11 January 2024 | Patrice Duchesne
In 2019, the Ministère de l’Éducation du Québec (Québec Ministry of Education or MEQ) entrusted STI Maintenance with the task of acquiring, developing, and implementing an IT system to upgrade the management of real estate assets within public elementary and high schools across School Service Centres (SSC) and English-language school boards. STI Maintenance agreed to collaborate with the MEQ to evaluate the condition of its infrastructure by delivering a comprehensive assessment of each school. These assessments aimed to determine the quality of the infrastructure and to outline the necessary investment budget for its maintenance. This article examines the challenges encountered and the innovative strategies employed by STI Maintenance to address them, with a particular focus on the integration of the IBM Maximo tool.
The term “assets” refers to every element within the building inventory, including all public elementary and high schools across Quebec. STI Maintenance was tasked with developing a system to calculate the Asset Maintenance Deficit (AMD) for the MEQ.
This involved thoroughly evaluating every component of each school’s infrastructure to accurately assess its condition. The goal was to determine the quality of these components and allocate a suitable budget for maintaining each building according to the Ministry’s established standards.
The Challenges and Solutions
STI Maintenance was tasked with providing a tool to establish a consistent evaluation method for all public schools in Quebec. The tools available to the MEQ were insufficient for conducting a precise, consistent, and comprehensive assessment of the condition of all its school buildings.
Obtaining an accurate assessment of the condition of each school and forecasting maintenance requirements to prevent deterioration presented a significant challenge, given the province’s approximately 4,000 elementary and high school buildings.
The initial phase involved a comprehensive inventory of each school’s characteristics, such as the number of windows, doors, washrooms, flooring types, roof dimensions, foundation conditions, and more. This step was essential due to the differences in school composition and the extensive geographical distribution of Quebec’s student population. It was important to conduct a comprehensive inventory to gain a complete understanding of the situation.
In order to fully appreciate the scope of the work involved, in 2019, at the outset of the project, the MEQ had a comprehensive understanding of the building composition for fewer than one-third of its schools. Consequently, developing a reliable inventory posed a significant challenge. This inventory would provide the MEQ with the means to identify needs and allocate financial resources in a transparent, equitable manner that would foster consensus and build trust.
STI Maintenance collaborated with the SSC to revise the existing methodology by introducing 13 new parameters for which they surveyed all schools. The gathered data was then used to develop a streamlined tool for data management.
This revised approach led to significant efficiencies by reducing the time allocated to analyses and reporting, streamlining the number of projects, and decreasing the need for extensive communication among partners while providing a more accurate representation of Quebec’s school infrastructure. The MEQ estimates it saved 90% of the time typically required to attain these outcomes.
This was achieved by implementing a customized version of the IBM Maximo software, renamed GIEES by the client. With this new tool, the MEQ could consolidate data more effectively than with its previous classification system.
From an initial 1,170,000 assets recorded in the previous system—representing 17% of the total assets, which could amount to 7 million assets to manage—there are now fewer than 200 assets per building on average, totalling approximately 650,000 assets, marking a 90% decrease from the previous count. This streamlined method has made inspections and future investment planning much more manageable.
IBM Maximo: An Innovative Tool
This project has showcased IBM Maximo’s versatility in effectively managing various types of assets. Moreover, thanks to their knowledge and expertise, the STI Maintenance team integrated the categories and formulas developed by their SSC partners to tailor IBM Maximo to the specific needs of Quebec’s school infrastructure. They also developed tools to standardize inspection processes throughout the province.
One of IBM Maximo’s key advantages is its ease of configuration. The STI Maintenance team leveraged the system’s core principles to adapt it to a unique context, accomplishing this entirely through configuration rather than additional programming.
This adjustment required significant efforts to ensure the program was not altered while meeting the client’s needs. Critical to the requirements for success was ensuring that subsequent upgrades to IBM Maximo would not hinder the MEQ’s ongoing use of the software.
Benefits for the Whole Community
The implementation of STI Maintenance’s IBM Maximo system extends its impact well beyond MEQ’s internal operations, reaching the broader community. Providing the government with more precise and standardized data for decision-making is of vital importance. The quality and maintenance of Quebec’s schools are topics of widespread interest among a large portion of the population and enjoy unanimous support from political decision-makers.
Quebec is home to 72 SSCs, ranging from those in major urban areas like Montreal and Quebec City, which oversee multiple schools with thousands of students and staff, to smaller centres serving fewer students. The tool needed to be adaptable to meet the needs of these different environments.
Furthermore, considering the limited resources available to schools, STI Maintenance designed the system to offer a comprehensive overview of building conditions in a manner that school staff could easily comprehend and execute.
The successful execution of this project required extensive collaboration between the MEQ, STI Maintenance, and CSS representatives to ensure seamless coordination and progress. This effort was further supported by the dedicated internal teams and STI Maintenance trainers. Moreover, the entire process took place during the challenging context of the pandemic, which significantly altered the dynamics of meetings.
Despite these obstacles, the objectives of the initial project phase were successfully met. Ongoing improvements are being implemented to adapt to changing circumstances and feedback received after launching the GIEES tool. These include adjustments such as factoring in cost indexing (especially concerning inflation), integrating new data, including insights gained over the past three years, and addressing emerging needs. Regional cost variations were also considered, recognizing that the expenses for identical work can vary significantly across different areas.
IBM Maximo proved to be the ideal system for this task due to its Application Designer and automation scripts. This enabled the system to be configured to the client’s specific needs, a significant advantage over competing software available in the market. Its web-based management simplifies usage compared to downloadable applications.
IBM Maximo stands out by serving not only as an asset maintenance system but also for overall maintenance execution, project management, master planning, and financing, all integrated into a single system.
The Quebec government’s complete satisfaction is evident as STI Maintenance is replicating its successful approach for the Société québécoise des infrastructures (SQI), which manages a broader inventory including schools, office buildings, warehouses, detention centers, and more. A similar initiative is underway for Quebec’s CEGEPs and universities, with plans to expand this approach beyond Quebec’s borders in the future.
