Lisa Watson

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The Role that Technology Plays in Advancing the Facility Management Industry

When it comes to maintaining your facility, the recent advancements in the world of technology has actually made great strides. No matter how technologically advanced your facility is, you always need to be updated on the recent technological developments in the sector of facility management. Even though this sector is advancing every single day, there are a lot of facility management organizations who even today rely on the traditional methods of managing maintaining facilities. As the sector continues to evolve and smart buildings take control over the traditional establishments of brick and mortar, it is important that the facility management sector as a whole embrace the change.

Let us take a look at the biggest technological innovations that the facility management sector has seen in tie recent past:

BIM in facility management: Building Information Modeling, commonly known as BIM is a popular tool that architects and contractors use to scale and develop various virtual models of facilities. With the help of BIM, contractors and facility owners get a complete visual model of their entire property. Though this is not an entirely new technology, it is gradually becoming a commonplace in the facility management sector. The power of these tools is gradually being recognized for data accessibility and timely project delivery. When this tool is integrated with the already existing work order programs or a facility management software, facility managers are powered with an enhanced ability to retrieve floor plans, asset information and O&M manuals. Though it is still in its infancy, companies are gradually recognizing the significance of collaboration and communication between facilities and building teams with the help of this visual modeling.

The Internet of Things (IoT in facility management): IoT generally refers to the network of accessible devices that is used by your facility. This technology relies on the tools like sensors, actuators, thermostats and the like in order to evaluate data and minimize the amount of energy that is used for each task. Each of these sensor or device picks up data on a building to better inform any facility team of the current temperature, sound levels and light vibrations in different areas of the building. The IoT is a lot like the human body. The better the communication between different parts of your body, the better will you your cohesive functionality be. By utilizing the IoT systems correctly, facilities teams can reduce the energy bills and provide an insight to the required data that is necessary to keep the residents of a facility happy and satisfied. A current challenge with this type of technology is that connectivity can be fairly costly to set up. If you do not have access to a common hub where devices will be integrated into, it will be impossible for you to aggregate all the facilities information into actionable metrics. However, this technology is continuing to develop and it will undoubtedly be an important part of the future smart buildings.

HVAC technology: when we talk of large facilities, the HVAC system proves to be a particularly expensive system to maintain. It is the advancement of technology and the implementation of different green ideas that have promoted the transformation of HVAC systems for the better. In order to be able to reduce the costs of cooling and heating of your facility and at the same time reducing the environment footprint, is surely a benefit for all. Advancements in the HVAC facility management systems and Building Automation Systems (BAS) have indeed come a long way in reducing facility management costs in different ways. These systems save facility managers some good dollars by notifying them promptly if any system in the facility is not functioning properly. These allows facility managers to avoid costly equipment failures by correcting them even before they occur. In the future, when these systems are integrated with a facility management software, they will be able to auto create and assign work orders to facilities team members depending on the type of asset and its location. However, the main challenge of implementing advanced HVAC and BAS technologies is cost and time. Therefore, before you go down the road and decide to implement a new BAS system, take your time and explore what your return on investment will be for a new system.

Facility management app: when you are in the need to access facilities information, you need to ensure that all this information is accurate, updated most importantly, is available instantly. By introducing a combination of contextual search, artificial intelligence and machine learning, a facility management app allows instant access to critical building and equipment information. By using optical character recognition, these apps extract information from old and faded building drawings absolutely accurately.

Therefore, the role of technology in facility management cannot be ignored. The earlier organizations embrace, the more efficiently will they be able to manage facilities.

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Role of Green Building in Facility Management

Over the years there has been a considerable transformation in the construction, design and service offerings of building. This transformation has led to a  change in the way these buildings are managed and maintained. In the recent times, green buildings have brought in significant changes in the facilities management sector. The main objective behind a green building is to use minimum resources throughout the entire lifecycles of the project in order to achieve zero waste.

While managing green buildings, facility managers need to manage the air quality, energy and water consumption and waste effectively. Each of these components are measured and monitored so that an efficiency level can be achieved that can benefit both the owners and the occupants in the times to come. For example, using a HVAC system, water saving fixtures, solar power and highly efficient lighting systems and high-end energy management controls. The primary characteristics of a green building are low costs – both operating and maintenance, healthier air and environment quality and increased durability. Let us take a look at the SOPs for maintaining green buildings:

Energy audit: this is a detailed study of tie current energy usage of a building with the help of Thermography and Lux Level analysis. With the help of a conclusive report from the audit will enable facility managers to recognize the best energy consumption strategies. This would result in  saving costs over a period of time depending on the strategy that has been implemented.

Environmental, Health, Safety (EHS) audit: this is a systematic approach to determine the regulatory compliance of a budding. This constitutes a survey that checks whether the residents are adhering to all the environment and safety requirements as per the established norms. With the help of an EHS audit, facility managers can identify the potential risks that can threaten the environment, health and safety of the residents. It will also identify the most viable way to point out and control the risks.

