Abstract for:Strategic Office Vacancy Assessment Tool for Enhanced Facilities Space Management

The Strategic Office Vacancy and Assessment Tool (SOVAT) is a Powersim® Studio 10 simulation developed collaboratively with key members of Sandia National Laboratories Centralized Space Management (CSM) team to assist them in their management of the approximately 20000 spaces that the Sandia workforce occupies. SOVAT runs at a monthly timestep over a 6-year period, projecting the supply of space by leveraging a corporately-maintained dataset with detailed information on the ~20000 spaces, along with planned space additions, and projecting the demand for space using HR data on the current actual workforce and projected growth in the workforce over the simulation period. The dynamic nature of workforce growth, being driven by addition of new employees, replacement of retirees, and the time to process clearances, which effects what kind of space these new hires can occupy, presents a challenge for the CSM team when it comes to planning for Sandia’s future space needs. SOVAT is currently helping the CSM team identify mitigation strategies for projected space shortages, assess the tradeoffs between strategies, and communicate potential strategies to the senior level leadership that will ultimately support or oppose said strategies.