Facility Management

See how Facility Management is Moving into the Future with CMMS

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What is a Facility Manager?

Facility managers are those who support the functionality, safety, and sustainability of buildings, grounds, infrastructure, and real estate using tools and services to create systems for success.

Facility Management can be split into two categories:

Hard Facility Management

Includes managing physical assets like furnaces, wiring, elevators, plumbing and other machinery. Some industries in this category include:

  • Building Managers
  • Manufacturing
  • Golf Courses

Soft Facility Management

Involves managing tasks and services such as custodial services, grounds keeping and lease management. Some industries in this category include: 

  • Real Estate Management
  • Senior Care
  • Healthcare

Why do we need facility management? 

Facility Management is complex and interdisciplinary managing many tasks and projects at once. Essentially, facility managers make sure that everything in your business operates smoothly and efficiently so that everyone else can do their jobs well. A business without their facility manager is like washing your floors without a mop, the job might get done but it will take up most of your time and energy.

Education and Skill Requirements for Facility Managers

According to the International Facility Management Association, facility management is one of a business’s most important assets. These managers are educated professionals dedicated to harmonizing the operations of your facility so that you can thrive worry-free! There are many education paths that bring about facility managers including Associate, Bachelor’s, and Master's degrees which equip facility managers in project management.

Using CMMS and Features for Facility Management

Computerized Maintenance Management Systems (fondly referred to as CMMS) are organizational systems with asset and inventory tracking capabilities as well as reporting features. CMMS streamlines workflows and can contribute to preventative maintenance and capital planning for long-term maintenance success.

Using CMMS and Features for Facility Management

Computerized Maintenance Management Systems (fondly referred to as CMMS) are organizational systems with asset and inventory tracking capabilities as well as reporting features. CMMS streamlines workflows and can contribute to preventative maintenance and capital planning for long-term maintenance success.

Capital Planning: is the practice of monitoring your assets to decide when they will need repair or replacement. Capital Planning is made possible through CMMS as you can forecast replacement costs for your facility, ending unexpected repair costs and reducing downtime for vital equipment within your facility so you don’t break the bank. 

Energy Management: Using CMMS to track energy usage can be the key to keeping costs down, noticing irregularities and meeting your efficiency goals.  

Work Orders: Requests for repairs can pile up or get lost and forgotten. With a CMMS system work orders are a form filled out online and sent into your queue for evaluation. From there you can prioritize and track everything paperless and convenient for best efficiency. 

Preventive Maintenance: Keeping up with maintenance can be hard enough. From changing filters or lightbulbs to managing lines of expensive manufacturing machinery, there’s hardly time to think about what you can do to prevent unwanted breakdowns. With CMMS you can track usage and regular maintenance to know when assets may need replacement parts or regular servicing. 

The Future of Facility Managers

As technology continues to progress so does the nature of facility management. Even fifteen years ago a facility manager could check boilers, write up a cleaning schedule, make sure everything worked, and call it a day. With new technology and expanding operations businesses are gaining more assets that require advanced technology to keep everything on track.  

Computer Maintenance Management Systems, or CMMS, streamlines facilities management by tracking your work orders and maintenance tasks in a powerful and user-friendly system. The future of Facility Managers is growth and diversification, with a CMMS like Maintenance Care, Facility Managers can move forward confident that they are planning and managing for success. 

Did you know?

A smart building with integrated systems can realize 30–50% savings in existing buildings that are otherwise inefficient. 

The average capital project is 80% over budget and 20 months behind schedule but adopting capital project management technology can lead to up to a 45% reduction in overall project costs.  

Real estate is the second-highest cost for an organization and effective space management can result in cost savings up to 30%. 

Employees in the U.S. waste 160 million days (about 440,000 years) per year searching for desks, office rooms, and colleagues. That’s a loss of USD 27.5 billion per year nationwide. 

Companies that rank high in employee engagement have 59% less turnover, 17% more productivity, and 41% less absenteeism.

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