Compliance audits: a compliance audit of the facility helps to create a framework for preventive and an integrated performance maintenance. This includes waste control, risk management, fire, security, building and its assets and the like. On the basis of this survey, the facility manager decides on the maintenance system that is required and the frequency of the tasks that are needed to manage and maintain the green building.

While maintaining a green building, facility managers face a lot of challenges. Green buildings are required to have a LEED certification and it has to be 30 percent efficient than other buildings. The HVAC and other systems also need to comply with the minimum energy efficiency standards. However, with time, facility managers have developed the knowledge and skills to efficiently maintain green buildings. Let us take a look at a few tips for the residents of green buildings:

Use more natural cleaning products like baking soda, vinegar, lemon and hot water and the like. They actually have the same effects and they do not add on to the toxin levels of your home. Also make use of more paper products as they are recycled from various tree fibres.

Tile and wood flooring are a great substitute as they can be easily cleaned and if possible, you also need to go for eco-friendly painting in your walls.

With the help of double-glazed windows, you will be able to control your indoor temperature that would reduce the need to use air conditioners and ceiling fans. In order to optimize energy use, adjust the temperature of your air conditioner to 24 to 25-degree Celsius. This will also help to optimize the energy use.

The latest models of your electrical appliances like air conditioners, refrigerators and washing machines are now developed with energy conservation features. Therefore, upgrade the older models with the new energy efficient ones.

Change your CFL lights to LEDS as these are more energy efficient and does not emit light in a wider band of wavelength.

Whether it is just for your water heater or for the overall energy grid install solar panels to conserve more energy.

Use rain water instead of tap water for cleaning purposes and gardening.

By incorporating smart solutions with the maintenance process, facility managers have transformed old structures into smart and flexible buildings. These buildings adopt to the current environment conditions. And when we talk about intelligent solutions and smart use of technology then we also need to mention about facility management app and facility management software. These give access to critical building and equipment information to facilities teams on their mobile devices. Therefore, facility managers can get all information about their smart buildings in just the click of a button from wherever they want.

The latest innovations in technology and smart buildings have revolutionized the facility management sector. The coming days are expect to being bigger transformations to this sector.

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4 Ways to Break free from Traditional Facility Management

The way in which we respond in our workplace is transforming and so are the workplace strategies that we must have in place in order to retain talent and drive productivity and performance. Let us take a look at some of the ways in which facility managers of the modern times need to cater to their customer needs and innovate their practices to stay competitive in the industry.

Evolve into a proactive strategic partner – to get an edge over their competitors, facility management companies need to go beyond traditional deployment of assets and extend their focus on different ways to use the workspace more efficiently to the benefit of every stakeholder. This accounts to a widening of the facility management role and this requires a close collaboration with both the HR and the IT teams. This is needed not just to align but also to support the overall strategies of the company. In order to be able to achieve this, companies are required to develop sets of more strategically significant KPIs that are able to measure the outcome like the ability of knowledge creation and speed, the impact that the office environment has on employee productivity, innovation and culture, customer satisfaction and also the ability to adapt to the external changing environment.

Concentrate on value creation and not just on cost savings – traditionally, the success rate of facility management has heavily relied on costs and how to achieve more for less by going through cost cutting. It is true that cost cutting will obviously continue to dominate the sector with the main emphasis being on lowering occupancy costs, when you act as a strategic partner, you would also be required to create value for your workplace inhabitants and stakeholders. This can be achieved by adopting new and advanced technologies that provide more mobility to allow quicker access to information, creation of better conditions for employee training and development of a healthier workplace. A facility management app or a facility management software gives facilities teams instant access to building and equipment information on a mobile device. This not just aids to the easy flow of information but also makes facilities teams independent and gives them the freedom to work remotely.

Adopt sustainable solutions – we all know that buildings account for almost 40 percent of the global energy use. This is why sustainability has become a hot and strategic topic in the corporate real estate and more particularly in facility management. Today, almost all facility managers are responsible for energy management, waste and water management, health and safety and carbon footprint management. These responsibilities are expected to expand by leaps and bounds in the years to come. As sustainability is so highly prioritized in every facility management agenda, the pressure on facility managers to deliver and use sustainable solutions across all activities and platforms will increase too. Facilities teams will now have to rethink all of their assets and systems into a sustainable framework. And this also includes life cycle assessments and also undertaking sustainable building management. One of the most important ways to gain new market shares and improve the competitiveness of the facilities business overall would be to train employees on how to maintain a sustainable workplace and come up with new methods to reduce waste, carbon footprint and energy levels in general.

