Using AI in FM: What it Can Achieve and What's Best to Leave

Introduction and Welcome

Lisa: Hi everyone. I'm Lisa from SFG20. Welcome to this month's webinar titled 'Using AI in FM: What It Can Achieve and What's Best to Leave'. So today we're going to be delving into how AI can be harnessed to bring value to the FM industry, but we'll also be touching on its limitations and what you need to be wary of.

I'm joined today by Chris Adams from IOFMT, and Mike Talbot, Chief Technology Officer at SFG20. Hello to you both. Before we kick off, I'd like to ask our audience to pop any questions that you have during the session into the Q&A bar, and you'll find that over on the right-hand side of your screen. There's a really nice feature which is up-voting.

So if you see somebody else putting a really great question into that chat, then click on 'up-vote' and that will prioritise that question. And I'll put as many as I can to our guest speakers today. But we also like to hear from you, our audience, as well as our speakers. So get ready to respond to our poll questions throughout today's session and look out also for other related content that we'll be offering you today.

Guest Introductions

Lisa: So let's hear from our guests. Can I ask you, Chris, to introduce yourself please?

Chris: Sure. Thanks, Lisa. Hi everyone. My name's Chris Adams. I'm the director of IOFMT, a chartered engineer with over 20 years of experience in facility management across a number of sectors, and a qualified electrician in the UK and New Zealand.

And thank you. Mike?

Mike: Hi, I am Mike Talbot. I'm Chief Technology Officer at SFG20. I've been building software for health, safety, and building maintenance and those kinds of things for the last eight or nine years in a very long career that has spanned a lot of different areas, but I specifically focus a lot on the use of AI and especially large language models in how we can then push this whole industry forward.

AI Applications in Facility Management

Lisa: Brilliant. Thanks very much to you both. So let's start off with the positives then. What can AI achieve? So, Chris, can I ask you, where have you seen in your experience AI delivering value in FM?

Chris: It's an interesting question. I think if we look at facility management as a whole, we start when we walk through the door. At receptions, we can see virtual concierges automatically checking in guests and supporting with booking and visitor passes, help desks, virtual agents that are available 24/7, reducing the labour time needed.

Room bookings where we can optimise space usage. Security as well is quite a large one. I'm sure we can see with the camera technology, the AI solutions can actively detect threats rather than just recording for monitoring later. When we look at workflow automation, repetitive tasks can support machine learning.

If we take building management systems now, machine learning can support the data science behind it to really squeeze the best out of the buildings for the services' occupants, and large language models, they've developed at a pace more recently, and we can see them delivering value on the day-to-day activities for users, projects as well.

When we look at sensors, I'm sure all are aware of sensors being installed under projects for both hard and soft services. But many of these at the same time are islands of information. So whilst they have value with no connections between them, I think the term 'islands of information with no channels between them' can be a challenge. Whilst there's value in isolation, bringing it together is a part of that digitalisation, and it's something that IOFMT Titan and the partnership with SFG20, we believe, can deliver and support.

Lisa: That's really fascinating. So it's clear that AI is infiltrating, if you like, many, many different areas of FM. Absolutely. So in your experience, Chris, who have been the early adopters of these technologies?

Chris: So I think if we look at organisations as a whole, I think there are organisations out there who are forward-thinking and recognising that asset data is the foundation of everything to move forward. To use the filing cabinet analogy, if your data is in the filing cabinet and it needs a bit of sorting, then AI can really support with that. If it's a bit messy and the paperwork's not in the filing cabinet, it's going to struggle. So the early adopters are really realising that collecting and organising that data, applying industry standards such as RICS NRM3, CSI Guide, Uniclass, these can all really support that transformation.

And I think this is something that is being understood more. When we look at compliance, we consider Asset Mobiliser from SFG20, and then we can look at risk reduction with that. So it really does start with the assets, and the early adopters are realising that.

Lisa: Okay. Thank you very much. Mike, can we turn to you? So I'm interested in understanding a bit more about how AI is being integrated into software.

AI Integration in SFG20 Software

Lisa: So, can you tell us all about how SFG20 are harnessing the power of AI in their software?

Mike: Sure, of course. I think we started—now large language models seem to be a very exciting thing, and one of the first things we decided we were going to try to do with them was originally just help out our sales team.

