New Building Transition Team

The New Building Transition Team works to get Building Operations at the table with the contractors to identify equipment, safety, or training issues before we take ownership of new buildings. By being in the building before it opens we’ll also be better prepared for both our day-to-day work as well as possible concerns that the occupants may identify.

In our Asset Stewardship pillar, we cite our commitment to share our expertise so as to ensure every space on campus functions as intended. We recognize that our skills and expertise can be leveraged during design development to ensure the campus is getting best outcomes with respect to reliable and maintainable campus building spaces.

To support this, we developed a transition team and key new roles within Building Operations dedicated to participating in:

  • building design
  • reviewing construction for quality control
  • overseeing commissioning
  • identifying deficiencies
  • managing in-person and video-recorded demonstrations and training for new equipment
  • initiating service contracts and/or service protocols for our group or external contractors to ensure new equipment is being operated and maintained properly, and
  • the handover of the project once construction is complete (following processes described in the UBC Technical Guidelines).

Overall, this approach sets us up to be a much more effective operating and maintenance organization — one that allows us to apply our expertise to influence decision making early in a project’s design. When maintenance groups are directly involved in designing and constructing new spaces, inherently those spaces are easier to maintain; this reduces overall cost for the university, while driving better outcomes for our campus occupants.