Leverage technology – with the passage of time, more facility managers will be keen to leverage the latest state of the art technologies in their services to stay competitive in the industry. For many facility managers, the idea of a virtual workplace is a common concept today. This quite naturally falls within the domain of facility management and therefore should be considered in the overall service offering. Technology is and will continue to be important for two reasons. First of all, it has an impact on how we work and where we work. New and different kind of workplaces like assigned workplaces, home offices, shared workplaces and flexible offices are now emerging. Secondly facility managers must always use technology in order to make these workplaces efficient and use them to support employees. There are a lot of facility management technologies that are already available and they must be used and leveraged optimally. Technology will always become an important component in the quest of the facility manager to become more efficient in the coming days. Additionally, it will be essential to respond to the demands of the market in the coming years.

These were only a few ways in which the modern-day facility manager can break free from the shackles of traditional facility management. The facilities sector is changing and evolving every single day and the sooner the new changes are adopted by this sector, the more advanced will it become in the years to come.

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How Facilities Team Access Information During Covid-19

The Covid-19 outbreak has affected millions of lives all across the world and till there is a cure, we have to learn to live with it as a part of our lifestyle. After months of being affected by the virus, people now are slowly returning to work in some counties, while still maintaining all the social distancing and health and wellness norms. In such a scenario, when the world is slowly starting to accept this as the new normal, the onus is on facility teams to keep facilities safe and sanitized so that the residents, employees and visitors do not stand a chance to get infected. While some states are lifting the lockdown restrictions, some are still making following the stay at home orders a mandate. No matter, whether your people are moving into a facility or have been staying in locked down all this while, as a facility manager how would you ensure that everyone is safe inside? To ensure safety, the first and foremost thing that facility professionals need is information. You might be staying at a completely different state or country altogether and might need to manage a facility at any other state, how would you make sure that you have all the updated information available with you? Also, chances are that your entire team is scattered at different locations or some of your employees are not being able to travel owing to the travel restrictions imposed by their state or local government? How would you communicate or access the information about your facility with each other? The pandemic of Covid-19 has introduced us to different levels of problem-solving options and facility managers are no exception in this case. The responsibility of keeping people safe inside a facility is a mammoth task and achieving it in these times is no mean feat at all. So, if you are a facility professional and want to manage your facility like a pro from any remote location, you can now use a facility management app. Through these apps you get instant access to all your critical building information. These apps are compatible with almost all operating systems and therefore can be accessed on the go. In difficult situations like the Covid-19 outbreak, a facility management app will keep you updated on the latest and most updated document related to your facility. No matter how scattered your team is, you can share all this information with them with the help of this application. Also, in case of emergencies, you can access the floor plan of a facility in seconds and locate the emergency entry and exit points. This help the facilities team be better prepared for emergencies in advance and develop a concrete emergency preparedness plan as soon as they see any emergency coming. With the help of this app, the entire facilities team can stay updated on the same page with the most updated information about their facility. Also, they can make real time changes in the document and share mark ups or floor plans with the tap of a button. Another very important feature of these apps is that they use the latest technologies available in the facilities world and that makes the lives of facility professionals so much easier. Most of these apps use artificial intelligence and machine learning and with the help of these technologies, you can now extract building drawings as they are. In the world of facility maintenance, more importantly, during emergencies like the Covid-19 outbreak, you need to get your work done as quickly and accurately as possible and if you can reduce your time in looking for information, you can achieve that with the help of this app. Also, in times of crisis, mobility is very important. You need all your information in your fingertips, while you are on the go. The last thing that you would want a technician doing is hunting for information through paper or digital files. In situations like this, it is all about how fast you are able to respond. And this is the reason why thousands of facilities teams across the world are accessing facilities information quickly with help of a facilities management app. As we all know, these are difficult times for all of us. This is one emergency situation that has left the best of facility teams looking for the best strategy or solution to keep people safe and prevent the virus from spreading. And to be able to successfully do this, they require information handy with them that they can access whenever they wish, without having to travel to the location of the facility. And this now is made possible with the help of a facility management app. If you are looking for one such app, you can search from the plethora of options that you get online.  

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Facility Managers are at the Forefront of the Covid-19 Response

In the light of the deadly Covid-19 pandemic, we must always keep in mind that facility management professionals are at the forefront of emergency response preparedness during outbreaks. They are the ones who are charged with actual response and they directly act as response managers and response coordinators. 

Being in charge of the maintenance of organizations, buildings and the people in it, it is the responsibility of facility managers to take the correct action towards implementing containment and prevention strategies. Let us take a look at how a facility manager can be better prepared to deal with a pandemic like Covid-19:

• Cleaning and disinfecting: a facility manager needs to reinforce cleaning routines so that the likelihood of the survival of the virus on objects, touch panels and surfaces can be reduced. The team that is responsible for the cleaning needs to be educated on this subject and the specific procedures that are to be used needs to be specified by the manager. All air circulation through centralized air conditioning and ventilation systems need to be disabled. Components that might pose a threat of infection need to be disinfected, cleaned and replaced on a weekly basis.

• Limiting concentration of people: as per the guidelines set forth by governments across the world, the concentration of personnel needs to be reduced. A facility manager can achieve this by making adjustments to shifts, installing options for remote working and creating flexible work environments. Employees who exhibit symptoms of cold need to be encouraged to stay at homes.

