Roy Judelson, Archaio, answers questions after his presentation on taking building maintenance to the clouds from Jerome Carter, Fox Theatre, Atlanta, and Wayne Rosser, Georgia World Congress Center. (VT Photo)
REPORTING FROM NASHVILLE — A 30-year study reveals the cost of maintaining a venue is three times the cost of construction, and yet that task has been paper-based and archaic for as long as cleaning crews have been around. That’s the pain point companies like Archaio have been addressing and, though the process is admittedly expensive, the cost is being addressed at the same time all aspects of business are increasingly cloud-based, in a digital mobile world.
Roy Judelson, founder and chairman of Archaio, was among presenters at the second annual Venue Operations Summit here May 8-10. “Can you tell me right now what the condition of your building is?” he challenged more than 100 operations directors in attendance. “Today, on a mobile device, you could tell me now, with no phone call involved.” In fact, later on a tour of Nashville’s Music City Center, an Archaio client delighted the founder by doing just that, showing him the state of his venue back home.
The major issues in inspection and maintenance “systems” include duplication of effort, lack of visibility in real time of work completed, multiple people involved to generate a work order and, the biggest issue, accountability.
With a digital system, work orders, completed tasks and inspections can be logged in real time, Judelson explained, resulting in accountability and eliminating duplication of work.
Automated mainenance systems are too new to have established a return on investment, he admitted, though he said Siemens in Las Vegas recorded results from its 80 contracts in that city, reporting manual inspections required three people eight hours each and another 12 hours inputting data, for a 36 hour turnaround. Using a mobile device, it took three inspectors five hours to input the data, 15 hours total. “There was a 25-percent increase in productivity and a 50-percent decrease in recurring inspections,” he said.
Other benefits of mobile maintenance programs include an updated floor plan. To implement the system, the entire facility is barcoded. The barcode stores the data and when the worker or inspector walks into the room, he scans the barcode to check the status of the work to be done or checked.
On the dashboard, users can determine when everything is done because it turns green. Everything is updated in real time and, when it is done, they can open up the gates and let the fans in. “It’s not just inspections in real time,” Judelson said. “Now, the dashboard updates in real time.” That can shave considerable communications time and get doors open earlier.
“When you go digital, you go cloud,” Judelson said. “That’s the world we live in.”
And there is no limit to what can be stored, he added.
“The cost of maintaining a facility is skyrocketing, and not to maintain it in a real time, cloud-based world is not keeping up,” he told operations managers.
Staples Center, Los Angeles, is an Archaio client. The team there walks the facility after every event and records everything from broken chairs to stains to soap supplies in the bathroom, to the condition of the roof for crews to address. It takes them less time and no one is duplicating work. What used to go through four people to get to a work order is now immediately recorded. When the crew comes in the next morning, they call up the work orders and prioritize.
It takes about 30 days to have a digital maintenance system for an arena like Staples Center up and running, allowing for barcoding everything, Judelson said. Scope of work and integration compatability are factors.
“Two years ago, no one was doing this,” he noted. Now it’s catching on. "If you have a phone, you can be an inspector.”
Interviewed for this article: Roy Judelson, (212) 784-0180