Support Services

The HCFD main office is located in room B-95 of the Hamilton County Courthouse at 1000 Main Street. Hours are 7:30 a.m. - 4:30 p.m., Monday through Friday, excluding the following holidays: New Year's Day, Martin Luther King Jr. Day, Presidents' Day, Memorial Day, Independence Day, Labor Day, Veterans' Day, Thanksgiving and the day after, and Christmas Day.

For building-related requests we encourage you to contact the Building Manager of your building. During our business hours, each Manager checks his/her voicemail and e-mail every two hours. If your request must be handled in less time, please contact our main office at (513) 946-5000.

If you call our main office during non-business hours, you may leave a message on our voicemail. Please provide your name, building, room number, phone number, and a brief description of your service needs. This message box is checked each business day. Your request will then be scheduled through the Building Manager. If your call concerns an emergency, our voicemail message states which Executive Management Team member is on call and how he/she can be easily contacted.

Systems Administration

Systems Administration provides stable and reliable technology solutions to HCFD. We maintain and support our work request system that enables high quality and efficient operations, through work tracking and report generation. In addition,we provide desktop support, network, server, and application development services to our employees. We are committed to developing and maintaining the highest quality, professional, and technology rich environment consistent with:

• providing HCFD employees with timely, high quality information
• providing excellent access for County employees to HCFD services

Benchmarking Reports

HCFD actively participates in benchmarking our services and costs through industry-respected associations including the Building Owners and Managers Association ( www.boma.org   ) and ( www.bomacincinnati.org   ) and the International Facilities Manager's Association ( www.ifma.org   ).

We were recognized by the ICMA Center for Performance Measurement in their 2002 Case Studies for our Response Time for Emergency Repair Requests. They asked us to be the subject of this Case Study due to our ability to exceed the performance times of other city and county governments in buildings of similar sizes and types for the same type of work.

For fiscal year 2000, we reported an average of 15 minutes from receipt of emergency repair requests to the arrival of our repair staff on the scene, and an average of 45 additional minutes from arrival on the scene to the completion of the repair. The mean and median values for all jurisdictions reporting the time from a call receipt to arrival on the scene were 35 and 30 minutes, respectively; and the mean and median values for the time of arrival on the scene to repair completion were 83 and 82 minutes, respectively.

IS Services

ARCHIBUS Support Services

ARCHIBUS is a facilities management cloud based application and relational database built in Microsoft SQL. It also integrates AutoCAD and Revit drawings, a Smart Client management program and web interface.

ARCHIBUS was chosen due to the products success (#1 TIFM Solution), ease of purchasing one module or license at a time, and the open ended architecture of the system for modifications. We have customized ARCHIBUS to work the way we need it to as a Government Agency, rather than molding our policies and procedures to it. Multiple Hamilton County departments, agencies and elected officials operations attain cost savings by utilizing ARCHIBUS through our Shared Services program.

What are Shared Services? Click here to learn more!

ARCHIBUS is a robust application and customizable, complete with built-in wizards that enable users to build interactive, paginated reports, view analysis or summary reports and also create Dashboard views to streamline and ease navigation. Implementing ARCHIBUS is simplified by exporting data from other systems, such as Access and Maximo, and then importing into ARCHIBUS using templates. Currently, we are using ARCHIBUS with AutoCAD, Java web interface, Crystal Reports, Birt Reports, HTML5 charts FM Works third-party mobile app and mobile tablets.

ARCHIBUS Web Central organizes facilities and infrastructure management tasks in an intuitive Web browser interface. All infrastructure data is stored in a centralized repository so that authorized users can enter, edit, and monitor this data. Users can review and edit only data appropriate to their role within the department.

County Facilities recently upgraded ARCHIBUS and new features include the Space Console, a module that simplifies access to floor plans and space data; also, the new Service Desk module automates the service request cycle through Service Level Agreement (SLA) designations that authorize, prioritize, route, and complete common service requests. Future projects include customizing the Building Ops Work Order mobile app.

Below are some links to documentation on the various modules we are using in ARCHIBUS. If you are interested in Shared Services or ARCHIBUS, please contact Facilities IS Manager (513) 946-5028.

ARCHIBUS Overview

ARCHIBUS Modules - Details

Energy Management Division

Energy Management

Energy management is a very important part of Facilities Management's day-to-day responsibilities. Our Energy Management division monitors energy usage utilizing state-of-the-art energy monitoring programs to assess equipment malfunctions and identify potential energy conservation measures. We are responsible for procuring and providing utilities such as natural gas, electricity, water and sewage to County buildings. Part of this includes identifying and implementing energy conservation projects.

• Utility Procurement, Production, Billing and Management
  We are currently participating in the County Commissioners Association of Ohio (CCAO) natural gas program.

• Energy and Water Conservation
  This is accomplished by monitoring energy and water consumption and costs, and promoting energy and water conservation through various programs and projects.

• If it is necessary to schedule a utility outage, the Building Manager of that building will provide the tenants with sufficient notice.

We evaluate and implement improvements to provide more cost-effective and energy-efficient building systems. In addition, we use innovation and technology to provide reliable and cost-effective electricity, chilled water, steam, water, compressed air, emergency power and elevators.

As you can see, HCFD is dedicated to conserving energy and providing more efficient building systems. But we cannot do it alone. Individual awareness and action go a long way toward reducing energy cost in County buildings. For example, you can winterize the doors and windows in your home, but if your teenager forgets to close the door behind him, your efforts to defray heating costs will be defeated.

Natural Gas

The County Commissioners Association of Ohio (CCAOSC) Natural Gas Program was established in October, 2000 as a vehicle to help counties lower costs and to provide for a long-term supply of natural gas for county facilities. Hamilton County was a original member of this group. There are 30 counties that are program members that take advantage of cost savings derived form two sources: aggregation of purchases and pre-payment for a 10-year supply of natural gas. CCAO negotiated and entered into a natural gas purchase and sale agreement with CMS Marketing Services and Trading Company of Dearborn, Michigan. This agreement provides for the purchase of daily volumes of natural gas over a ten-year period commencing October 1, 2000 and ending September 20, 2010. All county-owned or leased buildings, including choice and non-choice accounts were eligible for the program. The amount of gas purchased by the program was based on consumption over the past year and forecasted consumption for the any newly-built, expanded or acquired facilities. Hamilton County served as the conduit for the purchase of $29,890,000 in taxable special revenue bonds for one billion cubic feet of gas. Principal and interest bond payments will be made by CCAOSC. Over the past four years, the program has saved the CCAOSC member counties $2.9 million in commodity costs.CCAOSC Natural Gas Program member counties enrolled in the program include: Ashland, Ashtabula, Athens, Carroll, Champaign, Columbiana, Cuyahoga, Delaware, Erie, Franklin, Hamilton, Hancock, Huron, Knox, Lake, Lawrence, Lorain, Lucas, Marion, Medina, Montgomery, Morrow, Portage, Putnam, Ross, Sandusky, Seneca, Union, Van Wert, and Wyandot.

Coming Soon!

Information about Electrical

Information about Sewage

Information about Water