ArchiFM Users

[Aaron Bourgoin]

Are there any ArchiFM users on this forum. If you exist, please raise your hand and be counted.

If there are enough of us, what do we need to do to establish a thread or which heading should we post to?

I finally received my copy of ArchiFM USA today and would like to offer assistance and ask for some as well - in true forum fashion.

My background is not in facilities management, but rather commercial architecture of all stripes where architects were very much in the service of property managers and their clients and bosses.

I see ArchiFM as the item that does close the circle or wheel of planning, design, construct, manage and adaptive re-use.

[Djordje]

Aaron wrote:
Are there any ArchiFM users on this forum. If you exist, please raise your hand and be counted.

If there are enough of us, what do we need to do to establish a thread or which heading should we post to?

Good topic Aaron!

AFAIK FM is an exclusive club; not available anywhere and not for the faint hearted - but then, neither is API development, GDL, or Calculation menu maze!

Aaron wrote:
My background is not in facilities management, but rather commercial architecture of all stripes where architects were very much in the service of property managers and their clients and bosses.

I see ArchiFM as the item that does close the circle or wheel of planning, design, construct, manage and adaptive re-use.

Well ... I remember one of the first lectures at my uni, that said that after graduating we would be capable of working in many occupations. True - I proved it to myself.

Also, the real VB architects should be back in the control in the Reneissance sense of the word - we should be the ones deciding, not the builders!

Optimistic? Maybe ...

[Anonymous]

Hi I am a short term user if FM .
I made a pitch in our company and got the program. We launched a project and got it up and running. I them ran classes to teach it to our Facilities people but there it feel down as they did not have the will to take it on board and run with it. Very frustrating !!!
I am no longer with that company but I am still very interested in it and would like to ask some questions.
The version we used was FM 2000 with Archicad 7 , will this version run with 8.1 or 9 ? If not are upgrades available ? Thanks

[Aaron Bourgoin]

John,

The latest version is written to work inside or on top of version 8.1. Upgrades should be available from your vendor.

how about giving us some background on what you were doing or trying to do with ArchiFM. And on what you would like to tackle next?

[Anonymous]

Can someone explain FM to me?

Im sorry for asking a stupid question, but I would love to hear what you guy's have to say about it.

[Aaron Bourgoin]

The answer to that question is like the five guys trying to describe the elephant.

There is a reasonable description of ArchiFM in Graphisoft's product pages at the web site. It also has a pretty decent set of web links to more general Facility Management sites as well.

There is a downloadable presentation of ArchiFM basic operations at this site here

Any facility management application that is CAD based tries to tie building assets and people, leases and contracts, as well as operations and maintenance information in the form of a relational database to plans of a building.

ArchiFM takes it a step further by linking the database to a 3D object based model.

How that gets done will vary from building type to building type - contrast a shopping centre with a hospital, with an office block, with a university campus....

The point is to centralize and capture information about building operations in a way that seeks to reduce operational management costs, plan for change inside an organization and capture information that can be otherwise lost in the file cabinets.

If you're really keen to follow this up, contact your local IFMA chapter and, by all means, keep posting to this thread. Its a big topic and one that a lot of ArchiCAD users could find useful.

[Anonymous]

Archicad builds virtual building with objects that have attributes. Calculate uses some of them but if you were to take it further and apply it to the life of the building you would have facilities management tool eg Archifm. We draw a room with four walls (calculate the surface area for painting) doors with locks ( with attributes to control Keying to the locks hence building access and security) air conditioning units (with filter cleaning cycles and maintainance costs ) . There is a saying in the life of a building it costs 10Million to build and 100 Million to manage. Effective management will in the life of the building reduce cost and with ESD provide better analytical modeling for the future.
Any one what to add to this as to what ArchiFM is ?

[Anonymous]

Hi Aaron
Yes elephants Good one