You can imagine our sales team, the people who are talking to our customers about SFG20, are frequently asked, 'Well, what's your schedule to manage this thing?' And you know, those people are engineers frequently, but probably not in every sector. So it was really, really quite difficult. So we wondered whether AI would be able to take its knowledge of the world, its amazing ability to create synonyms for things, and use that to search our schedule library in order to do those kinds of things. So if you could play my video for a second, whoever's got that. The idea is that what you can do with the AI is you can search for an asset. So I searched in the video for a Worcester Green Star.

Now, that isn't something that we've taught our software about. That's something a large language model knows. It worked out that it was a gas-fired condensing boiler. And it could be used to very quickly find all of the schedules to do with that type of boiler. And it could be used to then find all the other relevant equipment like boiler controls, flues, and the like.

And that proved so useful for us when we were being asked questions that we actually rolled that into our software because we found our customers were using it. But that really got us into the thing that we've just been doing. And Chris mentioned Asset Mobiliser, which is all about saying how can we scale that up?

So we know that industry has this huge problem. Asset registers, if you've got a BIM model, might be fantastic, but if you've got a bit of Excel spreadsheets or a lot of paper or some Word documents, how do you turn those into something which is a set of maintenance instructions aligned with legislation?

So, the answer is we built a tool called Mobiliser. And what that does is it takes an asset register in, it does lots of really clever multi-step AI processes on that to work out first, who made this asset, what those people generally make to work out what this model number is, if we have it. Even if we don't have any of that stuff, it can go and use synonyms and inferences to find and rank a whole series of SFG20 schedules in terms of which are the most likely ones to match this particular asset. It can then ask questions of you if it can't determine which one might be better. For instance, should this be an LED light, or is it a tungsten filament, or is it fluorescent? If that's not in the data, it just asks you these questions, and it takes huge amounts of effort out of the process of getting a list of assets and a list of, you know, legislation-aligned schedules to maintain those assets.

So I think it's that real knowledge of the world that LLMs bring that we've been able to harness and pull into this kind of work.

Lisa: It sounds super powerful. So Mike is actually referencing a pretty game-changing piece of new software which is about to be launched by SFG20, and we just wanted to provide you, the audience, a sneak peek at what's to come.

SFG20 Mobiliser Product Preview

Only one in 10 organisations have an up-to-date asset register.

A lot of places do not have a quality asset register. You may have 27 ways of calling a boiler a boiler, and suddenly when we are looking at five, ten, a hundred thousand assets, that becomes a real challenge.

If you think they've already mapped their assets, they have a problem.

We do hundreds and hundreds of updates a year. At its heart, SFG20 Mobiliser solves the problem of: you've got a list of assets that you need to maintain; which schedule should you use to maintain those assets?

It does this by using the asset name, description, manufacturer, and model info, and our database.

An opportunity to solve an industry challenge.

That sort of efficiency, whilst it's improving accuracy, is just game-changing.

It could save clients weeks, if not months of annual work, but it then creates the entire maintenance regime. So SFG20 Mobiliser will help FM service providers and asset owners as well. We have our knowledgeable team standing by to talk through how it can help your business.

Lisa: Thank you, and we're just going to put up a poll question at that point. So thank you very much for all of your questions coming in, by the way. So keep those coming in and we'll answer those at the end. So, there should be a poll question coming up on screen, and option number one is 'I'd like to talk to SFG20'.

So you might have some questions about the SFG20 standard. You might like some clarification on that to find out more. You can also—it's not either/or. You can also find out more about IOFMT, and I'm sure that Chris or one of his colleagues will contact you so that you can find out more about the software offerings that he's got, and also the integration that he referenced with SFG20 to find out more about how that works.

ISO 42001 - AI Management Systems

But we also understand that you are busy people. So if neither of those is quite right at the moment, then just click 'no thanks' and that's absolutely fine. So we'll end the poll there. So Chris, I'd like to come back over to you. So I'd like to understand a bit more about AIMS—Artificial Intelligence Management Systems—which is ISO 42001.

So in a nutshell, can you tell us what it is and how it can help industry?

