"It’s a completely new way of working in a project. Everything at hand immediately. Everything completely traceable. And the setup of the software by conject was unbelievably fast. The system was available after the first workshop day. It feels like having moved from the record player to the iPhone with music, movies, telephone, email, web access..."

(Ton Beekman, Managing Director, Blue Lotus Hua Hin (Thailand) Co, Ltd.)

Involved Parties:

Shareholder, Initiator/Developer: Blue Lotus Hua Hin (Thailand) Co, Ltd.
Various Sub Contractors
Software Provider and Consultant: conject AG

Project Duration: 2007-2012

Investment Volume: Over US$ 100 million.

The Project: The Banyan Estate Hua Hin is a prestigious housing development in the royal resort town of Hua Hin, 200 kilometres south of Bangkok and one of Thailand’s finest holiday destinations. The Banyan Estate is developed on a total land area of 270 Rai, approximately 432,000 sqm. The Banyan Estate comprises the development of 85 CD investment houses, 167 villas and more than 200 condominiums/apartments.

conjectPM for document and plan logistics and communication: conjectPM, the Internet-based project space connecting all project participants, enables effective infrastructure project management for Banyan Estate: Anytime access to latest project information, unlimited storage and number of projects, drawing management, professional project documentation and communication in context. Workflows with distribution groups, templates and Outlook integration support efficient process management.

conjectCM for budget controlling and contract management: With conjectCM all processes in cost management are automated and standardized – referring to best practice processes. The project responsibilities are clearly defined and enforced: On budget, contract and invoice level and for the cost as well as for the income side. For all project participants of The Banyan Estate all relevant project data is available and up-to-date at any time during all phases. Defined report formats are set-up and comply with the recurring reporting procedures. Additional analyses of the commercial management data can be executed by each user.

„In our opinion, standardization of framework processes and key data is a substantial factor for success and was pivotal in our decision to implement an integrated ERP-CAFM system“

(Sven Lemiss, Managing Director of BIM)

BIM Berliner Immobilienmanagement GmbH (BIM)

As a 100% subsidiary of the State of Berlin, BIM has been managing the state-owned properties since 2003, comprising 900 municipal buildings with around 4 million square meters of gross floor space.

Complete administration of the state’s real estate portfolio from a single source

Using only one solution combining both CAFM as well as ERP functionalities makes it possible to realize uniform control across departments of the company’s rent and leasing, integrated area management as well as all invoicing of operating and incidental costs.

Controlling business processes through an integrated CAFM-ERP system

Since February of 2007, BIM’s real estate management has been supported by a central IT platform – a combination of the CAFM system conjectFM and the ERP system mySAP ERP 2005. It is used to display both commercial processes as well as complex workflows in Facility Management. “Due to the level of complexity, we deploy SAP for our commercial processes. For the substantially more complex real estate processes, however, we require a second, very specialized and flexible software pillar – in this case conjectFM,” explains Dr. Martin Freundt, Head of Data & Systems Management at BIM. Implementation of the central system was carried out in just eight months, including the transfer of existing data. The system was extended with a Web-based service provider portal based on conjectFM to display the entire “minor building maintenance processes” (trouble shooting from online reporting to online invoicing).

Saving costs on the level of €181 million through optimized operation of properties

The company has already managed to save around €181 million. This was achieved through both improved utilization of state owned space and leasing out external rental space. Optimized operation of the properties has also had the effect of cutting costs.

Peter Ermer, Director of the Verkehrs- und Betriebszentrale (VBZ/Transportation and Operations Control Center) Nordbayern, is relieved:"One of our core businesses, the repair of faults, for example on facilities involved in traffic management, is now substantially simpler, more transparent and traceable. Effective immediately, all departments are able to access the central workflow management system using standard Web browsers! With the conjectFM system, we can process not only incidents, but orders and reports pertaining to traffic as well. The software is tailored exactly to our needs"

Capturing and editing incident reports with state-of-the-art Web technology

The INTRASYS GmbH was considerably involved by defining and mapping out the workflows. conject, the provider of the Web solution, put innovative solutions into action with “Incident Management conjectFM.” Existing isolated applications were replaced and a central system for displaying the processes Reports, Incidents and Orders was made available according to the customer’s specifications. State-of-the-art Web technologies were deployed with which individual processes can be displayed in the Web very quickly.

