#arcadis gen

There are various digital applications that can assist businesses with identifying key assets, their various vulnerabilities and subsequent optimization options. But while these solutions are often engineered to manage thousands of assets and a multitude of different optimization scenarios, they do not necessarily adjust at pace to rapidly changing events and data in an agile, resilient and expedient manner. In this period of grave economic uncertainty, the ability to instantly respond to unexpected and constantly evolving situations can make or break an organization.

The urgent need for asset optimization

All organizations need data analytics, regardless of the quantity of data they're working with. However, as things stand, existing solutions are only accessible to enterprise-level companies, leaving behind smaller-sized organizations without access to high-quality, valuable and actionable insights. This status quo makes sense, to an extent. Business analysts who bring in several years of expertise generally work for companies that have a proactive need for their valuable time and skills, such as working on projects that involve large fleets of vehicles and IT infrastructures, dealing with tens of thousands of records that require large processing power. Given how sophisticated and all-encompassing most market-available data analytics tools are, it's easy to see why smaller-sized organizations who only work with small quantities of data, and even less legroom in their budgets, get left-behind. The insights that companies can get from analyzing and interpreting their data is crucial to their success. With how competitive industries become in the last few decades, and now with the added complication of a global pandemic and worldwide lockdowns, companies that do not adapt a flexible business model and constantly update and improve their operational processes can suffer great losses. The ability to optimize assets effectively and efficiently is, therefore, a given. Maximizing operational asset performance while lowering operational costs is especially prudent during the current economic uncertainty. Asset optimization involves developing all assets of an asset, across all stages of its life cycle, not only to extend to its lifetime, but also to reduce maintenance costs and maximize its use, for however long possible. What asset optimization looks like specifically varies from company to company, but the fact remains that data—the knowledge of your resources and what situations you expect to face in their life cycle—is invaluable to ensuring you're able to get the most out of it. Naturally, at a time of widespread economic crisis, minimizing costs is at the forefront of most companies' concerns. Asset optimization is an effective way of achieving this, while boosting profits that can allow for greater cash flow, liquidity and, ultimately, resilience. Put together, all these can give companies longer business sustainability and improved services for customers.

Balancing cost, risk and performance across portfolio for long-term profitability

Asset management and optimization is key to balancing costs, risks, and performance. When a company is able to fully capitalize on its resources, it is better able to achieve its objectives, meet the needs and expectations of stakeholders, manage risks and any potential threat to its operations and goals, and secure prolonged, sustainable operational excellence and success. Your overall outputs, processes, and even organizational culture benefit greatly from an improved and robust asset optimization strategy. When you optimize all aspects of your assets across their individual life cycles, there comes a natural shift in focus towards performance and customer outcomes rather than just a simple maintenance work, which can not only significantly improve the quality of these outputs at the modular level, but could ripple out to the other facets of your business as well. By focusing not only on short-term considerations but also on actively planning for long-term circumstances, you likewise improve sustainability and resilience. Data is, of course, crucial to this endeavor. Data analytics plays a central role in ensuring smarter investment decisions, from more efficient procurement and supply chain choices, planning for outcomes and preparing for uncertainties, to regulatory compliance and adherence to governing policies. Business decisions need to be informed by the records, reports and numbers, and processed thoroughly by the right analytics tool in order to produce the best options and alternatives you can take given the circumstances. It follows, therefore, that having the right tools will be instrumental in improving your asset optimization strategy and, by extension, your business itself.

Data in. Insights out.

This appetite for accessible and universal asset management support has inspired analysts and consultants at Arcadis Gen to craft a lightweight but high-performance solutions—two characteristics often viewed as mutually exclusive by many software engineers. But that's precisely what we achieved with Universal Visual Optimizer. UVO is bite-sized solution with enterprise-level capabilities, designed to process complex scenarios to inform project and capital investments of varying scopes and contexts, without the hassles and overhangs of traditional solutions. It requires no installation—or any background in data science, for that matter—and can be accessed through a web browser from any location. UVO takes 4 simple steps to optimize your data: filter, modify, optimize, visualize. Appropriately, we designed each step to correspond with one working tab. You start by uploading your core files under the Filter tab. This is the only step that requires user configuration. Here, asset metadata, such as asset names, class or descriptions, and their subsequent solutions (i.e., the various options that can help rectify, improve or repair the specified business assets) can be plugged into the web application. This information includes risk, condition and investment values allocated for each solution and year of impact. Next, from the Modify tab, loaded assets and timesteps can be selected or excluded and defined as a baseline plan for later comparison within UVO. Afterwards, you can generate and compare multiple scenarios in the app under the other two tabs. Under Optimize, you will find a scenario wizard where you can specify your goals and bounds. This scenario wizard can be bypassed if you're working with specific details, allowing you to manually input your goals and bounds within a specified number of years. This may be useful for businesses with defined budgets and targets given a certain time frame. And finally, all user generated scenarios can be saved for comparison under the Visualize tab. Risk, condition and investment values can be compared over time. A scheduler view is also generated for the convenience of project coordinators and managers who want to view investment decisions in a modulated calendar format for easier visibility. This was precisely what our partners at the Bayside Council in Australia had done in our recent partnership. Using UVO, the municipality specified a set of KPIs for public restroom conditions, informed by an internal audit process. We converted these metrics into overall risk and condition scores that were then processed and visualized by UVO. The app helped the council improve their public service strategy which, ultimately, benefited the general public as well.