Chris: Yeah, sure, Lisa. Thank you. So, in a nutshell, ISO 42001 is the world's first international standard for AI management systems. In terms of context, those that are familiar with ISO 9001 for governing quality and 27001 for governing information security—it is similar but not the same. And it's related to how you can support the continuous development and deployment of AI systems, which are rapidly changing, rapidly evolving with responsible governance across topics such as ethics, risk management, and bias. And as large language models develop, there must be processes in place for bias, for example, if they determine they're going to go off on a tangent or they can be reverse-engineered to give a specific result. The governance surrounding this will become ever more important as these systems grow. So implementing ISO 42001 can allow AI deployment to be safe and scalable, and auditable, providing trust and assurance with familiar processes that can adapt to the change in buildings and the technology.

We are able to implement ISO 42001, have a good understanding of it, and I think we've been able to put these principles into IOFMT IO, which is our AI virtual agent, and across Titan as well.

Lisa: So you've actually implemented the ISO process with the current business?

Chris: We're certified to implement it. I see. So we'll be on that journey. And it is a journey, I think. It's not something you can get overnight. And I think for organisations looking to adopt AI, it's really important to understand how these processes develop. If any organisation has established themselves with technology and then gone, 'Maybe we should get an ISO,' it's a lot more work and a lot more thought and a lot more cost to consider it later down the line.

Lisa: Okay, thank you. So we've talked a little bit about the benefits, what AI can achieve, how it can be implemented. As always, there are risks and downsides to technology. So, Mike, if I can just come back to you and ask you, is AI-generated content to be trusted?

Risks and Limitations of AI

Mike: Well, I think that you've got to be very careful in fully trusting AI-generated content when it's got something to do with life safety or illness or, you know, general risk to the public. And that's because I think the real challenge here is that legislation isn't necessarily clear to start with. It changes a lot. We get best practice all the time. Right. Something happens, we learn from it. That's the point. What you're trying to do is to always be at the potential best. The challenge of AI-generated content is, well, it could pull from anywhere. It could pull from lots and lots of different places, old rules, new rules, mix it all up, and that's a challenge right now.

I think it can be used to augment and assist, but to actually write content, I think that would be extremely dangerous. It could definitely make some mistakes.

Lisa: Okay. Sorry Chris.

Chris: Thank you. It's an interesting point because I think I was having a conversation just yesterday with a client that said that if you use one of the large language models out there, put the same question in twice or three times, will you get the same result? If you ask a person, will they bring the same result? Maybe with a few caveats, but at least you know where you are.

Lisa: What we've found also is that it's quite sycophantic, so it'll try to please you, it'll try to please whoever's asking the question, and you're absolutely right. It won't necessarily come out with the same answer twice. So that's interesting. Mike, I wanted to ask you, could AI create a schedule to the same standard as SFG20, do you think?

Mike: Definitely not. I mean, no, I mean really not, because those things are, you know, I mean the RAG ratings on those things, the frequencies, the skill sets, the fact that these things are governed by law, but in fact law that may not be clear—it's had to be pulled out of best practice.

This is what we have experts doing right now, and right now, whilst we might be able to smooth some of those processes and quickly look up some law using AI, what we couldn't do is convert that into something that you'd want to stand up in court and defend yourself with. That's what I did, and that's a real thing, right?

The real thing we are doing at SFG20 is we are taking the ability to condense all of that information through expert engineers and turn that into something which is legislatively aligned and is going to keep you safe—both your business safe, but also the people who are occupying your building.

Lisa: Yeah. Okay. So leading on from that, what are the potential risks and pitfalls in adopting AI for building maintenance?

Mike: Well, I think it's a very new field, isn't it? And I think Chris mentioned this earlier. With the, you know, you can get these islands of sensors, and then of course, you know, if you've got sensors doing some critical legislative task, then the sensor breaks, right. What's your maintenance plan for your sensor? You end up with this complexity, which is where you're going to need organisations to come together and build this out in a legitimate sort of fashion. I think, you know, if you think about things like fire safety, I mean, the rules on fire safety have just changed a lot after Grenfell, and they're probably going to keep changing, right? We're not through the prosecutions on that thing yet. And so, you know, you've got to make sure that you are aligning with those kinds of things. And if you rely too much on AI without the smarts associated with it, then I think, you know, with people using it, then I think you could be in a lot of trouble. But I think if you follow the right kinds of practices—Chris has been outlining those kinds of things—then yeah, I mean, you can definitely get a huge benefit out of this.

