Associations

Laura Lindahl, managing director of the Dansk Facilities Management network, along with Peter Ankerstjerne, chairman of the International Facility Management Association, last month made the partnership between their organizations official. — IFMA photo

Associations entering new alliances

Two heads are better than one, they say, and nothing accelerates advancement quite like two parties working together to advance their mutual interests.

The harmonization of international standards is one realm in which associations worldwide have established channels of communication and mechanisms for bringing their efforts into alignment with one another.

The National Electrical Manufacturers Association is an old hand at this sort of thing, having worked with peers across the Americas, Europe, and Asia to bring greater uniformity to the way electrical machines are designed, manufactured, and applied.

Most recently, this past November, NEMA announced a memorandum of understanding between its Cable Tray Section and a Korean organization, the Unified Bulk Joint Industry Project, to develop harmonized cable tray requirements that “fall within the scope” of NEMA cable tray standards.

NEMA’s building infrastructure industry director, Daniel Abbate, called the agreement “a great opportunity to establish a new area for close collaboration, networking, and mutual support” as the Korean organization implements NEMA standards. The cooperation could also help NEMA establish a foothold for its cable tray requirements in the Asia Pacific region.

The Unified Bulk Joint Industry Project first came together in 2015 as an effort by Korean fabricators to harmonize standards for the oil and gas industry. In the years since, the organization has grown to include some prominent manufacturers, among them Hyundai Heavy Industries, Samsung Heavy Industries, and Daewoo Shipbuilding & Marine Engineering.

Cooperating associations include the American Bureau of Shipping, DNV GL, Bureau Veritas, Lloyd’s Register, the Korea Shipbuilders’ Association, and Korea Marine Equipment Research Institute.

Another U.S. trade association that recently announced a collaborative effort with an overseas partner is the International Facility Management Association of Houston, which last month entered a formal partnership with the Dansk Facilities Management network to combine the two organizations’ resources and “improve the position” of facility management throughout Denmark and the European Union.

Under the agreement, Dansk Facilities Management will become a global training affiliate for several of the U.S. facility management organization’s credential programs: Facility Management Professional, Sustainability Facility Professional, and Certified Facility Manager.

The partnership is also expected to bolster the U.S. organization’s Workplace Evolutionaries Community Denmark Hub, which “connects multidisciplined professionals worldwide to focus on topics key to workplace evolution and transformation.”

Members of the Dansk Facilities Management network will receive a limited membership in the International Facility Management Association that will include access to online resources as well as networking opportunities and discounts on events.

Peter Ankerstjerne, chairman of IFMA, said that the partnership “allows each organization to do what they do best, collaborating to advance the [facilities management] discipline globally and provide individual practitioners with increased resources to benefit professional advancement.”

Ankerstjerne’s counterpart in the agreement, DFM managing director Laura Lindahl, expressed equal optimism. “Through our collaboration with IFMA, we will offer our members a broader international perspective on facility management,” she said. Reflecting the tenor of the times, the two met to seal the deal with a socially distanced elbow-bump.

An association’s collaboration with another organization isn’t always one of sharing resources between peers. Sometimes there’s the need to collaborate by outsourcing a task to an outside firm that has the specialized expertise to carry out that task more efficiently.

Such is the case with the National Electrical Contractors Association, which announced in late November that it had entered into a strategic alliance with GoCanvas, a mobile digital platform, to create a suite of digital applications for electrical contractors. The objective is to help NECA member contractors use digital forms and processes “to minimize paperwork and increase productivity.”

Headquartered in Reston, Va., GoCanvas produces a customizable mobile app for a variety of industries, both industrial and commercial, that helps users eliminate paperwork and speed up data collection, thus gaining “real-time insight into business operations.”

NECA says its members will be able to use the app “to better understand various key performance indicators” and gain a competitive advantage “through the reduced time, cost, and improved data accuracy stemming from the paperless collection of data.” As the suite of application grows, according to the association, users will be able to benchmark their performance against peers and build “a culture of continuous improvement.” . . . proving once again that there’s no competitive advantage quite like being part of an alliance. — Kevin Jones EA

The harmonization of international standards is one realm in which associations worldwide have established channels of communication and mechanisms for bringing their efforts into alignment with one another