A Week in the Life Using Foundation
Monday
Jeanie, the facilities manager, remembers that this is the day that Foundation is scheduled to be up and running. She's not really sold on computers because she has not seen them generate any real cash savings. The Foundation people, after collecting the data and the floor plan drawings for a million square feet and three thousand people, are demonstrating the system to Jeanie's secretaries. After two hours, the secretaries generate reports and drawings. But the results are a little unnerving. Jeanie finds that she has a 15% vacancy rate. Empty workstations are located randomly throughout the facility. People who work together are not located in the same area.
Tuesday
Jeanie decides to learn more about Foundation. Having little computer experience, she likes the simplicity of Foundation. By the end of the day, she has used the "Move in the Future" feature of Foundation to consolidate her vacant space.
Jeanie prints Move Orders that will consolidate her vacant space. Now she has room for a whole new department which decreases her vacancy rate by one third. Jeanie is glad she didn't buy a CAD - based program. She would have had to create another branch of her department filled with technical people. This costly approach has never fulfilled expectations.
Wednesday
Jeanie discovers many other features of Foundation: The Web Module where she and her assistants can, with no experience, launch a facilities web site on the corporate network: the Call Ticket feature for initiating and tracking repairs, the Phone Book Publisher, and the Conference Scheduler. Construction is finished on the renovated offices on the third floor. Ahundred people need to be moved into the space. It only takes a few minutes for Jeanie to automatically create the new rooms in the database. With a few more mouse clicks, the rooms in the database are attached to the drawings. She generates Move Orders to relocate the people into the renovated offices.
Thursday
This is moving day. Some people bring furniture and telecom numbers and others require new furniture and numbers. An entire new department relocates into her consolidated vacant area. Jeanie has decreased her overall vacancy rate to target levels and moved a hundred people into the new area.Using the Web Site module, Jeanie quickly includes maps to the site, frequently asked questions, a calendar of events, and a directory of services. Her web site includes space usage reports, based on up to the minute Foundation data.
Friday
Jeanie and her department have successfully transitioned to Foundation. The secretaries throughout the company are scheduling conferences, the phone operators are routing calls, Jeanie's assistants are "space planning" for the future, and everyone is checking out the Facilities Web Site.
The phone rings. It's the CEO. He's seen her Web Site, and realized how much money can be saved with Foundation. He asks Jeanie to consider a promotion to the newly created position of global Foundation Manager in charge of streamlining all Facilities Departments worldwide. Jeanie realizes Foundation was the right decision.
Believe it or not, this is a true story.
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