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Managing operator responsibilities has become one of the most complex tasks in shopping center operations. Across ECE’s portfolio, around 56,000 obligations have to be tracked, documented, and fulfilled—from fire protection inspections and electrical testing to manufacturer-specific maintenance requirements. As regulations continued to multiply, the company decided to rethink how compliance is managed.
For ECE, the central question was how to manage and coordinate operator responsibilities consistently across their international portfolio. The answer is a digital transformation project that connects regulatory requirements, operational processes, and data management through SAP Fiori. Resulting in a computer-aided facility management (CAFM) system that enables ECE to manage tens of thousands of obligations in a structured, transparent, and scalable way.
A Growing Challenge
Operator responsibilities have always been part of shopping center management. Fire protection systems must be inspected, elevators serviced, electrical installations tested, and technical equipment maintained. These obligations are rooted in legislation, technical standards, manufacturer requirements, and internal company policies. What has changed is the scale. “Operator responsibilities are part of our DNA,” says Tobias Pickert, Director Sustainable Operations & ESG at ECE. “The digitalization opens entirely new possibilities to assist by coping with the growing demands.”
Today, ECE manages approximately 200 shopping centers and 70 parking facilities across multiple European markets. Each property comes with its own technical specifications, local regulations, and operational requirements. According to Pickert, ECE has identified roughly 2,000 relevant regulations originating from European legislation, national laws, regional regulations, technical standards, manufacturer requirements, and company-specific policies. When translated into operational obligations, these result in around 56,000 individual duties across the German portfolio alone. On average, each shopping center must manage approximately 660 separate operator obligations.
Project at a Glance: ECE’s Digital Transformation in Facility Management
ECE has developed a digital computer-aided facility management (CAFM) platform for managing operator responsibilities across its portfolio of around 200 shopping centers and 70 parking facilities. The solution combines the regulatory database REG-IS with SAP Fiori workflows, turning legal and technical requirements into actionable tasks. Roughly 2,000 regulations from European, national, regional, and industry sources were mapped into around 56,000 operator obligations. The platform assigns inspections, maintenance, and compliance checks, provides calendar-based planning, and creates a full digital audit trail. AI-supported analysis of inspection reports accelerates documentation.
“The number of requirements has increased significantly,” explains Pickert. “European legislation, national legislation, and even regional requirements all have to be considered. At the same time, the expectations placed on operators continue to grow.”
The Limits of Traditional Processes
Historically, compliance management relied heavily on local expertise. Technical managers received comprehensive regulatory documentation and were responsible for identifying which requirements applied to their specific property. While many handled this responsibility extremely well, the process depended heavily on individual knowledge and experience. “There were many colleagues who managed this brilliantly,” says Pickert. “But we wanted to rollout a fully standardized quality level across all properties.”
“56.000 obligations require a different way of working.”
The challenge was not a lack of commitment or professionalism. Rather, the sheer volume of regulations made it increasingly difficult to maintain consistency across a large portfolio. At the same time, ECE’s internal quality controls and facility management audits provided only periodic snapshots. The company wanted a system that would offer continuous oversight and ensure that all obligations were fulfilled in the same manner across every property.
Building the Foundation
The first step was not technology. It was structure. ECE already relied on REG-IS, a specialized platform that translates legal and technical requirements into practical guidance for facility management professionals. REG-IS remained the regulatory backbone of the project.
“The idea behind REG-IS is excellent and remains the foundation,” says Pickert. “The challenge was determining exactly which requirements apply to which property.” Not every regulation applies to every asset. A shopping center with underground parking has different obligations than one with open-air parking. Centers connected to public transportation infrastructure require different procedures than standalone retail destinations.Local regulations vary not only between countries but also often between regions.Before any digital workflow could be developed, ECE first had to identify obligations applied to each property. The company also used the opportunity to consolidate and standardize requirements. Similar obligations originating from different regulatory sources were grouped, terminology was harmonized, and clear definitions were established. This created a consistent operational language across the portfolio and laid the foundation for digital execution.
From Regulation to Action
Once the regulatory framework had been mapped and standardized, ECE integrated it into SAP Fiori.
The key innovation was translating regulatory obligations into actionable operational tasks. Instead of requiring technical managers to interpret legislation and determine inspection intervals, the system converts obligations into scheduled activities. “We did that in the past too but it becomes a lot more efficient considering the increasing amount and changing regulations,” says Pickert.
Annual inspections, quarterly checks, biannual reviews, and recurring maintenance activities are automatically assigned and displayed through a calendar-based workflow. Technical managers receive a clear overview of all upcoming obligations throughout the year and can schedule resources accordingly. This shift fundamentally changes the nature of compliance management.
“The technical manager no longer has to read the legal text to determine how often an inspection must be carried out,” Pickert explains. “We provide that information directly from the digital management system.” The result is greater transparency, improved planning, and a much more consistent execution of operator responsibilities across the portfolio.
Closing the Loop
Digital task management was only one part of the project. ECE also focused on improving documentation and verification processes. Previously, an inspection might be considered completed once the service provider had carried out the work. Today, the process is only finalized when the associated documentation has been uploaded into the system. This creates a complete digital audit trail and ensures that compliance activities can be verified at any time.
At the same time, ECE began exploring how artificial intelligence could support the evaluation of inspection reports. The concept sounds straightforward. In practice, it proved challenging. Inspection reports vary widely in structure. Some contain large numbers of photographs, handwritten notes, tables, annotations, and inconsistent numbering systems. Documents may be generated digitally, scanned from paper originals, or produced using different reporting formats depending on the service provider.
“People often assume AI can simply read these reports,” says Pickert. “In reality, it is much more complex.” To improve machine readability, ECE worked closely with inspection organizations and certification bodies to standardize report structures. This made it possible to automatically identify deficiencies, assign them to the appropriate workflows, and accelerate follow-up actions. The result is faster processing, better transparency, and reduced administrative effort.
Beyond Compliance
The original objective was to improve operator responsibility management, but the project has created broader benefits. The centralized data structure enables more sophisticated analysis and reporting capabilities. While operator responsibilities remain a core duty for every shopping center operator, meeting today’s growing and increasingly complex demands requires more than business as usual. Only operators that continuously adapt and advance their processes can successfully rise to this challenge. That is why ECE embedded these responsibilities in a standardized, scalable digital framework through their newly introduced system.
“The challenge wasn‘t compliance—it was consistency.”
The system also supports ECE’s broader sustainability agenda. As ESG requirements continue to evolve, reliable operational data is becoming increasingly important.
Digital processes provide the foundation for collecting, validating, and managing the information needed for reporting, benchmarking, and future optimization initiatives. Most importantly, however, the project has strengthened ECE’s ability to manage risk. Operator responsibilities remain a core duty of every shopping center operator. The difference is that they are now managed through a standardized and scalable digital framework.
As regulations continue to evolve and operational requirements become more demanding, the company’s approach demonstrates how digitalization can transform growing complexity into a manageable process. Rather than relying on individual interpretation and fragmented workflows, ECE has created a system that provides structure, transparency, and consistency across hundreds of assets.
