3.13 The Genesis of MIT’s Creation of the World’s First Comprehensive Facilities Management System and Later Creation of the Nonprofit INSITE® Consortium
Kreon L. Cyros
This contribution records the genesis of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) senior management’s decision to develop and deploy the same decision support approach for the management of MIT’s portfolio of real property as used to manage its financial and human resources.
Development began in late 1966 with the hiring of the author by MIT’s Planning Office. MIT invested close to US$5 million over the next 10 years of research, development, real time field testing, addressing MIT’s administrative and academic departmental needs, and further testing via a pilot Consortium of 3 other institutions. This culminated in 1976 with MIT’s creation of the Office of Facilities Management Systems dba INSITE® (OFMS), and appointment of the author and INSITE’s initial developer as its founding Director. Led by the author, its mission was to independently carry on with the development and support of INSITE’s web-based database and linked floorplan suite for the Consortium Members (CMs) – all having learned about the INSITE Consortium via word-of-mouth.
The author provides MIT’s rationale and approach to developing an enterprise-wide system for managing their real property portfolio. The concept of “space accounting” is introduced and explained in the context of responding to three strategic questions about one’s physical ...