New facilities’ managers emerge as high-rise buildings increase

High-rise buildings in Colombo earlier were confined to 5 to 10 stories but now many exceed even 50 stories, now, which mean the maintenance of the high-rise building is critical.
In this scenario to provide some ‘peace of mind’ to the owners of these condominiums McLarens Group in collaboration with Peak Engineering, Singapore is  offering integrated Facilities Management Solutions through joint venture company – McPeak Lanka.
To explain the modalities and the novel approach in solving the critical situation that could arise in these high-rise buildings, a media briefing was held ON Thursday at the ‘Jetwing Colombo Seven, Colombo, organiSed by McPeak Lanka.
Trevor Reckerman, Director, McPeak Lanka, on the sidelines of the media briefing, told the Business Times that the area of service they would be providing is extremely important and high expertise is needed for the technicians they deploy to attend these services.
“We are concerned about the ‘dignity of labour’ of every single cadre and we invest on training them which apparently is not looked into by many other management companies when these high-rise buildings demand special expertise,” he said.
Engineering, air-condoning, fire safety, security, pest control – all are more acute in high riseS and many other such services are relevant and they are to provide all that under a ‘one-stop-shop’, concept, he added. 
“When you talk to us, we come and attend to all and sundry with expertise partnerships, and outsourcing and we take the responsibility and bring people who have expertise in doing this type of work. We are infusing expertise through the Singaporean company – Peak Engineering which has much experience as Singapore is a country full of high-rise buildings”, he indicated.
At the media briefing he indicated that the company will offer a comprehensive range of cutting-edge solutions to those who seek to upgrade and sustain high quality services of their organisations. He said that McPeak Lanka will deliver an authentic integrated model of services through people, processes and systems to suit the customised needs. Its services encompass the operations and maintenance of large scale buildings, dedicated mechanical and electrical engineering experience, holistic housekeeping and janitorial services.
The initial investment would be Rs. 50 million, but Mr Reckerman said that they have got investments in the pipeline as when they accelerate and gain more clientele their investment would also be increased.
Benedict Koh, Director, McPeak Lanka from Peak Engineering, Singapore, said he is a long standing professional engineer working in Singapore and qualified from Australia and also they are working in Sri Lanka with a team of expert engineers from Singapore who are equipped with plenty of experience in high-rise building.  
He said that the knowledge they have would be shared with their neighbouring countries, specially with developing countries like Myanmar, Sri Lanka, etc.  They see this need, because Sri Lanka is having new developments like high rise buildings and their knowledge can be shared and used. (QP)