• Reducing physical proximities: it is the responsibility of facility managers to ensure that density of staff in the same space is reduced. For instance, in elevators, employees should not exceed 50 percent of the capacity; neither should they be working in spaces that are smaller than 2.5 square meters. In order to avoid getting staffs, clients or suppliers in the workplace interact with each other through handshakes and reduce the risks of hand to hand contamination, alcohol based sanitizers should be placed in meeting rooms, cafeteria and rest rooms.

• Cancelling international trips: we all know that international trips, fairs and events are an important part of every facility manager’s job; however these must be completely avoided during an outbreak like Covid-19 that is affecting more than a million lives across the world. Considering the large number in which people are contracting this infection, travel increases the possibility of bringing it back to your country and workplace.

• Keeping people informed: you need to make sure that there are flexible policies for sick leave at your workplace. These also need to be in accordance with the national healthcare recommendations. Ensure that all your staff knows about these. Put up posters that talk about the rules and regulations about hygiene. There should be instructions too on what an employee should do if he suspects that he has an infection. 

With the help of a facility management app, facility management leaders have access to highly accurate data related to facilities that not just has spatial information of employees but also information about assets that are associated with the day to day operations of a business. This app offers a platform for tracking all these information and it is needless to say that during these difficult times, the data available in these apps are being actively used in response planning and coordination. Let us take a look at how accurate information can help facility management teams to respond to unplanned emergencies like the global pandemic Covid-19:

• Space inventory: consider your organization space and assess the risks associated with each of these spaces. These could involve areas that are crucial to operations. This also means considering space that might be more susceptible to the spread of the outbreak. This might be areas where employees and staffs mostly congregate like meeting rooms and breakouts. All these areas are tracked and managed by these apps and facility managers can avail this information on the go.

• Asset tracking: facility management solutions are perfect for tracking location of equipment and different supply areas and these when coupled with preventing maintenance programs can enable you to manage tasks like inspecting and also filling sanitizers and cleaning materials.

• Utilization of space: it is possible for organizations to track usage of bookable space and locate who might be using that space over the period of time by looking through a room booking history. If your organization is using sensors, with the help of a mobile booking app, facility teams can tell who all were there in a meeting. This is a great way to track employee location.

• Air quality: as occupants or employees congregate, the air quality will gradually diminish. A facility management solution with analytics will help you visualize the air quality of specific areas. This will also help you improve floor plans and reconfigure the furniture layouts.

Therefore, the role that facility managers play in responding to emergencies or outbreaks like the Covid-19 go hand in hand with the availability of the right kind of facilities management app. Without an app, it will not be possible for a facilities team to stay updated on the latest facilities information and respond to emergencies in the best possible way. 

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The Importance of Maintenance and Failure Finding in Facility Management

When we talk of facility management, we are generally used to classifying maintenance tasks into three categories which are preventive, corrective and predictive. However, experienced facility managers will admit that there are a large number of tasks that do not fit into any of these categories. A good example of this is failure in finding tasks. But do you know what a failure finding in maintenance is all about? Do you need to make it a part of your maintenance plan too? If your answer is yes, when do you need to apply it? Most of the times, looking for failures is a part of the maintenance strategy. The main aim of this kind of maintenance is to ensure that the equipment is available for a long period of time. But if you are not able to ensure if a piece of equipment is reliable through your routine inspections? The answer to this is to effectively look for failures. In simple terms, this is known as failure finding. What are failure finding tasks? Failure finding tasks imply the inspections that we make on a particular type of equipment in order to find out the hidden failures or defects. This is the reason why they do not fit into a specific kind of maintenance. The goal here is not to maintain a particular asset but to find out if it is still eligible to work. Therefore, these are often referred to as functional checks. This is an important step since this is what differentiates failure finding from predictive and preventive maintenance. In this, your facilities team is not trying to predict or prevent a failure but instead, looking for one. For example, the malfunctioning of a generator used as a  backup in a health clinic will never get detected during the normal operations of the building. If by any chance the generator gets broken and you have not looked for any failure previously, you will be able to find it out when it is ultimately too late. The same rule applies to smoke detectors, fire alarms and other equipment that are activated only under certain circumstances or during emergencies. Therefore, it goes without saying that failure finding tasks are required to have the maximum reliability of backup mechanisms and security. Let us take a look at a few type of systems that require these kind of screenings on a regular basis: • Alarm systems like smoke detectors, fire alarms and the like • Electrical circuits and systems that regularly test the current capacity and load • The pressure relief or control valves • Fire extinguishers or mitigation systems that minimize the effects of any possible failure • Back up systems like the electric generators or water heating systems • Shut down systems that can automatically shut down an equipment before more expensive parts like the engine gets damaged Accessing information about these equipment The first step towards failure finding in facility management is knowing where each equipment is located. In a large facility, it is not possible for the facility management professional to manually find out the location of every equipment. In such a scenario, what comes handy is a facility management app. With the help of this app you can locate every equipment on your phone. You can also access floor plans, shut offs, As-Builts at the tap of a button on your phone. These apps are powered by artificial intelligence and machine learning and as a result they can extract building information from drawings. These apps not just keep facility teams updated on the latest building information but also keeps them ready for emergencies. Teams using these apps are known to handle emergencies fast and effectively compared to the ones still reliant on traditional methods of locating building and equipment information. In which situation do you need to go for failure finding? This type of maintenance is generally recommended when a failure cannot be detected under the normal circumstances or through the routine preventive maintenance checks. Functional checks are also justified when: • There is no way in which you could prevent the malfunction or therefore there is no chance of executing preventive maintenance • Testes and screening can be performed without causing any disruption to the normal functioning of any building • The chances of a hidden malfunction in any equipment or system is very high • The chances of the test resulting in a malfunction is extremely low • The cost of this failure finding task is way lower than the cost of corrective maintenance When  it comes to carrying out the maintenance work of a facility, the onus is entirely on the facility managers. It is always better to find a failure or issue and solve it before waiting for it to turn out into a great disaster for the facility and the people residing within the facility

