There are many complex issues facing facility managers daily, and it can prove to be a daunting role. However, what if they could solve these problems even with the limited information/knowledge they have? Dean Kashiwagi, director at Kashiwagi Solution Model, Inc., will answer this with his session “How to Mitigate Risk with Information Systems” at NFMT 2024 in Baltimore from March 12 to 14.
Facilities Net: What strategies and techniques can be employed to mitigate project risks in complex situations?
Dean Kashiwagi: The technology that we are presenting here is not traditional. We are using simplified non-technical approaches to solve issues that make situations and events seem complex. So, what we are proposing is that instead of trying to get more information to solve an issue, we want to utilize less information. We have been working on this technology for over 30 years.
This last year, we finally figured out why people were not understanding it well. That is because the characteristics of what we were doing in running a new procurement model and running a new project management model were the same characteristics of what we now consider artificial intelligence.
What we propose is by knowing very little, we can solve seemingly complex problems which have not been solved in the past. The technology we are using is the best value approach, which is a new procurement technique from the traditional technique.
FN: How can AI be integrated into your techniques and technology?
Kashiwagi: In actuality, to answer that, the answer must be very simplistic. Because if we are going to utilize artificial intelligence technology, we want the technology to be explained very simply. In other words, we do not want a complex AI explanation. We want the most simplistic explanation. That is because if the answer ends up being that if somebody wants to be successful in solving those almost unsolvable issues, it could drive the costs and utilization of resources up. We do not want that.
We want to utilize simplicity which means, in its simplest explanation we are minimizing the human aspect of management control. We want to minimize all humanistic actions and replace them with actions which require no thinking. It means minimizing meetings, minimizing communication and minimizing the need for decision making by humans.
Another way you can look at our technology is that it minimizes the need for a human being to do the decision making. It also minimizes the need for that project manager to know anything about what they are doing.
FN: How do you think this approach and technology could benefit facilities management?
Kashiwagi: Well, it would be very simple if a facility manager or a project manager wanted to utilize this approach. Over the last 25 to 30 years, we have seen the approach by anywhere from 10 to 30 percent, get better performance out of the expert vendor who they are utilizing. Facilities managers can do 10 times the amount of work by following the latest version of the best value approach.
To learn more about solving and mitigating risks with information systems, be sure to check out Kashiwagi’s session at NFMT 2024. Register for NFMT here.
Jeff Wardon, Jr. is the assistant editor for the facilities market.