Conclusion

The user-friendly focus of UVO, coupled with Arcadis Gen’s proactive service support line, makes this innovative and agile asset optimization application a first point-of-call for a multitude of organizations including Transport for London and others. UVO helps organizations, regardless of their size and complexity, to go from data to decision within minutes. Learn more about this revolutionary app by booking a demo today or requesting the fact sheet.

There is great opportunity for us to re-evaluate our goals. Right now, there is an abundance of information and well-meaning advice on how to work productively at home. There is little account given, however, on what it actually means to work from home. This is why we have identified areas of focus around this new working set-up, ranging from the practical and functional aspects to the emotional and behavioural.

Empathy for varied home lives

In the middle of a health crisis, it’s important to remember that the focus of a company’s day-to-day running should be on the health of its people. This starts by acknowledging, understanding, and accepting that people’s home lives are drastically different from their office lives.

Some people live alone; where they were once surrounded by co-workers, they may now be working in total isolation. Being physically disconnected from everyone else can take a huge toll on people’s mental health, so setting up regular check-ins is one way to support these team members. A quick call everyday keeps them connected, engaged, and feeling valued.

These check-ins or ‘virtual coffees’ needn’t be work-related at all. Here at Arcadis Gen, we found that providing an informal channel where people can simply share how their day is going has done wonders for our team’s morale. Communities are strengthened and formed, even when everyone is working separately. And in this new age of self-isolation, virtual connections become all the more important.

On the other hand, other households are so full of people that finding space to concentrate on work or just be alone with their thoughts is extremely difficult—even impossible. Companies need to have empathy for these less-structured dynamics. These colleagues may have their windows thrown wide to let the air in (especially as the warmer months come in), and street traffic may be audible. They may even have kids, parents, or pets chime in during a conference call. We don’t always have control over these types of distractions, and companies need to accept and accommodate this difference between a controlled office space and the everyday happenings in a house.

As home working becomes the new normal, we are seeing another, more human side of our employees. For companies, this is an opportunity to get to know your people even beyond the walls of their cubicle.

Having enough of the right tools

Once we knew were to be banished to our homes for the foreseeable future, it was quickly apparent that technology and gadgets are now basic necessities. We need them to do our work, our kids use them for home-schooling, and all of us stay connected with the outside world through our screens.

But now that technology is as indispensable as food and shelter, it raises another issue of privilege. Even considering only those lucky enough to have jobs that can be done remotely, not everyone has equal access to these tools. Some may need to share their computers with their family or roommates; others may be working with older and failing techs. In such cases, companies can initiate a sharing/recycling solution instead.

By providing these means to their employees, companies not only help their people be more productive ‘at’ work, but they help their people, period. And we are already seeing the incredible value of this sharing/recycling initiative here at Arcadis Gen.

Among our UK-based employees, we have colleagues now find more time for themselves, to relax or concentrate on work, because they were sent an extra device for their kids’ use that reduced the pressures (and squabbles) of trying to share. We have co-workers who sent back their older, personal laptops for repairs and are now not only able to work more productively but have been able to connect with more people than before.

And the more the boundaries of home and work are blurred by the pandemic and ensuing global lockdown, the more pressing is the case for companies to provide the necessary tools (and some) to help their employees cope with the trying times.

Sensitivity to biases and discrimination

With people’s professional lives now overlapping dramatically with their personal lives, how do we deal with—and avoid—the bias surrounding either? We are in our homes more than ever before, and that, together with the concern of the spread of the coronavirus, means that we are likely doing more cleaning washing and cooking than we have ever done. Studies have consistently shown that the burden of domestic chores falls on women, so the current situation means that for many women their overall workload, whether for the office or their home chores, may have exponentially increased as well.

Many others are also at greater risk due to prolonged lockdowns. Breadwinners may be more hard-pressed to earn as supplies dwindle faster the longer their families are forced to remain indoors. There may be colleagues who worry about their financial security as employment dynamics continue to shift. And there may be some whose problems are more personal, as in the case of those living with abusive relations.

Assurance is the best thing companies can give their employees in these times of uncertainty. Assurance that there is help for them if needed, and the knowledge that they will not go through these difficult times alone. The key is to work closely with your teams and foster even greater trust among one another. Whenever possible, assure them that, first and foremost, they have employment security with your company. If this is not the case, assist them with their back-up plans by guiding them to professional bodies or organisations where appropriate.

Ultimately, just let them know that you have their backs.

The New Normal

We are truly living in a new normal now. We need to accept and embrace that working at home is not only different in itself, but the experience is likewise different for each of us. We must be more flexible and empathetic, recognise that people are under incredible pressure right now, ensure we look out for one another in a way we maybe haven’t before, nurture an environment where people feel able to raise concerns and also seek practical ways to support them. Our people did not bring their homelife to their workplace; their work came home with them. And ultimate, that is a truly new way of working!