Facilities management helps ensure the functionality, comfort, safety and efficiency of buildings and grounds, infrastructure and real estate.
Facilities management includes:
- Lease management, including lease administration and accounting
- Capital project planning and management
- Maintenance and operations
- Energy management
- Occupancy and space management
- Employee and occupant experience
- Emergency management and business continuity
- Real estate management
Types of facilities management: There are two basic areas: Hard facilities management (Hard FM) and soft facilities management (Soft FM).
- Hard FM deals with physical assets such as plumbing, wiring, elevators and heating and cooling.
- Soft FM focuses on tasks performed by people such as custodial services, lease accounting, catering, security and groundskeeping.
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For people to do their best work and feel engaged in their environments, they need to be in buildings that are safe, welcoming and efficient. Facilities management has a hand in everything that surrounds the people in facilities and on the grounds. Where they work, play, learn and live should be comfortable, productive and sustainable.
Superior facilities management will contribute to your organization’s bottom line, impacting the short-and long-term value of property, buildings and equipment. Your efforts can be crucial to:
- Space optimization
- Guiding capital projects
- Energy management and maintenance
- Lease accounting
- Workplace experience
People spend 87% of their time in buildings. See how to improve your operations to make their lives more comfortable and maximize efficiencies.
In its first worldwide integrated workplace management system (IWMS) MarketScape report, market research firm IDC highlights TRIRIGA for its innovation, flexibility, functionality and industry expertise.
Real estate is the second-highest cost for an organization and effective space management can result in cost savings up to 30%.¹
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.²
Companies that rank high in employee engagement have 59% less turnover, 17% more productivity and 41% less absenteeism.3
A smart building with integrated systems can realize 30–50% savings in existing buildings that are otherwise inefficient.4
The technology in facilities management includes both software and systems. Vast amounts of data are generated by built environments through Internet of Things (IoT) sensors, wifi, meters, gauges and smart devices.
The most effective solutions enable facilities management departments to make good use of this data by infusing analytics and artificial intelligence (AI) into an integrated workplace management system (IWMS). These technologies deliver cognitive capabilities that make computer-aided facilities management possible—so you can analyze and learn from data, enabling you to achieve real-time visibility, perform predictive facilities maintenance and create more productive, cost-efficient environments.
Across numerous industries and company sizes, facilities managers have a wide range of important day-to-day responsibilities. These managers need to both plan ahead and also be ready for various tasks within any given day. While the manager’s responsibilities often include:
- real estate management
- capital projects and planning
- occupancy and space management
- lease administration and accounting
- workplace experience
There are also ways to improve the performance of each responsibility that will fill the manager's schedule:
- deliver operational efficiencies
- create an environment conducive to productivity
- find and adopt technological solutions
- guarantee regulatory compliance
- minimize risks to facilities and employees
- reduce energy consumption costs
- reduce the carbon footprint of the real estate portfolio
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Learn how an integrated workplace management system (IWMS) can increase the operational, financial and environmental performance of facilities and real estate.
Use data to make better-informed and data-driven decisions for intelligent real estate and facilities management.
Get intelligent asset management, monitoring, predictive maintenance and reliability in a single platform.
Read how as artificial intelligence gets integrated with building management systems and IoT devices, it has the potential to improve occupant experience, increase operational efficiency and optimize space management and asset utilization.
Explore how the workplace as a destination is changing the way facilities managers are optimizing space for safety, productivity and improved experiences.
Sources
¹ Research and Markets (link resides outside ibm.com)
² McKinsey & Company (link resides outside ibm.com)
³ Gallup (link resides outside ibm.com)
⁴ American Council for an Energy-Efficient Economy (link resides outside ibm.com)