Facility Management Software considerations (Part 1 of 3)
The facility management sector has emerged from a resource-based task orientated service to a fundamental support service that empowers the businesses. This involves keeping up with the demands of increasingly diverse portfolios, advancements in multiple sites, optimising the occupancy of space by larger - scattered teams in the workplace along with other diverse administrative functions. The roles, responsibilities and engagement of the facility management industry has become more complex and vital.
Businesses expect a greater return on the investment from their assets where efficiencies and optimisations need to be demonstrated. The traditional aspects of the buildings and infrastructure also need to be effectively managed through concurrent inspections, maintenance and repairs. Now, along with taking care of the 'core' activities that are driven by strategic tasks adding value to the customer-supplier relationships, 'softer elements' or 'non-core activities' like space allocation, asset monitoring, booking schedules etc. should also be covered.
So, as the prerequisites and sub-processes are becoming intertwined for the successful continuation of business and commerce, the roles of facility managers become more complex and eminent. Now, the focus has to be repurposed from taking care of day-to-day inspection, maintenance and repair tasks so that the focus is on the bigger picture, providing the clients with leading-edge solutions that helps them to proliferate in the growing market.
Implementing a technology tool is one of the fastest ways to reduce facility management spending. Simply moving from an error-prone, inefficient pen-and-paper system to a digitized and automated platform decreases the time and resources that must be dedicated to working order management, allowing teams to instead focus on forward-thinking and preventive measures. Plus, access to advanced analytics makes it easy to pinpoint patterns of overspend and core areas of improvement so that these can be quickly addressed and reversed.
Preventive maintenance can create cost savings and efficiencies by reducing the number of breakdowns and emergency repairs that business experiences each year, while also preventing warranty leakage and unnecessary equipment replacements. With an automated preventive maintenance schedule in place, assets will last longer, and overall maintenance spending can be accurately controlled.
Having discussed FMS and its sophisticated yet robust features, let’s consider what the industry offers from a traditional manual approach to a technology driven opportunity to capture, administer and report on relevant data in a digital format.