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Steps to Manage your Facility in the Post Covid-19 World

As a facility manager, you must have asked yourself multiple times “when will the quarantine get over?” One of the things that facility managers are busy doing in this quarantine is planning. What will be happening when the containment measures get lifted? How will businesses operate when the quarantine gets over? The day after quarantine will not be as we imagine it to be now, at the present time. Our fight against Covid-19 is a long-term race and our survival will greatly depend on how well we are being able to adapt. As a facility manager, therefore, you will always be in the process of planning to overcome social distancing which might last for months even after the pandemic gets over.

Are there chances of a second outbreak after Covid-19?

At present, no one has a clear idea but we all know that as we get past the peak of the outbreak and the rate of the infections gradually start decreasing, it will be primarily because of the stringent containment measures and not because the disease somehow, someday disappeared all by its own. SARS-CoV-2, the virus that caused the corona virus outbreak might just continue to circle around the world and still get transmitted. Therefore, there are high chances of a new virus outbreak when the containment restrictions get lifted. 

How to resume normal life in a post Covid-19 world?

Despite all the researches and studies going on in the world, the knowledge that we have about the outbreak is still very limited. All the scenarios depict similar behaviour to the other corona viruses. Therefore, in facility management, the best way in which you can plan your post quarantine life is by focusing on the territories that have already successfully controlled the virus and are returning to work gradually. 

How to prepare your business facility for the post quarantine?

You must have a progressive return to work plan. You need to start by reopening your facility in phases. Only minimum employees must be allowed to work on-site while the rest would still need to work remotely from their homes. The best part of this has been that by now your team has learned to work and coordinate from a distance. You would also need to outline your team to act progressively. The first group that return to work should be the ones who have recovered from the infection and confirmed to have developed antibodies against the virus. This needs to be followed by young people and other age groups without the associated pathologies. Employees and workers above 60 years of age with diabetes and any other autoimmune disease or cardiovascular problems, cancer or asthma, need to still work remotely from their homes 

Get your team to work on shifts

If you want to assemble your team in person, you would need to pay attention to the most number of people who can occupy the office space while maintaining the recommended social distance. You can therefore create a rotating schedule where all your teams do not need to be present in the office at the same time. The rooms need to be airy always and the air circulation through your air conditioning system needs to be avoided.

Plan for strategic natural storage

Apart from following the social distancing measures, the best way in which you can prevent the spread of the virus is by washing your hands. You need to increase the supply of your alcohol based gels and sanitizers, having a concentration of at least 70 percent alcohol and make the disinfectants available at all your strategic points like doors and lifts. This strategy will be highly effective in containing the spread of the virus. Also, depending on the location of your facility, you need to prepare a stockpile or at least a continuous supply of protective materials and nitrile gloves.

Make the most use of technology 

Technology these days are changing the face of facility management completely. From the Internet of Things to Big Data, the evolving technological innovations are making the life of facility managers easier every passing day. Once such use of technology in accessing important building and equipment information has been recognized to take place within the help of a facility management app. These apps are generally powered by artificial intelligence that extracts information from building drawings and makes them available to facility teams and technicians in no time at all. Therefore, whether it is an emergency situation due to an existing pandemic or a system failure that needs your immediate attention, you can control all this within seconds as you have all the information available in your phone on the go. 

Dealing with the impacts of Covid-19 and planning crisis management is now of the most crucial responsibilities of facility managers across the globe. With proper planning in advance, you will be successful in dealing with the pandemic.

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Advantages of Having a Facility Management App

Technological advances in the field of maintenance management demands more speed, agility and makes it an ever-evolving industry that demands practicality from the maintenance teams. A mobile app is the need of the hour to cater to the mobile nature of facility management. Mobile apps can be easily installed in tablets and smartphones and enables staff to have access to information related to their daily work from anywhere in the workspace. 