Just, I think there's a danger—the Dunning-Kruger effect—a little bit of knowledge makes you think you're suddenly an expert. And that's the danger of AI. It's got the Dunning-Kruger effect. It thinks it's an expert, but it doesn't have all the details. It doesn't have the—it's not collating all of that stuff yet. So right at the moment, I think that those are the kinds of risks associated.

Chris: I think, excuse me, I think there's a tangent as well with regards to service contracts, tenders, leases—are they geared up and ready for interoperable data? Or are organisations looking to silo everything? The islands of information, as it were. If everyone's in the same building, if a tenant decides to have sensors and they don't want to share that information, is it for the best benefit of the building? Which controls ultimately the ventilation, occupancy? So it's collaborative, I think is key.

Lisa: Hmm. Yeah, interesting point there.

Audience Poll: AI Adoption Status

Lisa: So let's ask the audience. So I've got a couple of questions here for you to answer. The first one is, where are you on AI adoption today? So where are you in your organisation? So you might be at the outset, you might just be in the exploring phase, or you might have gone a step further and you might be starting to test with some pilot projects. Or you might have gone a step further where you're actually scaling AI in one particular business area or indeed across your entire organisation. Or you might be—that might be why you've joined today. So you're not pursuing AI adoption and you're really just in that fact-finding stage where you want to find out more about the technology and the possibilities.

So we've still got people voting, but I'm going to close the poll in just a few seconds, and then if we can show the findings. I think it's unsurprising that the majority of people are really in the exploring AI opportunities phase, and 25% currently are not pursuing AI adoption. But that's probably 'yet', isn't it?

Audience Poll: Top Drivers for AI

Lisa: Okay, let's close that poll question and let's move to the next one. I'd like to understand what is you and your organisation's top driver for exploring AI? So just choose the one option that's most relevant to you. Might you be using AI to benefit from efficiency and automation of tasks, or is it about cost reduction? Is it about reducing risk, mitigating risk, and improving compliance? Is it about improving asset reliability and avoiding that unpredictable and costly downtime of your operations? Or is it about those data-driven insights that allow teams to make better decisions? We've still got people voting.

Just give you a couple more seconds to put in your vote. Okay. So what we can see is that there are two fairly clear winning drivers. So number one, we've got efficiency and automation. And then coming in second place is the data-driven insights that allow teams to make better decision-making. So thank you very much. That's interesting to hear where you all are in your journey on AI. So, we've also produced an e-guide which accompanies this webinar, and you will be able to download it at the end. So that's called 'How to Get Started with AI in FM', and that's actually being co-authored by Chris and Mike, and that is free for you to download at the end of today.

Practical Tips for Getting Started with AI

Lisa: But what I'm going to ask Chris now is can you give us some practical tips on how organisations can get started with AI and digitalisation?

Chris: Absolutely. So it all starts with the assets—building assets, M&E assets—but of course, our greatest assets: people and the decision-makers. A proactive approach we can enable through understanding that digitalisation is here, and the sooner we can jump on this bus, you won't be running after it. So if we start with building owners, budget holders, if you consider digitalisation as a prerequisite in tenders, service contracts, projects, leases, how is data going to—and the level of data maturity going to—enable change?

Facility management can lead transformation, obviously hard services and soft services. And then if we look at service providers, SFG20's time-based maintenance should be the baseline, but there are opportunities to move to condition-based maintenance, predictive maintenance, and really getting the asset data right and standardised opens up options for pilots.

There's no silver bullet solution. Some stuff will work at one site, others will work at another. There may be existing contracts. So it really does start with the assets. And underpinning this is, again, the expectation. If options appraisal—first option, let's do nothing—what's going to happen? Change is happening.

And to go back to the bus analogy, do you want to be enjoying the journey on the bus or running after it going, 'Where's that one gone?' I think it's the journey that's supported by trust and governance that will enable AI in FM. And this is again back to IOFMT Titan, and we've developed it to do just that.

