Last week we introduced our Pillar Projects. These are the efforts we are pursuing to help make FM more efficient in the face of tough budget times. FM’s four Pillar Projects include:

• Energy Management
• Parts & Procurement
• Custodial
• Operations & Maintenance
  

This week we will focus on our Energy Management project. President Bruininks is asking everyone at the University to become more efficient and cost effective. You might say our Energy Management group is going after this goal whole hog. They’re trying to stamp out “energy hogs” or buildings that use too much energy. Energy Management is pursuing four strategies:

Capital Project Review: As projects are being built, we will be pushing folks to look at lifecycle costs and not just the up front costs. It may cost less initially to install a certain system but over the expected life it may save money to use a more expensive but energy efficient unit instead.

Schedule Optimization & “Smart Repair”: Boiled down this means slowing or stopping fans when space is unoccupied and looking to replace stand alone pieces with central solutions wherever possible. A good example of the latter is replacing 40 stand alone air compressors in the AHC with one central unit. This saves almost 16 million gallons of water and more than $140,000.

Building Recommissioning: We’ve placed Jay Denny in charge of a new group that will recommission buildings every 4 or 5 years instead of every 40. They’ll address buildings in two phases. In the first phase, they’ll maximize existing systems (make sure systems are balanced and up to snuff) kind of like giving your car a tune up. During the second phase, they will conduct a cost benefit analysis to see how a building would perform using new technology. This would be like replacing a V8 Hemi with a hybrid engine. We expect to derive 75% of our energy savings in these two phases.

Energy Awareness / Culture Change: Gas prices have many of us changing our driving habits. We will pursue an energy awareness campaign to help change faculty, student and staff behavior. This may include posters to remind folks to turn off the lights or energy Olympics to see which dorm can conserve the most energy. Both the Minneapolis and St. Paul school districts have had good results from their campaigns.

I’ll be sharing more details as they become available. Next week we’ll talk about our Parts & Procurement Pillar Project.

Redesigned Website Keeps FM Employees & Customers Informed
When you’ve got a chance take a look at FM’s newly redesigned website (www.facm.umn.edu). Chris Kelleher, our Communications Specialist, did a bang-up job of making information easier to find and sprucing-up the site’s look. More importantly, the site will now be updated regularly with news and information that affects FM employees and customers.

The navigation bar on the lefthand side of the front page directs visitors to each different area of the site. The center column is reserved for breaking news and pertinent information. Finally, the right column now houses the Employee Focus articles, my memos and the monthly operations scorecard. You’ll notice the 'Need Help?' and 'Employee Services' sections have been moved to the lefthand navigation bar, so that they can be accessed on every page of the site. Once a visitor navigates to another section, a drop down menu is revealed on the following page to help direct them further within that section.

If you have any questions or comments contact Chris at kelle847@umn.edu. Please check the site regularly to keep informed about FM and the University.

Mike