Let us take a look into the various advantages of having a mobile facility management app tagged to your workspace:

·         Speedy Reaction Time – A facility management app will always aide in reduction of the reaction time for the maintenance team. For the case of reporting any failures in the system, a manager or any staff who has the app installed will instantly be notified of any system failures which are listed on the system. This kind of reporting usually has some unique identifiers which are tagged to each of the systems that will help in easily understanding which system has failed and needs to be fixed. Another big improvement is the time that takes to notify the team for any maintenance activity. Previously, you would need to look up a technician and make calls or email him to get the job done but now if your technicians have installed the app on their system they will be instantly notified of the failure and also the details of the failure. The technician can then bring in the appropriate team and do the maintenance work quickly.

·         Centralized Information - In order to have proper planning, maintenance team needs to be aware of all the pending failures and the work schedule at the start of their day. Previously, all these failure reports and work schedules were maintained using lot of paperwork and quite a lot of effort used to be wasted in creation of these paperwork. Even manual paperwork was quite prone to human errors which led to faulty maintenance work. With the onset of the use of mobile app, a centralized repository gets created that allows staff to gather the needed information and even communicate within the team at ease.

·         Speedy Access to Equipment Information – As mentioned earlier, any equipment is tagged with unique identifier and the details of each of the equipment are stored in a centralized repository in the mobile app. This will enable facility maintenance team to get information about the date when a system needs to go through a periodic maintenance so as to keep the system running smoothly. Creation of maintenance routines and assigning it to the specific teams has become a whole lot easier using the facility management app.

·         Real-time Information Gathering – Companies that do not have a facilities management app often face issues like:

Compromise in quality of information due to the amount of time that passes between detection and reporting.

 Any manager also faces the challenge of making quick decisions as they do not have the ability to track the progress of work continuously. Reports are sent to managers only after the staff finishes their work for the day and completes the paperwork which are sent to the managers at the end of the day or even early next day.

A facility management app addresses all these issues with optimal precision. The staff can log all of their activities as they finish each work and managers get instant notification as soon as any job gets completed. Moreover, real-time information gives a holistic view of the overall progress and also indicates the performance of all the technicians and staff. The quality of information that gets passed on instantly waives off any time wasted between detection and reporting.

·         Addition of multimedia files – A facility management app also has option to attach multimedia files to any failures in equipment. Attaching photos or videos in the failure reports helps in creation of a known issue database in the system that can be used in the future if similar issues or failures happen with the system. These multimedia files are made available in the app and are easily accessible to any technician or managers who have installed the app.

Many such issues related to facility management can be easily and precisely handled in a hassle-free way by the use of a facility management app. By providing facility teams with instant access to important building information, these apps help prepare these teams come up with emergency preparedness plans in advance. This helps facility managers respond to emergencies timely and efficiently. With technological developments happening all around us, having these apps in order to properly maintain and manage a facility has become absolutely necessary today. Whether you are managing one or multip0le facilities, getting all the information at the tap of a button on your phone keeps you ahead of facility managers still relying on traditional facility management procedures.

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          The Role of a Facility Manager during the Covid-19 Outbreak

The corona virus outbreak has brought millions of lives and economies across the world to a complete standstill. The pandemic has affected our daily lives and the way we work. Businesses are suffering all around and organizations are facing a new challenge. In this scenario, it is crucial that organizations respond to the disruption and mitigate the risks that have taken its toll on business operations and more importantly, the workforce.

Keeping the above-mentioned consideration of mitigating risks in mind, the most essential tool that facility management professionals have is the access to accurate data related to facilities and equipment. This will assist in preparing for workplace challenges and emergency response efforts.

Facility managers have a very important role to play during this outbreak as they are in charge of buildings and organizations. The responsibility of the people and implementation of the correct prevention and containment strategies is on facility managers. A pandemic like Covid-19 is one of the best emergency situations to demonstrate how well as a facility manager you are equipped to deal with emergencies. The most basic yet important steps to follow in preparing facilities and workforce are listed below, let us take a quick look:

·         Reduce concentration of people at one place. No matter even if the economy re-opens and businesses strive to get back to normal, as a facility manager, you need to remember that social distancing will still be an important protocol to contain the spread of the virus. Maintaining a distance of six feet and reducing the occupancy at the common areas of the facility are important steps. For commercial properties, temporarily closing down the common areas like fitness rooms, conference rooms, cafeteria, etc., would help you prevent concentration of people at one place. Making it a mandate to allow elevators operate at limited capacity and allowing limited seating in cabs during employee pick up and drop will help you maintain social distancing among people.

