November 8, 2017 - Planon announced today that California Polytechnic State University, San Luis Obispo (Cal Poly) selected Planon’s Integrated Workplace Management System (IWMS) for the management, development and optimisation of their campus facilities. There are two types of agreements with this selection: one is a site licence for the California Polytechnic State University and the other is a Master Enablement Agreement (MEA) for any of the other CSU campuses to also purchase Planon’s IWMS for their facility and real estate management. The potential benefits of all CSU campuses utilising Planon includes greater standardisation of processes and reporting across the entire CSU system, including crucial roll-up data for university-wide benchmarking.
The Planon solution will enable capital project management, facility finance, maintenance operations and space teams to effectively and efficiently manage facilities throughout the entire building lifecycle. This includes processes for planning a structure through its capital development as well as the on-going operation and maintenance of the structure, the latter of which represents 80% of the total cost of occupancy of a building.
“We at Cal Poly are excited to begin this partnership with Planon and the incredible value the Planon Universe system will bring. We have put a lot of time and effort into testing it against the market leaders and negotiating a contract that will greatly benefit our campus,” said John Sage, Strategic Business Services for Cal Poly. “Further, this agreement will be made available to other campuses in the system. By having other campuses take advantage of utilising the same IWMS solution, reporting up to the Chancellor’s office can be more consistent than ever before. The Planon team, along with their solution, clearly stand as the leader in the higher education facility management technology today, which has manifested itself by their work with more than a hundred universities in Europe over the past 30 years.”
After conducting a thorough evaluation of relevant IWMS vendors, Planon Universe was selected based on very specific criteria. The objective in the first phases of implementation is to successfully identify and implement this robust IWMS to facilitate maintenance operations, time keeping, and mobile technology for the labour crews. The goal is to do so in a way that would minimise administrative workload while maximising cross-communication and maximising the availability of critical data through reporting interfaces and direct queries.
While beginning with the maintenance management application for managing operations and repair of university facilities, the Cal Poly administration will also find value in the ability to implement other applications for its full and part-time staff for things such as facilities planning, capital projects, customer and business services, energy, utilities, sustainability and environmental health and safety on a mobile devise, tablet or laptop.
“Planon is particularly proud of this winning partnership with Cal Poly, and we are excited for the opportunity to potentially work with the entire CSU system,” said Fred Guelen, President of North American Operations and CFO. “Cal Poly, like other colleges and universities in North America and around the world, are replacing their legacy systems and migrating to Planon Universe in the Cloud. With this partnership in place, Planon will be delivering the most advanced, comprehensive, and innovative IWMS in the world to the Cal Poly campus and potentially, the whole CSU system.”