Q&A Session

Lisa: Fantastic. Thank you very much. And that guide that I was referring to, we do expand upon that point and other points. So I'd really recommend that you take the opportunity to download that guide to accompany what you've been learning about today. So I'm going to turn to the questions from the audience.

We've got a couple on SFG20 and specifically this new product, Mobiliser. So obviously I will put those to Mike, and then we've got some bigger, practical applications of AI in solving industry issues. So I'll turn to those as well. So the first one for Mike then is, can Mobiliser talk to the API of existing CMMS and integrate to the software to work alongside it?

I can answer that one, but you answer, Mike. You'll do it better than me.

Mike: Go on then. Yes. Our API allows you to fully integrate, passing data in from an existing CMMS, then us augmenting that, turning that into things like SFG20 codes, and then exporting either the SFG20 code or actually all of the individual tasks needed to be done for each asset, organised however makes the most sense to the system. And we can provide support and services to help you get exactly what you need out of it. But yes, absolutely. A complete round-trip system is available.

Lisa: I think it's fair to say, isn't it, Mike, that we recognised, as Chris is talking about, you know, data in silos is not any help for anyone. And so you've been working really hard on software that is CMMS-friendly so that our information can flow seamlessly into operating systems for the completion of work.

Mike: Yes. Absolutely. I mean, I think that, you know, people need to consume data in different ways. You know, we write data, we write maintenance and schedules. That's what we do and that's how we think about it. That may well not be how an engineer on the ground thinks about it. So we've deliberately made our software capable of talking in those ways as well. So you can ask, 'Oh, just give me the tasks for a gas safe engineer to do on this visit to this site.' All of these things are totally possible and can be integrated in the right way to make it as flexible as possible.

I think as the industry strives for this stuff, it's beholden on us to actually provide data in the ways that people need it, not to prescribe how things should be done in their world. In the operational world of actually taking and carrying out these tasks, we've got to make it as flexible as possible to provide the information that people doing the jobs can use, whilst we maintain that, you know, core ratified, legislatively aligned standard. That's our job.

Lisa: Absolutely. Yeah. Helping people to do their jobs. So this is kind of the same question, but it goes a step further. So, can Mobiliser interface with existing CMMS, or does it replace a CMMS system?

Mike: Yeah, no, specifically, we're not an operational system. We are not going to be saying, 'Bob, you need to go to this place and do this job.' We absolutely want to augment those systems. In very small organisations, it could just work off a schedule. Because they've just got a couple of people. Yes, of course, you don't need a CMMS. If you need a CMMS, you need a CMMS. We're not going to replace that though. We're not going to provide those functions, but we are going to provide all of the data necessary in exactly the right formats for these systems.

Lisa: Okay, thank you. I'm now going to turn to a question on BIM and Smart Buildings. So perhaps for Chris, in simple terms, what is the difference between a BIM building and a smart building driven by AI?

Chris: I think it's a very subjective one, if I'm honest. BIM—Building Information Modelling—has been around for a number of years. I think it's a fantastic process that sometimes gets stuck in the operational phase, truly realising its value. And I'm sure there are some BIM managers out there that have had some challenges with that.

We often see projects that have been developed and ready to be implemented. The information, if we go back to the islands of information, sometimes it doesn't get transferred. And underlying this is then a skills gap, which can further inhibit the vision of bringing BIM to its true potential for smart buildings.

I say it is subjective because the way I look at smart buildings is if we took SMART objectives. They should be Specific, Measurable, Achievable, Realistic, Time-based. It should be considered with some of the topics we've said today. If we took AI out of the equation, but kept the asset data. So the difference is really, BIM has been around for a long time, and smart buildings have not, and there are different interpretations and definitions of what a smart building is. And perhaps it's one for each organisation to define as part of their strategy and what they want to achieve, and BIM can fully support that.

Lisa: Okay. Thank you. The next one is to do with healthcare. So how can AI support NHS England delivering a net zero National Health Service and the wider targets of net zero by 2040? For you, Chris—I mean, Mike, you can jump in.

Chris: In principle, I think if we looked at IOFMT Titan, where we can support with standardising the asset data, now standardising the asset data across a larger estate can be a challenge, but starting somewhere and making sure there's that continuous improvement from day one, ready to absorb change in new technologies.