·         Cleaning and disinfecting the entire facility regularly will greatly help in stopping the virus from spreading. The WHO and CDC have laid out in their official websites that it is absolutely necessary to use disinfectants in public places in order to curb the spread of the virus. High touch surfaces, individual workstations, restrooms, stairway rails, elevators, reception areas, all should be cleaned and disinfected thoroughly at regular intervals. It is a facility manager, who should be absolutely vigilant in times of emergencies and Covid-19 is the best example of an emergency situation.

·         Avoid traveling. As a facility manager, the most important area that you need to manage is yourself. Yes! You read it right! You need to ensure that while trying to keep the workforce and your people safe, you need to take proper preventive measures for yourself as well. As a facility manager, if you are managing more than one facility outside your location, you might need to travel. Before, you travel, make sure you check the current status of the virus spread in the area that you plan to travel to. Also, countries across the world are under lockdown and stay at home orders are issued by governments all across. Before you step out, ensure that you have followed the mandate of the local government of that place. In case the rate of infection is higher in the area that you wish to travel, you need curtail your travel plan till the situation gets better.

·         Now when travel restrictions are imposed, the question is as a facility manager, how will you manager facilities spread over countries or even worse, continents? The solution is simple, you can do it with the help of a facility management app. These apps are mobile friendly and can share all the critical information related to your facility under one single platform. Whether you manage one single facility, or are in charge of managing multiple facilities, your job gets easier now with the help of a facility management solution. With just the tap of a button on your mobile phone or tablet, you will be able to access your floor plan, equipment, shut-offs, As-Builts and many more. Most of these apps use artificial intelligence and machine learning in order to extract building information from drawings. With the help of interactive maps and equipment tagging feature, you can now locate emergency equipment, entrance and exit points, share work orders and do a lot more. This way, you can remotely manage your property and protect yourself from having the risk of contacting the virus by travelling.

It is true that with experience facility managers are better equipped to deal with emergencies but when experience is combined with technology, then the outcome is extraordinary. Therefore, if you are a facility manager, looking for the best ways to deal with the Covid-19 outbreak, download a facility management app and get access to all the critical information you need about your facility to prevent the virus from spreading.

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How Smart Technology is Transforming Facility Management

Facility management is rapidly evolving, all thanks to the technological developments happening over the last couple of decades. These developments have completely transformed the physical attributes of facility management like HVAC systems, maintenance and repair and access to information. This in turn has transformed the space requirement and infrastructure of buildings. This has had a great impact on the job description of facility managers, at times completely overhauling their regular duties. The new technologies and advancements to the already existing technology have created great opportunities for financial savings for companies that require facility management.

One of the latest innovations in the field of facility management is smart buildings, also known as intelligent buildings or intelligent building management. Now, buildings will no longer be static shells just housing operations. They will be responsive and automated and will adapt to the requirement of their users and the environment around. The market of smart buildings is expected to generate revenue of 8.5 billion dollars in 2020, and this is a surge of 4.7 billion dollars in 2016. Let us take a quick look at how this new technology can help facility managers:

·         Predicting potential issues and risks: monitoring a big facility can often pose challenge in maintenance. It is not just time consuming but facility managers also find themselves responding late to things, usually after something has gone wrong or a complaint lodged. It is not always physically possible to go around and check the happenings in a building at one time. Sensors now are able to capture what a team of professionals could not manually. This gives them instant access to a wealth of information and gives facility managers ample time to plan where and how they need to spend their time. For example, you can identify areas that consume high power or are prone to high usage and therefore might require frequent maintenance. With the help of current sensors, you can spot issues before they actually happen resulting in breakdowns. This predictive maintenance therefore can help increase the lifespan of your buildings and reduce the overall costs.

·         Helps comply with industry standards: the smart standards monitor the performance of your buildings and help the compliance management system run smooth. The data that these sensors produce help identify problems before they actually occur and this helps reduce the energy use. For companies that have installed the environment monitoring sensors for measuring the CO2 and humidity, are able to make big savings on their energy usage. When you know which areas of your building are over used or under used, you can make your adjustments accordingly. This way you can reduce your energy usage and bills. And this kind of information becomes important when regulations like the Energy Performance of Buildings Directive gets rolled out.

·         Reduces administrative work: smart sensors collect a lot of information that results in an efficient integrated facilities information management system. When the data gathered by the sensors are plugged into the cloud or Internet of Things, it gets displayed in various formats, which helps you indentify what is important for you. This saves you from the manual labor of creating reports. Cloud platforms transform your data into easy to read and use dashboards where it is easy to spot any potential trend. All the systems, equipment and documents now, with the help of the smart technology link better. You are able to stay updated with multiple buildings and spaces and derive the latest and updated documents related to these buildings or any equipment, from anywhere. All this gets possible with the help of a facility management app that consolidates all information in one single platform.

·         Improves experience of the residents: smart sensors play a great role for the residents and people visiting or working in the facilities. As they can monitor the temperature, CO2 and humidity levels, they ensure comfortable working environments. With the help of occupancy sensors, it is possible to see which rooms are booked or available for booking. This saves users from double booking the same meeting room and also helps them find a quieter space to work. The overall living and working experience of the people inside the smart buildings is therefore elevated by a great degree.

