November 7, 2024 in News
Enabling Action: Recognising World Ventil8 Day
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ANZ Bank Critical Data Centre FM Quality Management Initiative
From personal banking to share market trading and foreign exchange, the ANZ Bank relies on the integrity of its Australian data centres to process millions of transactions daily, underpinning the Banks operations.
Integrated Technical Management (ITM) provides critical data centre infrastructure Facility Management for these two key facilities in suburban Melbourne.
In close collaboration with the ANZ Data Centre engineering team ITM applied an innovative process for the development and successful implementation of an independently certified AS/NZS ISO 9001 Quality Management Framework, with careful alignment to ANZ’s corporate goals in the areas of Digital Innovation, Corporate Governance and Climate Change.
Challenges, Issues and Goals
The ANZ Data Centres are very operationally mature sites, one site has operated for over 30 years. There was an already high level of operational reliability, and resilience, and the facility’s legacy multiple operational management regimes were long formed and deeply in-grained. Because of the critical nature of the data centre’s operation, there was great concern and care taken with changing these arrangements. Bringing these systems together under in overarching new Quality Management framework was challenging and only achieved through a high level of collaboration and significant effort aligned to a shared focus on a common goal.
Objective
The opportunity was identified for a new Quality Management Framework founded on the AS/NZS ISO 9001 Plan-Do-Check-Act continuous improvement cycle to significantly enhance the operation of the data centres; to facilitate the identification of improvement projects and provide a risk managed method for change to ensure ongoing facility resilience (reliability and 99.999% availability – uptime), lower the risk and cost of operations, and reduce environmental impact.
Approach and Methodology
The new Quality Management Framework was developed in the close partnership between ITM and the ANZ Data Centre engineers. The team involved fifteen individuals, from specialist technicians through experienced data centre Facility Managers to continuous improvement professionals. With deliverables agreed upfront, inputs were provided by a range of Subject Matter Experts in mechanical and electrical engineering, building technologies and controls, building system optimisation, energy efficiency and sustainability, project management, critical data centre operations and risk management.
Developed over a concentrated 6-month time frame the Framework was independently certified as complaint with the requirements of AS/NZS ISO 9001 in a 2-stage audit process by DLCS International Quality in September 2019.
The new ITM Quality Management Framework has enabled the teams to work in a more effective way. Including:
- Development of a mission-critical document management system for efficient retrieval and strict control of the many thousands of documents required to operate the facility.
- Use of the Framework to ensure all activities are aligned to key agreed principles of Customer Focus, Leadership, Engagement of People, Process Approach, Improvement, Evidence-Based Decision Making and Relationships Management. This has significantly improved the ability to quickly identify, triage and address potential issues.
- Development of an improvement project process seamlessly integrated into the ITM operational regime and closely aligning to ANZ’s operational and management system.
Role of Facilities Management
The role of the ITM Facility Manager was crucial in this project; leading the initiative and managing progress to a successful outcome. This included coordinating and acting as the intermediary between Subject Matter Experts in mechanical and electrical engineering, building technologies and controls, building system optimisation, energy efficiency and sustainability, project management, critical data centre operations and risk management, specialist providers, and the ANZ Data Centre engineering team.
The ITM Facility Manager worked to resolve complex issues and determine legacy system interdependencies to deliver a resilient and highly effective new Quality Management Framework.
Summary
The ANZ Data Centre team have stated that the vital role played by the new ITM Quality Management Framework in infrastructure facility management is viewed as indisputable.
Since implementation there has been greatly increased alignment and operational efficiencies between ITM and ANZ resulting in a step change; providing greater value, Data Centre systems reliability, efficiencies and reduced environmental impacts. This enabled ITM to deliver benchmark outcomes in the unprecedented COVID environment without the need for additional resources or expense.
