16 November 2023. Recognising the benefits of coordinated project management, implementation, monitoring, budgeting and planned maintenance, has led Citadel House of Technologies to develop its unique software programme – ‘Fortress’ – that addresses and simplifies the often complex task of holistic lifecycle planning not only for today, but for future generations in the organisation.
Citadel’s Nyiko Chabalala, Building Services and Research & Development Engineer, emphasises the imperative for projects to have a professional project management plan to ensure that future asset maintenance is properly catered for, long after contractors have left the site.
Single Application Project Implementation and Asset Lifecycle
Chabalala points out that having the ability to manage the project implementation, as well as the asset life cycle in a single application, provides the principal with a powerful tool, or a practitioner with a strategic advantage in that it enables them to offer a value-added service to their client.
“Initiating a project within Fortress allows the collection of asset data from the outset, providing insightful reports that enable easily made maintenance related decisions. For practitioners, it also makes it easy to transition the client into a continued maintenance contract within the Fortress system.”
Avoiding Unexpected Breakdowns
“A project is a multi-stage scenario from inception until close-out. But it doesn’t end there. Fortress easily enables the project owner to monitor all aspects of the project – typically plant usage and performance over its complete life cycle.
This enables robust maintenance solutions to be planned and implemented to avoid costly ‘unexpected’ breakdowns while determining the life cycle of the assets. Accurate monitoring and plant data coupled with good maintenance procedures optimises plant operations allowing an accurate picture of the return on investment.”
Tracking Real-time Plant Performance
Chabalala reports that on a current project in Pretoria, where a particular client has implemented Fortress to monitor a plant in a building with a five level basement.
“We have captured all the assets that are in the basement building, including the HVAC and fire protection systems, lifts and stormwater drainage pumps. Having this asset register enables the client not only to see just how many assets they have on this site but also the individual capital expenditure and what they will spend on maintenance and when it needs to happen to avoid costly breakdowns, tenant inconvenience and in some cases, consequential losses.
“Keeping track of plant performance in real time will result in a historical data file that determines month to month expenditure, allowing for accurate budgeting for the building manager” confirmed Chabalala.
Regular Asset Maintenance Increases Lifespan
Numerous technical studies confirm that regular maintenance of assets results in a substantially longer lifespan. Furthermore, if the maintenance is carried out at optimal intervals, more cost-effective maintenance leads to substantial savings for the asset owner.
“Fortress can be utilized by every organisation or institution that has assets, and facility maintenance operations. Besides national, provincial and local government assets, these include educational and medical institutions, private and commercial enterprises as well as data centre operations,” Chabalala concludes.
