Centennial Parklands wins top facilities management award

Sydney's Centennial Parklands has been recognised with a top industry award by the Facilities Management Association of Australia (FMA), gaining acclaim for its adoption of leading technology and its partnership with the community sector at the FMA Awards.

The Centennial Parklands Technology Initiative has seen the incorporation of tablet-based technology to control and maintain maintenance operations, digitisation of plans and asset reports, and extensive cost reductions in maintenance.

Commenting on the initiative, Botanic Gardens & Centennial Parklands, Executive Director Kim Ellis states "asset management is not usually something people think too much about, but it is vital to ensuring Centennial Parklands remains one of the world’s best urban parks.

“We have more than 20 million visits made here every year, and demand for our facilities and services growing rapidly.

"To keep pace with community needs we have dived into technology to improve the way we do our work.”

While the integration of remote (tablet-based) programs to operate maintenance systems, and the improvement to proactive asset condition reporting, it is the partnership aspect with National Disability Services that provided a great angle to the story behind this award.

Ellis adds “as part of the project, we sought a high-level scanning and electronic documentation provider to convert many of our old plans and documents to electronic and searchable documents.

"In partnership with National Disability Services and RichmondPRA, we provided meaningful and resourceful work for 10 supported employees (people with psychosocial disability).

"RichmondPRA were an excellent project partner and delivered on-time and on-spec.”

Centennial Parklands is regularly recognised with the parks management industry as a benchmark venue for urban parks, and was a key excursion venue at the recent IUCN World Parks Congress for delegates around the world.