While almost all new buildings will be built with some sort of smart technology, it is just not confined to the new-builds. You can upgrade your old facility and make them smart too. Wireless technology makes it extremely quick and easy to install sensors in older buildings. Most of them are battery powered and they stick on the surfaces. The data is then sent to your existing building management system wirelessly. There is a wide range of cloud platforms available these days. It is time that you act smart by making your facilities smart!

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Green Trends and Technologies that Shape the Future of Facility Management

A study conducted by IFMA reveals that 69 percent of facility managers are implementing green building concepts today. Another 58 percent is planning to add environmental criteria to product selection. The statistics also reveal that facility managers are no more inclined to evaluate sustainability just by the recycled concept. They are adopting a broader approach that takes into consideration all the stages of the product’s lifecycle.  

Sustainability is invoking a change in a lot of industries and it has a particular impact on building infrastructure and facility management. With more and more building managers looking for new ways to reduce costs and manage their energy consumptions, new trends in the development of sustainable and green initiatives will open up new opportunities for improved efficiency.

Green buildings

There has been a significant change in the way buildings is designed and constructed in recent times. The main objective of a green building is to use minimal resources during the entire lifecycle of the project. Green buildings need facility managers to manage their energy consumption, water usage, waste control, and air quality. Each one of these parameters is measured properly so that the owners and occupants are benefitted in the long run. Some examples are plumbing fixtures that save water, HVAC systems that save energy, installation of energy-efficient lighting systems and energy management controls. The benefits of having a green building are many from low maintenance and operating costs to a healthy indoor quality and improved durability.

Smart or Intelligent Buildings

The world around us is evolving every single day to become more adaptive to the environment. With the threats that are imposed by global warming rising every single day, it is imperative that we all do our bit to contribute to society. One of the sectors that are quick to adapt to the green initiatives in order to contribute to the environment in the construction sector and facility managers are the forebearers of this change. By capitalizing on and incorporating the various intelligence solutions with maintenance processes, facility managers are turning buildings into smart structures. These adapt to the tenant’s preferences and environmental conditions. These automated structural models can respond to real-time events. These structures are highly energy efficient too. While traditional buildings used to deploy CCTV cameras, light and smoke detection sensors, the modern-day smart buildings are deployed with smart sensors like temperature, CO2, humidity, etc. The data that is generated by these sources connect different components of these buildings allowing them to interact with each other. With all these data facility managers have complete control over the different systems of the buildings. Now, with the help of IoT and AI, smart buildings are becoming more intelligent and smarter than they ever were.

The Internet of Things (IOT)

With more offices and enterprises implementing IoT, it is essential for facility managers to understand what it exactly is and how it operates. The data is generated by IoT enabled sensors are capable of improving performance and efficiency and reducing costs. For example, by using sensors to determine how your office space is being utilized, it will be able to come to a decision whether desking is a good option for your office. Moreover, with the help of IoT technologies, it will be possible to know whether maintenance is required on any machine or device. Facility managers are also notified before there is a breakdown. IoT offers the advantage of relieving facility managers of the daunting task of restocking supplies. For example, a smart washroom will automatically signal out when dispensers require refilling and printers will send signals when they run out of cartridges and similarly smart fridges will restock themselves when the office snack stocks wear out. Moreover, heating and cooling controls now can be monitored with the help of IoT so that the building or office is regulated accordingly. This is such a cool feature, isn’t it? The IoT is also powered with the feature of reducing work-related illness or injury. Employees and building residents are prone to natural disasters even when they are inside the premise of a building. With the help of IoT, alarms are raised more quickly whenever there is an emergency or a dangerous situation. According to a recent study it has been found out that IoT has the ability to save labor costs by 20 to 50 percent.

Facility Management Software  

This is the need of the hour for every facility manager out there. Staying up to date with all the information of the building was never this easy as it is with a facility management app. A facility manager can instantly access details about facilities, emergency procedures, asset locations and many more details all from one single platform. These apps are mostly compatible with all mobile devices and therefore facility managers can have access to information on the go as well. Few processes that are already implemented are analyzing and capturing data through audits and performance rating module that gives an accurate report for every employee. And this is done on the basis of their quality of work, attendance, knowledge and the like. These apps also help to keep a track of the performance of equipment and machinery on the sites. These entail information about the conditions of every equipment. This, in turn, helps to understand when equipment needs to be sent to service. These apps and software, therefore, are becoming integral to the successful performance of every facility manager with every passing day.

Therefore, with newer sustainability trends emerging and new technological advancements being made, the world of facility managers are transforming at a rapid speed to adapt to these changes. With more types of intelligent technologies entering the workspace, more businesses are adopting smarter systems tracking. As more technologies are being developed, the need to connect to these systems increase. By analyzing the evolving trends and technologies in the world of construction, facility managers are constantly adapting to this budding world of new trends and technologies.