The tender processes, obviously different between public and private sectors. These need to be considered because if a technology becomes available and then it goes legacy, it's not available. There are improvements made. All of these changes need to be considered at the highest level before adopting.

If you were to roll out thousands of sensors across a number of estates and collecting this data, what are you going to do with the data? What is the purpose? What is the value? And small sounds—small things, but batteries. If batteries last five years, ten years, that sounds great from day one. What do you do when you get to year five and these batteries start requiring replacing?

And how easy are they to replace? Again, if it's simply opening and closing the sensor to support that, it could impact the true value. And then when we look at net zero, there are options with standardising the data to then have competitive tenders that can all relate to the same standardisation model, which means it's easier to evaluate different technologies.

There's more governance as well coming out with sensors, the RED Directive and things like that. So these are all things that should be considered. So AI can support, yes, but I believe it should be similar to sensors. If we looked at risk assessments and PPE, it should be an afterthought. The filing cabinet should be tidy and sorted, and then look at options to then transform and reach those strategic objectives.

Mike: I think I've got something I'd like to say on this as well. I mean, you know, I think if we look at it from the SFG20 perspective, one of the key things we want to make sure is that we're not over-maintaining buildings, and that clearly sensors help massively in that. But so can AI also help with that planning. If you've got a standard like ours that you can apply digitally, like you can with facilities, like you map your assets using something like Mobiliser so you can get that whole estate mapped.

Then the ability to optimise things, so you are still maintaining the level of legal compliance. You're doing the other work that helps preserve the life of equipment, reducing the embodied carbon from that equipment being completely replaced. You can do that and you can use AI to plan that across a whole estate.

Optimising to make sure that you're not visiting too much. If you just do the basic—make a list of things to do and do them—you won't optimise the journeys of those people. And in fact, the carbon cost of travel to buildings, let alone the visiting too many times and doing too much work, all of that is something AI is going to help us with. Optimise that. But you know, I think that's what we care about because we feel that we've got the tools there to enable that to happen. We've got the PPM schedule. We've got where we can augment those with sensors to reduce visits and those kinds of things.

Lisa: The potential's really, really exciting, isn't it?

We've got some more questions that have come in, which relate to integration of SFG20 and CMMS. So Rajendra has asked how can we integrate SFG20 with our CMMS software to automate PM generation? Well, Rajendra, you would need an SFG20 licence. So I'm guessing that you've got an account manager at SFG20. And actually the best thing that you can do is talk to your CMMS provider and point them in our direction. And if they're not already integrated with us, it's a really simple process for their developers to connect into SFG20. Is there anything else you'd like to add to that, Mike? Because you developed the API, didn't you?

Mike: Yes. I mean, so our plan with the API was to make it available to people to integrate, CMMS systems to integrate, because they're the people who've got the operational systems. We can't dictate that. We shouldn't be pushing data into an operational system. We're a source of data for them to pull from that we can tell them the maintenance plan has been updated because maybe the laws changed or you've decided to maintain things differently. But the key thing there is that we provide that service to them free of charge. We have a team of people who just do that integration so they can come to us.

We help them on that journey and it's very, very straightforward. We've got—I can't remember how many it is now—many CMMS providers have already done those integrations, and more come on all the time. So we're super keen. Obviously the CMMS world is full of a lot of vendors. There are big vendors, tiny vendors, very specialist vendors, and we have a whole range of those people already signed up and doing that integration.

Lisa: So, if I could ask the technical elves who are busy running this webinar on our behalf, could you just pop the URL in for the link on our website that shows our integration partners? So that Rajendra can just work out whether her CMMS provider is already an integrator or not, and if not, contact them, Rajendra, and then it's quite a simple process for them.

We've got a question here from David to do with tender documents and being able to link in with SFG20. So the question is, can SFG20 AI assist with pulling tender documents together for specific assets and, further to this, guide long-term maintenance of assets coming towards the end of life to provide evidence-based requirements to drive budgetary requirements within an organisation?

That is a long question. Would you like me to read it again? Because I'm not sure that I read it very well.

