Taller in more ways

Suwaidi conducts several facilities management-related lectures on behalf of the Real Estate Regulatory Authority.

Fifteen million gallons of that water is then collected from condensation and used for groundskeeping. “Also, solar panels heat up the hot water used in the building and save us up to 30% of electricity,” says Suwaidi.

“We are doing more [to be sustainable] – like publishing our energy report and sharing it with our management.”

Around 15 types of services provided at the Burj Khalifa, including cleaning and groundskeeping, are outsourced, but the senior director and his team of 27 have their own building management system and implement key performance indicators and service level agreements, which must be met by subcontractors.

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FEATURED COMMENT This gent seems to know what he talks about. His cooperation with RERA should bring some added value. Unfortunately dev   1 Comments Read more comments »

“We have to make sure they match with our processes and we check what their capabilities are and what experience they have – this is very, very important to us. Then of course, we have to ensure that our outsourced service providers are flexible,” says Suwaidi.

Façade cleaning of the tower is carried out from cradles suspended from building maintenance units. The podium level is cleaned from a cradle attached to telescopic arm machines and abseiling techniques are needed to clean 50m at the top of the building.

And, each ‘cleaning’ of the Burj takes around eight to 12 weeks to complete. All security process and systems, however, are operated in-house.

“We didn’t want to train other companies to learn about the security system because we built it. Also, we try to minimise the amount of guards at the Burj to make the system more automated. It’s not all about physical security.”

Juggling responsibilities
During his time at the Burj Khalifa, Suwaidi has also been involved in external projects including MEFMA, a not-for-profit organisation which is set to change the future of FM in the region.

The group, comprising 13 board members was officially launched at the FM Expo in May this year.

“Myself and seven or eight people worked hard with RERA to establish MEFMA. We went to RERA when the crisis took place and they said that we need a non-profit association that will help us get feedback from the market before FM regulations are launched.”

So what will it bring to the market? “A lot of things,” he says. “Knowledge, benchmarking, training, awareness, and of course it will assist the government with FM regulations.”

But, when asked if MEFMA will become a member of Global FM, which has teamed up with associations from the UK and Australia, Suwaidi responded with an out-right no.

“We want to be independent. We will cooperate with them, but we have our own agenda in the Middle East. We are an independent not-for-profit association, rather than part of another association.”

The world of FM is not how it used to be 13 years ago; technologies, systems and solutions have evolved. But, according to Suwaidi, some changes made in the industry, which have happened since the start of his career, have not been for the better.

“When there was a boom in the real estate sector the FM industry was affected because nobody looked at the quality of the buildings,” he says, adding that the sector is starting to see some improvement.

“Now, everybody is looking at the efficiency and reliability of services. Nobody wants to pay for breakdowns so people are looking at preventing.” Few could argue with that.