By Dan Hounsell, Senior Editor

Artificial intelligence (AI) is rewriting the rules in a range of professions and industries as organizations strive to find the most appropriate and beneficial opportunities to take advantage of the technology’s potential benefits. Facilities management is no exception as building owners and managers take a closer look at the ways they can turn AI’s ability to gather and distill data into opportunities for greater efficiency. 

Stanford Medicine is among the facilities management organizations on the leading edge of these efforts, and they offered attendees of the Healthcare Facilities Innovation Conference in Anaheim last July insights into their efforts to bring AI into energy and building management. Their goal was to leverage AI in its operations and the key drivers behind its use in facilities, unpack the governance mechanisms Stanford has established to oversee the use of AI and discuss the challenges that arise with AI integration. 

AI applications. Stanford Medicine’s facilities services and planning, along with the organization’s data analysts, identified several possible areas and technologies to apply AI to day-to-day management tasks as well as system analysis. They include: building and energy management systems; a facilities services response center; visitor management; occupancy, energy and capacity management; and patient experience improvements. 

More specifically, the team is working on facilities uses related to energy and building management and building information modeling, says Daniel Troup, director of facilities infrastructure and safety with Stanford Medicine Children’s Health. 

The goal is to identify "anywhere you can automate systems or processes,” Troup says, adding that AI offers the potential of integrating facilities data that had been siloed. 

Josh Taylor, director of facility field services with Stanford Health Care, says the organization also is investigating the possibility of using data gathered from occupancy sensors in operating rooms as a way to optimize ventilation and reduce energy consumption during low-use periods. 

On the more traditional end of applications, managers are using AI for email correspondence and meeting notes, says Sam Vicchrilli, program manager for operational technology with Stanford Medicine. 

The team also is hoping the organization can realize benefits by applying AI to the process of continuous commissioning of Stanford Children's facilities to optimize their operation using real-time data collection and analysis of building equipment. Their hopes are based on the facts that modern buildings are complex with many moving parts and large amounts of data, facilities teams are stretched thin, and prioritizing tasks is challenging. The goal of the effort is to resolve building operational problems, improve comfort and minimize energy consumption and costs. 

Implementation insights. AI is a different type of technology than more traditional facilities systems managers have been accustomed to, and its boundaries and applications are still evolving. For these reasons, the Stanford Medicine team has been careful to put measures in place that put guidelines on the way the technology and its results are used in facilities. 

RAISE Health is a joint initiative between Stanford Medicine and the Stanford Institute for Human-Centered Artificial Intelligence that aims to guide the responsible use of Al across the organization’s biomedical research, education, and patient care. The data science team’s guidelines ask users to determine whether Al-guided work will be fair, useful and reliable and have monetary value to the organization before implementation. Ideally, the team would be able to identify, and execute, three to five projects per year where use of Al generates enterprise value.   

For example, Troup says that AI-driven efforts involving fault detection and diagnostics create “opportunities to look for energy projects that can help Stanford meet sustainability goals.” 

To ensure projects stay on track, Stanford’s facilities technology executive council works to prioritize projects and enhancement requests by conducting quarterly updates of approved projects. 

Duncan McElfresh, senior data engineer with Stanford Health Care, says silos of healthcare data are problems for many organizations and that AI offers opportunities to build bridges between data sets that previously had been isolated in building automation systems, computerized maintenance management systems, BIM applications and 3D design applications used for architecture, engineering and construction projects. 

Spotlight on technicians. Ultimately, the impact of AI in facilities management depends on the willingness and ability of front-line maintenance technicians to buy into the technology in ways that enable AI to gather and analyze reliable facilities data in ways that produce tangible results for their organizations. The challenge is likely to be daunting for managers and their organizations. 

Understandably, technicians are somewhat wary of AI. Taylor says technicians have asked him, “What if I ask AI for a procedure on making a repair and it’s wrong?” At the same time, they understand that AI is likely to be a critical element in facilities, as well as technicians’ futures. 

"They ask, ‘What do I need to look at to be viable in this job 10 or 20 years from now?’” Taylor says. 

Troup says he is cautiously optimistic about technicians’ buy-in to AI but adds, “We’re still teaching techs how to use the building automation system.” Still, the potential power of AI for technicians looking for new methods to improve facility efficiency and performance is substantial. 

"You can’t use a BAS to find a problem," Troup says. “I want technicians to find the cause of the problem, not just solve the problem.” 

However AI plays out in facilities and whatever its ultimate impact on facilities management, McElfresh says the team is well aware of the organization’s expectations for their efforts: “We need to make sure we are building the right thing, doing it the right way and abiding by the institution’s standards.”

Dan Hounsell is senior editor for the facilities market. He has more than 30 years of experience writing about facilities maintenance, engineering and management.