring to service it and call me when you get there and we’ll talk about it.
- I didn’t even think about this, there really is a lot of money spent on travel at a corporate level to go visit all the facilities, which could be visited through a virtual walkthrough.
Then the second thing is curating the space in which you can help them and you know both of those things are saving them not only the time of getting there, but all the direct costs and indirect costs that it takes to focus on one space to understand something in a nuanced, you know amount of time.
So that’s like the secondary capability of, okay now I don’t have to keep going back to it because I know it and I understand it, and I can comprehend it. And I can communicate that to other vendors, colleagues, and everyone else.
Like that’s the new world, rather than the old one of, I’ll meet you there, let’s figure out a time and get out there to walk you through it kind of stuff.
- Fascinating! On the Digital Twin for that MEP room, you know, when we went through our list, I don’t think we said anything about insurance. If you run across anything in terms of, we could use this for insurance documentation, these are assets, there is a fire or a flood. That we can quickly communicate to an insurance company, that yes, this is what got destroyed and we have a Digital Twin to back up what our claim is. Is that use case shown up yet?
- You really want to reach out to someone at the corporate level more often than not, because the person on site is living in. So what they need effectively from a corporate governance is, well what is happening at these spaces at a strategic level?
- I went there, it worked every which way. So we have customers where it starts with the Facilities Director and they’re like, I need to document all of my spaces in this format and function. And they already have the need, and then we will also then share. Well not only you’re getting the visual asset, but you also are getting the Point Cloud component.
And when those companies get it, it’s like turning on a light bulb of wow, like we could actually work together rather than, you know, in separate silos. So it’s a real, it helps to actually bridge a company’s gap that has always existed
- Yes and yeah, it happens throughout Matterport. I think it’s one of the best value-adds besides the service of who could utilize it the most. It’s you know, those actuaries that have to usually go on site to understand what has happened and what it was.
- That’s right, we always say that the scans themselves have a residual ROI. So they always start with a place of need. But the more that you can share that space, you’re breaking down silos within a company of, I don’t need to pay for this five times, I can utilize this once and share it. And now we’re all communicating effectively.
- And do projects for the documentation of mechanical, electrical, plumbing rooms and MEP do these kinds of projects often begin first in creating an “As-Built” or doing the Construction Documentation, and it led into the conversation of using the Matterport Digital Twin, for the Facilities Management? Or do projects like this begin the first project into a company beginning with Facilities Management?
And how can we increase efficiency overall? So the Director of Facilities, Facilities Manager which would probably be maybe more than one thing, those would be places to start VP of Facilities if they’re there. Also Operations is the other line that some of the titles. So it could be Operations for an actual physical space as well.
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- Okay. I did want to return to that question of who do I call? Where am I trying to develop business? Am I starting literally asking for the on site Facilities Manager or am I really calling corporate and asking for a title of VP Facilities?
So being able to provide that embedded virtual walk through of what that space is, or take pictures of anything of what it used to be, compared to what it is now is a vital service that helps that whole industry and you know, they should be able to document it now, in case of something. So, like if you live in an area that is prone to seasonal natural disasters, like I live in California and there’s fires, if you live on the East Coast, it could be floods or hurricanes. So there is a need and there’s a general risk aversion that a lot of these places have, that your documentation will help them be ready for, if something happens, they can do something about it.
So if I’m lucky enough to uncover an opportunity where all of a sudden the VP of Facilities needs 10 spaces, 50 spaces, 100 spaces, 200 spaces, that’s beyond my capability as a Matterport Service Provider. But I don’t want to necessarily call Matterport and say hey, what should I do with this? How do I work with IFTI? What does that look like?
You’re giving the company more and more time to make predictive information and give Facilities Management a leg up to say, “well, it looks like 70% of our facilities, that the paint is deteriorating more quickly than we thought, let’s hire a vendor and we’ll paint all the facilities again.”
So now we’re then talking to the Architect and design lead of, well when you have remodels, you can also utilize this same space and we can help you develop floor plans or you can yourself to get CAD or Revit models of what you need. So it could work that way or starting from Architecture, Design or Construction. Once the space is complete, we go for the grand opening and say, well that phase-turnover now from Construction now gets handed off to Facilities.
- Yeah so thanks for bringing it up, Dan. So yes, like I said at the beginning of the show, we have over 300 technicians in our Network, and we built this on consistent quality of giving you that.
- So I might either refer you to IFTI/PROvision Solutions. I might stay as the point person, I have a trusted relationship with the client?
If the service provider wants to continue to be, let’s call it the Account Executive on the project, certainly can do that once they have perhaps, would you ever be transparent to the discussion?
- Okay so I think what I’m hearing is IFTI/PROvision Solutions is happy to work with a Matterport Service Provider in a way that makes sense for everyone and if the service provider wants to pass you the lead there’s an interesting conversation there.
So in terms of an asset like a physical space, it can start with anyone because all of these departments have a role to play in nurturing that space through its lifecycle. So the nice thing is, they can share and you know, one visual of the as his space, it’s just looking through the lens of a different person, they’ll see a value in it.
- One thing you said a lot of important things but one of the things that you said really kind of resonated with me was, Oh they actually have lots of spaces to do this for.
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So instead of Construction just holding the scan and saying thank you, you give it to the next person, who has to hold on and curate and care for these spaces.
