As FM:Systems Product Marketing Specialist one of my job responsibilities is to manage our Facility Management Educational Grant Program. This is something I have been involved with over the last 3 years I have been here and it is something that I believe to be a great value both for us as a company as well as the Universities we are working with. We get great value learning about what undergraduate and graduate classes are teaching in these facility management courses and master programs and they get to see how what they are learning can be applied to a role as a facility manager and how implementing a facility management system can bring tremendous benefits to an organization.
Our Educational Grant Program offering is a high-level program designed to give students an overview of the capabilities of facility management software. It explains Integrated Workplace Management System (IWMS) and Computer Aided Facility Management (CAFM) tools and illustrates how they provide organizations with the resources to streamline facilities processes, increase operational efficiencies and reduce facilities costs.
The Educational Grant Program is designed to provide six hours of classroom time, which includes lectures, demonstrations and hands-on exercises. We are flexible in accommodating the instructors schedule and the outline may vary depending on the course’s requirements. In general, we follow the course outline listed below:
- One hour overview demonstration of FM:Interact
- One hour lecture by FM:Systems CEO and Founder, Michael Schley on trends in technology including BIM, Mobile computing and cloud computing. The lecture also covers the business aspects of facility management software.
- Three hour hands-on exercise in which the students are provided with a curriculum covering different FM:Interact modules
- One hour overview demonstration of AutoCAD and Revit
This semester we are currently working with the University of South Wales, Ferris State University and the University of the West of England and are in the middle of coordinating a few others. Michael Schley, FM:Systems Founder and CEO also travels to Cornell University and Georgia Tech each year to do a facility management lecture and demonstration of our product, FM:Interact. In the past we have worked with Southern Polytechnic State University, Kansas State University and Conestoga College.
If you are interested in more information or are a University that is interested in this offering you can contact me at ljackson@fmsystems.com or (919) 582-9720.