Incident Management conjectFM – clear structures and user-friendly

Mr. Göring served as technical advisor from VBZ Nordbayern and is pleased with the results. “The system is structured clearly and is totally user-friendly. The system was readily accepted by the staff at VBZ Nordbayern. This was a big step towards simplifying workflows at VBZ Nordbayern.”

Processing a building permit procedure entirely online? Thanks to ITeBAU today, this is no longer a vision of tomorrow. Not only applicants benefit from an accelerated building permit process; authorities also profit from the advantages of an improved process organization. Because ITeBAU, the Internet-based building permit procedure, enables

• all participants involved in the process to work simultaneously on the electronic file,
• elimination of waiting and transportation times,
• faster submission of adjusted building documents by the architect, as well as
• saving travel costs and time using online conferences with several participants.

Building inspection authorities have been working without media interruption since 2006

conject’s Internet-based Project Management Platform serves as the core which can be accessed separately and independently by everyone involved in the building permit process, in other words simultaneously according to their rights. As a result, the building owner, the architect, the building code authorities as well as both internal and external service providers are able to submit building applications and building documents without media interruption, make comments, obtain information on the current status and check it immediately and approve it.

Over 150 public authorities are already cooperating via the Internet

Meanwhile, building authorities in four German states offer digital processing with ITeBAU. This is in addition to the roughly 150 other authorities which are involved in the approval process and which thus work digitally via the conject platform as well as also approximately 100-120 architects/building owners.

Is everyone really satisfied?

Recently, architects from the city and in the County of Osnabrück involved in the digital procedure were surveyed about working with the conject platform and on their satisfaction: What has your experience been working with the platform? Is the building permit process suitable for digital processing??

You will find the analysis and responses here (in German only).

Everyone’s talking about mobile solutions – KI AG and conject have been proving it’s also possible for complex processes for working in the field since 2003 when this partnership began. Numerous solutions for service technicians, maintenance processes and cleaning, and all the way to GPS-based mobile administration of cadastral tree registers have been implemented. “The impressive thing about the introduction of the mobile solutions was that qualitative earnings became perceptible immediately,” says Steffen Braun, head of KI's Sales, and continues: “It usually takes under 10 months to see a verified calculable return on investment.” Cologne-based KI AG – Partner of the Month.

Everyone wants to be mobile, everything needs to be mobile as well – yet many customers still find optimizing processes with mobile solutions to be a foreign concept. What is clear is that people expect to gain a clear competitive edge from them and rightly so. KI AG can help here as the specialist for conceptual and technical mobilization in combination with conject’s CAFM solutions. And do it quickly because the companies know each other well. “We are able to handle even complex projects very quickly,” says Björn Feltes, who takes care of primarily large and medium-sized industrial customers at conject. Standard applications and tried-and-tested, fully standardized system interfaces are a matter of fact nowadays. “With the result," says Feltes, “that a mobile solution is put into place trouble-free and efficiently – thanks to the standardized interfaces.”

Leading service companies, such as technical service providers for gas stations or classic FM companies, rely on mobile solutions in combination with conjectFM to manage their technicians on-site – at times several hundred mobile service technicians simultaneously. Here not only internal processes are made shorter thanks to “paperless” order processing. This also increases the level of quality provided to the customer – substantially faster reaction times, the ability to transmit a work report from on-site with a mobile terminal are possible.

Are you also interested in improving your company’s mobile connections? Steffen Braun of KI AG would be happy to help. He’s also managing director of the company, KI business performance GmbH, specializing in business intelligence, planning and portals. Holding a diploma in business administration, he studied in Cologne and at the Copenhagen Business School, with an emphasis on International Management.

...you can define recipient groups within conjectPM...

