GPT Group Retail Portfolio

GPT, one of Australia’s largest diversified property groups, chose CIM to help centralise, track, and improve the performance of eight buildings within its portfolio of high quality Australian shopping centres.

Using the insights generated by CIM’s building analytics platform, PEAK, GPT has successfully maximised the operational efficiency of each building within the portfolio, driving commercial and sustainability benefits for shareholders, tenants and the community.

The Challenge

GPT is one of the largest owners, managers and developers of real estate in Australia, and managing such a portfolio requires a holistic technology solution.

The main opportunities for GPT were:

Improving control and visibility over portfolio performance.

Without transparency into the operation performance of each building, it is almost impossible to improve overall portfolio performance.

Team collaboration, visibility and accountability.

Getting multiple different teams and vendors at every retail site together to work toward common goals and objectives.

Cost-effectively meeting energy and environmental targets.

How to best optimise existing equipment for energy efficiency as the first step toward meeting long-term environmental goals including a 2030 net zero commitment.

“We asked CIM to get involved so they could give us the oversight we needed across all sites and assist our team to continually achieve the highest levels of performance, collaboration and site optimisation possible” - Scott Crellin, National Director Retail Property Operations, GPT

GPT’s retail operations team, led by Scott Crellin, National Director Retail Property Operations, and Dale O’Toole, National Manager Building Performance, partnered with CIM in 2014 to realise these opportunities and improve performance across the entire portfolio.

“We asked CIM to get involved so they could give us the oversight we needed across all sites and assist our team to continually achieve the highest levels of performance, collaboration and site optimisation possible” said Scott Crellin, National Director Retail Property Operations.

“CIM helps our facility managers monitor and control HVAC equipment to deliver the energy efficiencies that are central to the goals we have promised to our shareholders, tenants and local communities,” he said.

The Solution

CIM’s process for onboarding a portfolio of buildings is straightforward and takes less than thirty days on average to complete. The CIM team connects a small data acquisition device onto each shopping centre’s network and it immediately starts scanning and collecting all types of building operations data from the centre’s various equipment and systems. This includes building management systems, heating ventilation and air-conditioning equipment, electrical sub metering, water and thermal metering where available and fire systems if required.

The data collected from every site is then aggregated into a uniform customisable dataset hosted in the PEAK platform. CIM’s engineers develop and apply custom rules-based algorithms to this data, specific to the building type and its requirements.

Every 15 minutes, PEAK automatically rescans and analyses the data points in each building. The algorithms flag any issues, faults and opportunities in individual pieces of equipment in real-time and recommends solutions. CIM’s engineers liaise with the onsite teams and contractors through an automated ticketing workflow system in PEAK to quickly streamline management and resolution of these faults.

CIM’s data scientists also monitor and scrutinise the performance data over time to find and raise additional opportunities to improve building performance and minimise future capital expenditure.  

The Results

The PEAK platform, backed by the technical support of CIM’s building services engineers and data scientists, gives the GPT retail operations team visibility and control over portfolio performance.

Management of the portfolio is now centralised within the PEAK platform, with all performance metrics for each site, such as gas and electricity consumption, available in PEAK’s intuitive dashboards. Using PEAK to closely monitor and report on equipment performance was key to successfully managing building operations during GPT’s COVID-19 response.

“This transparency around building and equipment performance has facilitated a more collaborative and time-efficient working relationship between facility managers, contractors and vendors, by making it easier and faster for everyone to agree on the right course of action” - Dale O’Toole, National Manager Building Performance, GPT

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Some of the key features provided in PEAK include real-time competitor benchmarking analysis for each of GPT’s sites, and NABERS tracking to the second decimal place for each site and the portfolio. GPT can now use PEAK to understand, track and report on the performance of the entire portfolio as well as individual sites.

“This transparency around building and equipment performance has facilitated a more collaborative and time-efficient working relationship between facility managers, contractors and vendors, by making it easier and faster for everyone to agree on the right course of action,” said Dale O’Toole, National Manager Building Performance.

PEAK simplifies and accelerates the end-to-end process of fault detection, diagnosis and problem resolution by pinpointing the root cause of issues, prioritising the ones that matter, and recommending low to no cost fixes. The platform also verifies if an issue is resolved properly before it can be closed out, enabling GPT to hold its team, mechanical and BMS contractors accountable to agreed key performance indicators.

At every retail site, CIM’s engineers guide GPT’s onsite teams and help manage contractors through the entire process to ensure peak performance is achieved as quickly and as cost-effectively as possible. Any key learnings are shared to facilitate best practice across the portfolio.

"The collaborative partnership between CIM and GPT's operations and sustainability teams has enabled us to share key learnings and achieve best practice across our portfolio faster than anticipated," said Crellin.

By digitising its asset register and manufacturer specification data, and using PEAK’s data analysis to optimise its assets for energy efficiency, GPT is fast-tracking progress against its environmental targets for the portfolio, which is to become carbon neutral by 2030.