Approximately 44% of unplanned downtime is caused by aging equipment. This indicates that improper maintenance of equipment can lead facilities to unexpected downtime and financial losses.
Regardless of their size and scope, organizations depend on facilities management to operate successfully. In this blog, we will discuss all about facility management, its examples and types, and some of the best practices in facility management to improve efficiency.
What is facility management
Facility management involves the day-to-day operations required to maintain a physical environment that supports the facility’s needs and primary functions.
According to the ISO definition, facility management is an organizational function that integrates people, places, and processes within the built environment to improve the quality of life of people and the productivity of the core business.
Facility management plays a significant role in supporting the core functions of an organization, especially when it comes to a wide range of industries. Whether it is an educational institute spread over multiple locations, a manufacturing concern with a massive production site, or a business/brand leasing a single floor of a building, facility management is essential.
Irrespective of the industry, a facility manager ensures the physical spaces (everything that’s included within a building and without) and assets are properly maintained to meet the organization’s needs.
Why is facility management important
Every organization has a core function, whether it is to generate revenue or serve the community’s needs. Facility management is considered the backbone of a successful organization, supporting it in a couple of different ways including:
Productivity
The primary role of facility management is to ensure that the staff, employees, and occupants within a facility can effectively perform their duties by maintaining clean, organized spaces. It also ensures that all vehicles, equipment, machinery, and technology function properly.
Comfort and safety
Along with productivity, all occupants within the facility must be safe and comfortable. This involves frequent inspections to meet safety standards, reducing liability and risk, and increasing occupant comfort.
Profitability
As facility management is a huge expense that comes with a broad impact, productivity, safety, and comfort must be efficient. Minimizing unnecessary operating costs is necessary for improving the bottom line of the business.
Scalability
Facility management plays a crucial role in supporting an organization’s growth, including asset expansion, relocation, or adaptation to changes in work environments. The team needs a deep understanding of people, assets, and facilities to navigate new opportunities.
Sustainability
Facility managers have a social responsibility to promote greener practices for their organizations, including reducing waste, optimizing energy use, and adopting new best practices. This enhances the organization’s sustainability goals while reducing energy.
Facility management examples
Facility maintenance is a crucial part of facility management. A wide range of maintenance activities and services fall under facility management – all of them ensure the comfort, safety, functionality, and efficiency of a facility’s environment by integrating people, places, processes, and technology.
Below, we have outlined some common facility management examples:
- Building maintenance: This includes routine maintenance (including preventive maintenance) of physical structures and mechanical systems like elevators, HVAC, plumbing, and electrical systems.
- Cleaning services: This ensures all places within the facility are clean and hygienic. Regular cleaning and sanitation services are performed to ensure the facility remains clean.
- Safety and security: Security measures are implemented and supervised to protect the facility and its occupants. This includes managing security systems, performing safety drills, and ensuring compliance with health and safety protocols.
- Space management: The use and layout of the physical spaces within facilities are optimized to enhance the workflow and increase space efficiency.
- Utility management: This includes managing the supply and cost of utilities like water, electricity, and telecommunications.
- Emergency management and response: This includes developing and implementing emergency plans, conducting training sessions, and ensuring immediate response to emergencies like fires or natural calamities.
These examples indicate how facility management plays a key role in the successful operations of physical spaces and environments.
Facility management process
The facility management process involves supervising the maintenance, security, and overall operations within a facility or building. It includes several activities such as coordinating maintenance schedules within teams, managing utilities, and ensuring compliance with safety protocols and regulations.
Commercial facility management
Commercial facility management is managing and supervising the physical buildings and services of commercial facilities like shopping malls, official buildings, and complexes to ensure their safety and efficiency. Commercial facility management also provides a proper functional environment for occupants and businesses.
Types of facility management system
Essentially, there are two main types of facility management: Hard Facilities Management (Hard FM) and Soft Facilities Management (Soft FM).
Hard FM focuses on the physical assets of the building such as wiring, plumbing, elevators, electrical systems, and HVAC systems.
On the other hand, soft FM involves tasks performed by people such as catering, cleaning, lease management, security, and grounds maintenance.
Facilities management best practices to improve efficiency
Let’s discuss the common facility management best practices that help organizations quickly reduce costs, improve efficiency, and achieve operational excellence.
Automate and streamline facility operations
One of the key best practices in facility management is to create flexible, automated workflows to increase visibility, ensure consistency, and enhance efficiency.
Many facility managers have successfully enhanced operational efficiency by automating HVAC systems and lighting workflows. They have also improved operations by adopting electronic work orders generated by facility management software.
Eliminating the use of paper-based work orders streamlines workflows, increases visibility for facility activities, and enhances team productivity and efficiency.
Tailor your facility operations to your organization’s specific needs
When it comes to facility management, every organization functions differently. Your workflows should be flexible and tailored to meet the unique needs of your organization whether it is involved in preventive maintenance, asset management, maintenance scheduling, or special projects.
It is noteworthy that the one-size-fits-all approach doesn’t apply to facility management as every organization has unique needs. Customized workflows help facility managers to efficiently capture, track, and report on all important details about the facility’s processes, ensuring decisions align with the organization’s best interests.
Implement a preventive maintenance plan
A facility manager aims to achieve maximum efficiency and reduce maintenance costs. This is done by adopting a preventive maintenance (PM) plan as it extends equipment lifespan, reduces downtime, and decreases reactive maintenance.
A preventive maintenance plan includes keeping an organized calendar for all PM tasks, tracking metrics and KPIs for making data-driven decisions, and minimizing costs. Organizations adopting a PM plan can save around 12% to 18% every year on maintenance expenses.
Streamline operations with facility management software
Adhering to the facility management best practices can help your organization achieve success. However, you can achieve better results quickly by using facility management software.
Several software options are available but choosing the right one can be challenging. It is important to focus on the solution that offers the following benefits:
- Asset and equipment management
- Open communication and idea exchange
- Automated workflows and routine processes
- Improved time management
- Reduced maintenance costs and optimized space usage
- Configurable reporting
A robust facility management software helps facility managers prioritize tasks, create and assign work orders based on the urgency of the tasks and availability of technicians, and store historical repair data.
This helps reduce time spent on current and future work orders and improves employee and asset productivity reporting.
When choosing a cost-effective maintenance management solution or implementing an efficient PM plan, it is recommended to opt for tools and best practices in facility management that have consistently delivered good results for facility managers.
Avoid reinventing the process and instead focus on capitalizing on strategies known for their effectiveness.
Frequently asked questions
What is the main function of facilities management?
Facility management is the upkeep and maintenance of an organization’s buildings, ensuring health and safety standards and legal protocols are met.
What are the two major types of facilities management?
Two major types of facility management (FM) include hard facility management and soft facility management. Hard FM involves dealing with physical assets like wiring, plumbing, HVAC systems, and elevators whereas soft FM involves tasks performed by people like catering, cleaning, security, lease accounting, and groundskeeping.
What is facility management maintenance?
Facility maintenance involves keeping your facilities running at optimum levels. It helps improve an organization’s productivity and efficiency. With facility maintenance software solutions, organizations can ensure their equipment performs optimally while minimizing costs and downtime.
