How could a facilities department use SharePoint?

Sure, a facilities group could use SharePoint 2007 site collections to work on their office files. That would be great. Well, how often is a facilities group working on office documents? It is likely that they are not as heavy office users as say an administrative assistant or technical writer. Maybe they are heavy Visio users and sure those files could be stored in document libraries on SharePoint.

Let’s think out side the box a bit. Let’s think a bit about the Ethernet interfaces that we find on almost every device in today’s connected world and there are many devices that have Ethernet interfaces on them. These are not just IT devices like print servers or wireless access points. Let’s think about it from a facilities perspective. A facilities group may own and operate many different systems from HVAC systems to cleaning equipment, flow meters or security systems among many others. These systems may have web interfaces that allow some sort of monitoring, alerting or management features. In some of my other writings I touch on creating a shared interface for a particular type of employee and this is where SharePoint could step in and play a role in a facilities departments use of SharePoint 2007.

SharePoint could be used to create a shared interface for a facilities group. This interface might contain a number of different web parts including custom link lists to web page viewers to contact lists.

• Populated with links to all of the HVAC log-on pages through out the company.
• The web page viewers will display the pages that are used to monitor the progress of the different flow meters.
• A custom vendor list could be established and populated.
• An on call calendar for the business to view to see who should be contacted in the event of an emergency.

The benefit in this scenario is a common shared interface established that contains links to important systems and information used by the facilities department. This common interface has web page viewers to critical systems that allows the team members to frequently view the status of the various systems. Additionally you establish a standard way of accessing these resources which simplifies training and documentation as the business grows.  

Standardize how methods, procedures and processes are implemented

Imagine for a moment that you work for a fairly moderate size company that has offices and manufacturing sites all over the world. As the different manufacturing sites begin or continue to implement manufacturing process improvments such as Six Sigma, Lean Manufacturing and 5s methodologies it is likely that if the  team’s are truly committed to the their efforts and have the support from all stake holders, management and employees alike then they will succeed.  

Some of the hidden challenges that are often over looked is the over all approach to tackling and implementing these new methodologies with the entire business as a whole in mind. From an executive viewpoint there may be an overall goal but the individual site specific teams are going to be focused on their local goals. All to often I have heard or read about situations where different divisions or groups in a large enterprise are so diverse in their products that little effort or emphasis is put on making sure these new methodologies and practices are implemented site by site together with a similar approach.

This is where SharePoint 2007 comes in and provides some business value to the organization who wants to standardize the efforts to implement above methodologies. Much like the standardized production worker web interfaces that I discuss in the blog “Production workers want to do their job, get it done right and as efficiently as possible” the various process improvement efforts could have team interfaces established. The interfaces that are put in place may include some of the following basic SharePoint components to name a few.

• A document library for team status reports with a standard format for the reports.
• Alerting established on the above mentioned library to a team distribution list. All members globally have weekly alerts enabled on the status reports and are required to review the other sites progress.
• Various templates established and available in document libraries for the teams to use as needed.
• Team calendars established capturing planned events that will be taking place at the various sites. Alerting established.
• Shared links to useful Internet / Intranet information

The goal would be to establish the web interface that enables these teams to work with information and collect data in a systematic approach which in turn supports a standardized approach to implementing new processes and procedures. Reporting is also standardized so that executive management can get to the information they need when they need it and in a consistent manor.

Business use of Microsoft Office SharePoint Server

Well I finally started a blog site on the business use of Microsoft Office SharePoint Server. I am not exactly sure how this will unfold over the next few months but I am looking forward to expanding on this blog a bit more. Stay tuned, for a while you might see a few bogus posts just to get my mind flowing a bit.

1. Added a few categories for various business sectors that I enjoy.

2. Considering adding pages for the varios sectors as well

3. Added a few RSS feeds on the right side, right now its just SharePoint “How To’s” to fill the page up…