Mike: It's on my screen. I can read it. I may deal with that in two parts. So yes, in terms of tender documents, I mean the launch of Mobiliser, which is imminent, will allow you to take in an asset register and get an understanding of that register in terms of what maintenance would be required for it.

We believe this is the start of a journey, and we have other things planned on this journey because I think that one of the classic problems of asset registers is they miss something. You know, you've got three boilers and then you've got your radiators, but where's that ducting that's connecting everything together that you've got to maintain?

That's one of the classic problems and we're seeking to use AI and our knowledge of building structure to be able to build that stuff up so that we'll be able to help even more in tender documents by being able to rank perhaps how representative is the register you've got of what's likely to be in this kind of building, doing lots of work with other parties on trying to get this for specific types of building.

Like what would you expect to find in a school? What would you expect to find in an office? What do you expect to find in a prison, a hospital, and those kinds of things so that we can really help people tender by understanding how good is the data they've got and to hopefully save some money by not having to resurvey things all the time.

In terms of the end-of-life stuff, well, you know, I mean, yes, we can help with that in terms of understanding—you know, I mean, we aren't simply—we don't have that whole lifecycle thing as part of it. Clearly we don't predict how long equipment lasts for. So maybe other data could be pulled in for that.

But we certainly track and use information on the condition grade of equipment and its install date to help us understand and help people make maintenance plans which, you know, maintain assets according to their age and their likely remaining lifespan. So we help—I wouldn't say we're the entire answer to that.

Chris: If I could follow on from that, I think this is where we've developed Titan Inception, Insight, and IO, which is our platform. We're supported by chartered engineers and RICS professionals. So where SFG20, as Mike said, can fill some of the gaps, but some may remain. This is where we've developed our consultancy and managed service to bring that together and support the requirements that clients need. And we appreciate that these needs change with the demands of stakeholders, technology, and the built environment.

Lisa: Thanks Chris. We've got a question here from David saying, working in the built-to-rent sector with a number of high-rise buildings under the regulator, it's sometimes difficult rolling out sensor technology retrospectively. Are there any solutions available to support the rollout without compromising the compartmentation of the buildings? So for you, Chris.

Chris: So, it is interesting. When we look at the non-statutory tasks in SFG20, there's a bit more leeway in terms of risk management. When it comes back to the compliance, it's a bit more stringent. That being said, if we go back to the ACOPs, the Approved Codes of Practice and guidance, a lot of it is risk-based.

So the onus is on the responsible persons and the duty holders to make the decisions of what's best. In reality, you can follow guidance to the book, perfectly, and incidents can still happen. Take Approved Document Part B, and a fire alarm is an early warning system. It's not saying if you have a fire alarm, it won't happen. It's an early warning system, and I think that opens up the 'what if'. So anyone approaching compliance should really look at the what-if analysis, look at the available information. But that all really starts, going back to the assets, is making sure that data is as up to date and available as possible, and bridge the skills gap.

It's complex. This is why SFG20 has the technical author team to support, who have the competencies to provide the how-to guides and the schedules. And I think the skills gap, to finish on, should not be underestimated, especially when considering compliance.

Lisa: Hmm, absolutely. Okay, so that brings us to the end.

Closing Remarks and Resources

Lisa: We've just got one more unanswered question from Paul, and I will answer your question in just one second. So what's going to happen now is our lovely faces will disappear off screen in a second, but we will still leave the Q&A open because you might be just distilling all of the information that you've heard today and you might want to add in some additional questions.

So we will leave that open for a few minutes and we'll get back to you one-to-one after the webinar has finished. What you'll see on screen then is the e-guide that I was saying accompanies today's topic. So I would urge you to download that and take that away and read and learn some more.

I'd like to thank Chris and Mike. Thank you very much for being guest speakers today and sharing your experience and knowledge. And Paul, your question about is there any literature on Mobiliser that can be circulated? Actually, we're going to be launching it on the 13th of November, so we're going to be holding two different webinars on that day.

One is specifically for service providers and contractors, and the other one is for building owners and occupiers. So stay tuned for that. We'll make sure that you receive an invite. So all that remains for me to say is goodbye. Thank you all for joining and very much for participating in our polls, and have a great day.

Mike: Thank you. Thanks.

Chris: Thanks.