Products & Solutions

The Regence Group, Portland, Oregon

Outsourcing facilities management, real estate services lays foundation for improved portfolio performance

  • The Regence Group and its affiliated companies comprise one of the largest health care insurance organizations in the Pacific Northwest, serving more than 2.5 million members from offices in four states.
  • In an effort to identify long-term cost savings and optimize operations, Regence selected Johnson Controls Global WorkPlace Solutions to provide integrated real estate and facilities management of its 1.5 million-square-foot-portfolio.
  • As result, Regence saved $1.2 million in direct and avoided costs in the first year of the contract.

Formed primarily by the merger of smaller insurers, nonprofit Regence now serves members from 20 locations in Oregon, Washington, Idaho and Utah. Throughout these mergers, Regence worked to consolidate business operations and services to drive efficiencies and consistencies that benefit its members. Similarly, the focus of the facilities management contract with Johnson Controls is to bring efficiencies and consistencies to its facility operations.

Regence - Portland 100 Market Street

“From a real estate perspective we were operating like separate companies, each managing its own buildings and vendors. To become more efficient and drive down costs, we needed to take a more centralized approach to operating and maintaining our portfolio and chose to outsource those responsibilities. Johnson Controls provided the experience and tools we were looking for,” says Senka Lenn, director of corporate real estate and facilities management for Regence.

Identifying assets, setting maintenance standards
With each location operating differently, it was difficult for Regence to quantify the total cost of occupancy and improve portfolio performance. “To identify opportunities for efficiency, improved performance and cost savings, we first needed to get an accurate overview of our assets and standardize maintenance procedures,” says Lenn.

Mechanical equipment at each location was identified and inventoried in an end-of-life format using a computerized maintenance management system (CMMS) implemented by Johnson Controls. A dedicated team of Johnson Controls professionals is responsible for operations and maintenance at each facility, self-performing approximately 70 percent of the work across all facilities.

In addition, Johnson Controls implemented its Sequentra® information management technology to efficiently manage the information and processes across the Regence portfolio. Sequentra gives Johnson Controls, Regence and its tenants the ability to collaborate and share data regarding projects in real-time from a single, fully configurable, Web-based interface. 

By standardizing maintenance practices across the portfolio, procurement and vendor management at the site levels were eliminated, labor efficiencies were created, and costs have been reduced and standardized. And, because mechanical equipment is well documented in the CMMS, preventive maintenance plans are in place which will improve asset performance and maximize lifecycle.

Notable key performance indicators and savings in 2010 include a 99.6%on time completion rate for preventative maintenance, and a 100% OSHA recordable rate (zero-incident) for safety performance.

Centralized operations, improved performance
A Johnson Controls hosted call center, along with the CMMS creates a central point of operations for all the Regence properties.

“We are now able to track requests, identify the type of request, confirm the work order was completed and determine how long it took to complete,” states Lenn. “With the team and tools put in place by Johnson Controls, we have improved the operations and maintenance of our facilities, and are better equipped to preserve and increase the value our assets. Our facility managers are now able to focus on project management. And, instead of handling service requests and managing vendors, they can learn more about their customers’ business plans and take a more strategic look at what needs to be done with our real estate to accommodate them.”

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