So if there is someone that sees that there’s something larger than what they can cover, they can give us a call, they can actually just call me directly, and we can work with them of not only ensuring that they’re continuing to do the business in the area that they want to service, but we can also service the clients and you know, we’ll even give a referral fee out there for that kind of business as a way to say thank you.
- That’s right. Yeah so it’s whatever the preference is, you know that client better than we do and you know that you can rely on us with the work that we’ve been doing and knowing how to nurture an account and a customer. But whatever that person feels comfortable with, we’ll be able to work up or work down it doesn’t matter to us.
James Duffy VP, Business PROvision.IFTI.comIFTI/PROvisionDevelopmentSolutions
- Correct.
You mentioned just a couple of examples in terms of insurance requirements, indemnification - whatever that is - and therefore a large company may prefer, to do business with a large company that’s capable of providing the level of insurance and the comfort level to be able to handle one quote, one point of contact multiple markets.
So it is can be quite empty of an incentive and in terms of the larger spaces we’re a large enterprise company that can handle some of those things where it might get beyond your scope of insurance, indemnities, all the legalese that you would need to do to handle an account for risk aversion of the other companies that you know, we can take the lead and we would still work in good faith of making sure everyone is you know happy. Because what we’re doing is just trying to help the customer at the end of the day see the value and the service that not only we provide but as that like the technician on the ground doing it, you know we’re all looking at the same goal.
- So even if I did want to actually maintain the relationship with the client and have IFTI transparent to that it still might be a challenge for me to be able to provide what a large company needs in order to do business across America.
- That’s right. So it could be just something of you know, have you handled scopes like you know, this magnitude? Do you have the insurance to handle that? Can you operate in every State? You know all these things that come up that we’re equipped to do. - Okay, so for me as a service provider in Atlanta the advantage may be hey I’m here there might be somebody I can develop the business and there actually might be a way bigger opportunity for me to tee up a well qualified lead ready to go provide the introduction and boom! I don’t necessarily have to figure out how I’m going to scan all and all-- That’s right it can just be as simple as you know, a phone call or an email introduction which is all the extra work. But it’s just realizing that, when you get a call to do one job, if you take the next step to say, hey is there an opportunity to do more than this, that’s usually all it will take. And then you’ll have an idea of if it’s something more for you or if it’s something that you know maybe this we’ll be a good way to work -together.Okayawesome!
A larger company is going to typically require something in terms of a significant amount of paperwork.
- Yes, yes so it’s pretty basic for the referral, like we would be able to offer any of the work that we’re doing for them you know, basically 10% of the fees we’d accumulate.
- So if I’m talking to a large company, perhaps with a different residential real estate agent that might text me and say hey am I available at four o’clock on Thursday, I text back “yes” - boom! I’m scanning; that’s the end of the paperwork. It was a text message.
Page 13 of 16 WGAN-TV | Matterport Digital Twins for Facilities Management | Thursday, May 20, 2020
- Correct.
I think what I’m going to do is just share my screen to you you mentioned about contacting you. So, I imagine we’re back on provision.ifti.com. I happen to be on the Facilities Management screen but I imagine any of these tabs I’m still going to end up with this 800 number, in the right-hand corner. A contact us which I presume goes right down to this lead generation page here.
And then the other way on the inverse is, once you capture that whole space for someone, to let them know that there’s a value, for the kind of market segmentation of the visual inside these spaces they work with other people. So, we went over it again but I think it was a really good takeaway to let them know that there’s other departments that these companies can share value with and to make sure that they know that residual ROI lives in a Matterport scan.
- I appreciate it Dan. Thanks anytime, love being here.
For James good to see you in California, I’m Dan Smigrod Founder of the We Get Around Network Forum.
You’re giving the company more and more time to make predictive information and give Facilities Management a leg up to say, “well, it looks like 70% of our facilities, that the paint is deteriorating more quickly than we thought, let’s hire a vendor and we’ll paint all the facilities again.”
Page 14 of 16 WGAN-TV | Matterport Digital Twins for Facilities Management | Thursday, May 20, 2020
- No, Dan, you went over everything quite well, I think the only thing I’d want to reiterate is for the Facilities Management and we went over the mechanical room is, it’s thinking about the larger space, so if you’re asked to do just one space within a larger one, let them know it’s you’re already at the 10 yard line, let’s get to the end zone and capture the whole space.
- So perhaps I’ve been overly focused on that MEP room that is just a small space within a larger building that still falls under Facilities Management.
- Cool, James thanks again for being on the show.
- And again there’s that phone number and, this again this is you James Duffy VP Business Development for IFTI/PROvision Solutions. That’s awesome. James, are there any questions I haven’t asked you about Facilities Management meets Matterport Digital Twins that I should ask you?
- Awesome, we’ve been visiting with James Duffy, Vice President Business Development for IFTI/PROvision Solutions. If you’ve missed any portion of the show, we have been recording it today. We’ll post it to the, We Get Around Network Forum: WGANForum.com ...
- Right so fixtures like the lighting around the space they could be switching to LED lights and they need to know where everything is or Facilities Management needs to know safety things, so where our fire extinguishers are located and exit signs. And you know, there’s just a myriad of this information that’s Sothere.whether it’s in one room or within a whole space like that documentation and responsibility falls on Facilities to maintain and operate.
James Duffy VP, Business PROvision.IFTI.comIFTI/PROvisionDevelopmentSolutions
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