The Ultimate Guide to Facility Management Best Practices
Facilities are changing as a result of evolving workplace structures, ongoing digitization, environmental tips, and other issues. This implies that in order to fulfil modern expectations, FM (facility management best practices) and common facility management methods must also change.
But what precisely is facilities management? All services and equipment that guarantee the security, efficiency, and longevity of structures, infrastructure, grounds, or other real estate are considered to be part of good facility management, and facility management best practices.
Asset management, maintenance procedures, and other things fall under this. The term “facility manager” or “facility manager” refers to an employee whose duties involve managing the upkeep of the buildings and grounds, directing the team responsible for facilities and maintenance, and gathering vital asset and financial data to enhance current facility management best practices..
- Facility Management Best Practices
- Communicate With Internal Teams and Vendors
- Set and Manage Team Structure
- Manage Risks and Returns
- Improve Space Utilisation in the Workplace
- Establish Asset Inventory
- Digitise and Automate Your FM Operations
- Implement a Preventive Maintenance Plan and Increase Your Assets’ Lifespan
- Leverage IoT Technology and Predictive Analytics
- Enable Mobile Access
- Make Use of Data and Analytics
Facility Management Best Practices -
1. Communicate With Internal Teams and Vendors:
A successful facility management best practices process depends on good and clear communication, both inside the maintenance and facilities teams and with outside vendors and suppliers.
Workflows will be smooth if everyone is informed about upcoming changes, maintenance plans, and processes. By keeping everyone up to date on tasks, schedules, and procedures, you may increase the efficiency of your facilities team by including communications on your list of best practices for facilities management. By removing pointless or minor processes from your workflow, you may focus more of your effort on crucial activities.
Keeping good relations with your suppliers and vendors will frequently help you when negotiating terms and deliveries. Your capacity to operate your facility management best practices effectively is strongly impacted by your ties with contractors and vendors.
2. Set and Manage Team Structure:
The organisational structure of any facility is built around a solid team. That implies that each employee is aware of the tasks assigned to them and the function they play in the team. It is your responsibility as a facility manager to make sure that your team members are properly taught and informed about all ongoing facility management best practices processes.
When you give your staff a defined workflow, they can concentrate on the crucial tasks at hand without being distracted or wasting time pondering what comes next. It is also your responsibility to make sure that teams and team members collaborate well. A solid, driven, and productive team will result from this.
3. Manage Risks and Returns:
Risk-taking is sometimes required to maximise production and profitability in a corporation. Through data analytics, well-informed choices, and careful planning, creative facility management best practices and solutions can help reduce many of these risks. A company’s risks can be reduced, and its returns can be increased, by implementing an effective preventive maintenance program based on logical data, better utilising existing assets, and having a well-trained workforce through solid facility management.
4. Improve Space Utilisation in the Workplace:
Large facilities give companies a lot of space, but they often have drawbacks, including higher energy bills and upkeep expenses for the building. Because of this, good space management ought to be a constant component of facility management best practices. It is even more crucial to manage and utilise existing space effectively, for instance by providing flexible workstations and repurposing the space left vacant by remote employees, especially in light of the expanded prospects for distant work.
Cost reductions and greater space for cutting-edge projects or cutting-edge technologies are the outcomes of enhanced space management.
5. Establish Asset Inventory:
The development of a thorough asset inventory, or a list of all assets, their location, and their condition, is one of the most crucial facility management best practices. Facility managers may make the best use of assets by being aware of their types, locations, and physical conditions. An effective preventive maintenance program that considers the age, condition, and use case of each asset can also be developed using an inventory list. Facility managers may save a ton of time by creating an asset inventory since they always know where key things are.
6. Digitise and Automate Your FM Operations:
How should a building be run in modern times? The continuous digitization of numerous industries and sectors is the key to this problem. Since many various jobs may be mechanised and digitally transformed with the aid of facility management best practices software, innovation in facility management best practices is constantly accompanied by digitization.
Asset management, maintenance management, inventory management, work order management, and other tasks can all be managed by facilities managers using the software. The facility maintenance software has the capacity to automate a number of processes, including reminding users of upcoming maintenance. Facility managers and other staff members can access data in any asset’s lifecycle folder from a desktop computer, smartphone, or tablet because it is a cloud-based service.
7. Implement a Preventive Maintenance Plan and Increase Your Assets’ Lifespan:
An asset breakdown can be avoided by doing routine, scheduled maintenance checks, which is known as preventive maintenance. This is a component of facility management best practices for maintenance management as well as facility management and the facilities sector.
8. Leverage IoT Technology and Predictive Analytics:
The Internet of Things, or IoT, links sensors, trackers, and smart technology to collect data and automate repetitive processes. IoT technology can be utilised in a facility management best practices system to gather crucial machine and maintenance data, which is then used for predictive data analytics to enhance facility operations.
Facility managers can then have a greater understanding of how their assets function, evaluate how successfully their facilities are run, and work to increase future productivity and efficiency. IoT technology can also predict machine breakdowns and failures with the use of the proper sensors or gathered machine data.
9. Enable Mobile Access:
Mobile access should be a top priority on every facility management best practices list as workplaces shift from fixed office positions to flexible or even remote work models. You may create a more flexible and contemporary workplace that can assist increase efficiency and productivity by giving employees access to crucial information via smartphone and tablet apps from anywhere.
No matter where they are in your facility, mobile access enables staff members, even those who operate on-site, to address problems more quickly since they have better access to crucial information.
10. Make Use of Data and Analytics:
Knowledge of the facility’s assets to the greatest extent possible is a constant component of good maintenance processes. Facility management best practices can develop a deeper understanding of all key assets by gathering data and applying data analytics tools. They are better able to make the most of the machines and assets they already have thanks to their knowledge and experience. Additionally, it helps with better monitoring of equipment maintenance.
Conclusion
Innovative ideas to facility management best practices might include everything from implementing cutting-edge IoT solutions to creating a better team structure for greater communication. Despite the fact that not every strategy will work for every company, facilities managers can draw ideas from cutting-edge solutions and tailor them to their own problems. Managers can increase productivity and efficiency, reduce operating costs, raise employee and customer happiness, and set up the facility for the future by enhancing facility management best practices overall.
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Frequently Asked Questions (FAQ)
There are seven top facility management best practices to incorporate into your workplace.
- Communicate With Internal Teams and Vendors
- Set and Manage Team Structure
- Manage Risks and Returns
- Improve Space Utilisation in the Workplace
- Establish Asset Inventory
- Digitise and Automate Your FM Operations
- Implement a Preventive Maintenance Plan and Increase Your Assets’ Lifespan
- Leverage IoT Technology and Predictive Analytics
- Enable Mobile Access
- Make Use of Data and Analytics
Learn about the four main pillars of facilities management: People, processes, the building, and technology.