Facility Transformation Driven by Technology – Seminole Tribe of Florida

JT Stacy, the TW Director of Facility Management at Seminole Tribe of Florida, was operating from a facilities zero-knowledge base when he began working for The Seminole Tribe nearly a decade ago because he and his team had no floor plans and no way of knowing how, where, and when to maintain thousands of pieces of equipment. He literally was operating in the dark when it came to properly managing facilities.

The Seminole Tribe lacked access to building information which was scattered or even non-existent for their 116 buildings and six reservations throughout Florida. There was no single source of truth for facilities information. Team members typically wasted 1-2 hours per day conducting document searches.

Especially concerning was the lack of as-builts – critical for providing information to architects for future renovation projects.

“It's always been a challenge to educate and show our technicians where everything is – whether it’s an electrical panel, fire pump or an HVAC system. It’s nearly impossible to pinpoint these details without blueprints,” said JT.

JT has been dealing with the Seminole Tribe of Florida’s commercial facilities and commercial real estate since 2014. He and his team oversee roughly 2 million square feet of commercial square footage, including public safety facilities, schools, and health clinics for the self-governed tribe.

“Certain facilities had a bit or a portion of some plans, but a lot of it was non-existent,” he said.

Lacking documentation presented several serious challenges when they needed to pull permits to stay in code compliance and find equipment locations.

A second, and equally important issue, was education – how to bring new hires up to speed on all things facility-related.

“The people that have been with us since the beginning are no longer here,” said JT. “It’s been a constant battle to show new staff members how to locate and maintain equipment.”

Clearly, blueprints were needed. But how do you go about creating blueprints for several million square feet of buildings spread out over an entire state? Seminole and ARC Facilities launched a plan to create blueprints for existing buildings.

The ARC Facilities team laser scanned facilities to create high-quality digital floorplans of their locations, including every mechanical and safety item that they have in their facilities, which were captured and loaded into a mobile platform for access in the field on mobile devices for JT’s team – the work of many months and 10+ hour days.

Given that Seminole is a government entity, responsible for public works departments, gaming facilities, schools, as well as public safety, JT and his team had to follow a certain timeframe with those folks in those facilities to make sure that ARC Facilities and their scanning teams went in there without disrupting the day-to-day operations. The work had to be done strategically, but it was done in such a way that it didn't hinder any operations.

"They did their due diligence. They were pretty quiet. They stayed on task," said JT.

JT initially had concerns about the timeframe for the projects. But with good planning and scheduling the ARC Facilities team was quick, they stayed on task, and they finished the project before the expected date. The ARC Facilities team was responsible for implementing a solution encompassing administrative offices, K-12 schools, medical clinics, security buildings, rodeos, casino ball rooms and concert halls, warehouses, fire stations, senior centers, residential properties, and water treatment plants. Many hours were devoted to photographing assets and emergency equipment.

“Every mechanical item or safety item that we have in our facilities, the ARC Facilities Implementation team captured that information and loaded it into the platform,” said JT.

“When this came to light, it was like a big, bright light. How can anybody not want to have this type of resource for their staff to utilize?,” he said.

JT had looked at many different platforms over the years, but only ARC Facilities provided the ability to truly capture all the building and equipment details his team needed to perform their work effectively in the field, for both new hires and long-time staff.

By implementing the ARC Facilities platform, the Tribe realized the following benefits:

• Improved business continuity
• Risk mitigation
• Increased efficiency in the field
• Preventing small incidents from escalating into catastrophes
• Building information now instantly available to first responders
• Effective capture and retention of institutional knowledge

After tallying up hours for a return-on-investment analysis, the Seminole Tribe gained a total yearly savings of $350,000 – considering labor savings, onboarding new employees, and reduced maintenance costs.

“I’ve been wanting a facility management documentation solution for a long time, and we finally got it. And I’m happy with it. Everyone from my technicians and staff down to my public safety department truly likes having this information in their hands,” said JT.