...and send emails directly to those groups from your Outlook Account? That way you can actively include external participants into the delivery process.

Sending your email via Outlook looks like this:

...with conjectFM you now won’t miss any deadlines?

It’s a known fact that you can note dates pertaining to contracts and objects managed directly in conjectFMFacilities Management with conjectFM (CAFM) is practical, high-performance and easy-to-use software for all segments of real estate. What’s new is that you can now monitor all date fields directly with conjectFMFacilities Management with conjectFM (CAFM) is practical, high-performance and easy-to-use software for all segments of real estate Deadline Monitoring: A parametrizable trigger initiates a mail in reference to the date and the occasion – this can also be activated with a lead time and sent to several persons at once. Expiration of warranty periods can be monitored in the same way.

You will find more information on monitoring deadlines with conjectFM here (in German only).

The Project
For € 30,000 the outdoor area of the youth center in Duisburg will be redesigned and renovated. The Haus der Jugend with adjoining day nursery has been a part of the Duisburg district of Rheinhausen since 1960 and is an important center for the local youth.

As the organizers, the conject AG team (with headquarters in Munich and offices in Duisburg) with 120 employees will be working voluntarily from 13 to 14 August 2009 on comprehensive construction and redevelopment measures:

• Construction of 2 tool sheds for storing toys as well sports and gardening equipment
• Construction of seating for spectators at the sports facilities
• Construction of a barbecue area
• Refurbishment of the outdoor tables and benches, table tennis tops and beach volleyball court

The sponsor: Adolf Sauerland, Lord Mayor of Duisburg on the initiative:
“A central challenge to local politics in Duisburg remains the advancement of children and youth. Private initiatives can help make a substantial contribution, as conject AG’s example shows. As the sponsor, I am delighted and welcome this exemplary private involvement and hope that this initiative finds many imitators.”

Your involvement:
Support this project. You’ll find out how here.

Dubai – a grand, glittering metropolis or merely an ailing emirate? These clichés fail to acknowledge what the desert state has accomplished in a short time.

In any case, conject is staying put and not just that: the team is still looking for reinforcements! Are you interested in working in Internet City? Several colleagues talk about what they like in a short film about the Gulf and their work.

Have a look at what Sabrina, Rida or Tarek have to say here.

Please send any thoughts you have on the film to elke.tonscheidt©conject.com.

To operate their buildings and properties, they rely on Europe’s most widely-used CAFM system:

• 25 modules for flexible application
• Across sectors and user-friendly
• 14 years CAFM experience
• Over 500 customer projects
• More than 12,000 conjectFM users

Now more than ever, savings potential and gains in efficiency through CAFM are increasingly relevant, particularly in the real estate sector. Go with the market leader in CAFM systems for the optimal operation of your properties!

Our special FM offer for you

• 25% discount on all conjectFM modules
• Free maintenance for 1 year
• 0% interest on installment purchases (maximum of 3 years)
• Valid until 31/12/2009 for all new customers

Find out more about the special FM offer here.

The FIFA World Cup will take place for the first time on African soil from 11 June until 11 July 2010. The Soccer City Stadium in Johannesburg will be the main stadium of this sports event, the opening ceremony and the final match will be held here.

The country’s national stadium, built in 1987, is currently being modified based on plans of the South African architectural office of Boogertman Urban Edge & Partner.

The tiers of the previously open construction will be completely roofed over; the seating capacity of the stadium will be increased from currently 80,000 to 94,700.

The design of the façade is inspired by a traditional African drinking vessel, known as the calabash. The impressive building shell is divided into a roof consisting of transparent polycarbonate elements and a façade of glass fiber concrete panels. The panels will be prefabricated in Germany and then prepared for installation on-site in a field factory, in order to make installation of the over 40,000 panels in various natural colors and sizes more efficient. Perforated plates and glass elements complete the exterior façade of glass fiber concrete and allow optimal light into the stadium.

Due to its structure and the tradition African color scheme of the concrete shell, the construction project is referred as the ‘African Pot.’

You will find further news on the real estate industry from industrieBau-online.