Work Order Component
The backbone of every facilities management system is the work order. This component serves as the conduit for people to communicate a facility-related issue that is affecting the physical environment.
Traditionally, the work order is customized during implementation to include every building and space within the organization’s physical infrastructure, including grounds, equipment, furniture, and vehicles. The build-out for this framework is crucial, as the data prepopulated during build-out allows the organization to generate reports, to inventory assets, to build preventative intervals for systems, and to strategize life-cycle replacement, all of which integrate to create efficiency while prioritizing financial resources.
Additionally, the prepopulating of spaces or buildings allows those who generate work orders to explicitly and efficiently communicate with the appropriate response teams, eliminating confusion while expediting response time.
This preventative maintenance component contributes positively to energy use, wards off premature system failure, and reduces the organization’s annual expenditures.
Preventative Maintenance Component
One of the core purposes of a facilities management program is to prolong the useful life of all components of a facility, including mechanical systems, building envelopes, and flooring. Prolonging the useful life of these systems requires a maintenance schedule developed on the basis of their manufacturers’ recommendations.
For example, elements of the building’s HVAC system are some of the most important equipment within a facility. The system’s primary function is to provide a quality indoor environment while ensuring the comfort of the building’s occupants. It is imperative that the inner workings — belts, motors, filters, coils, compressors — are inspected and maintained to ensure peak performance.
Although the manufacturer specifies preventative maintenance intervals for these parts, the facilities management team should determine those intervals on the basis of the labor and technology available at the time of the required maintenance.
For example, vehicle manufacturers have traditionally specified that oil changes should be performed every 3,000 miles to keep the vehicle in good operating condition; however, new technology in the oil industry has allowed most manufacturers to eclipse 5,000–6,000 miles — with some pushing out to intervals of more than 10,000 miles — between oil changes.
This preventative maintenance component contributes positively to energy use, wards off premature system failure, and reduces the organization’s annual expenditures.
Another component requiring preventative maintenance is life safety devices: fire panels, alarms, intruder systems, smoke detectors, elevators, and so forth. The maintenance of these systems is regulatory and required by code. Installing a maintenance interval tracking system ensures compliance and makes certain that these devices are truly lifesaving.
Inventory Component
As the global supplier market grew, it created competition and drove down costs, motivating organizations to leverage their purchasing power by buying supplies and materials—such as filters, cleaning products, and other consumables — in bulk and storing them on-site.
With this shift to bulk buying, organizations needed a method to track and inventory these supplies. To meet this need, facilities management software companies added inventory solutions to their catalogs.
When developing and implementing a centralized purchasing and inventory tracking system, organizations must first create policies that include setting purchasing thresholds, identifying approved products, and determining which supplies will be inventoried. Once that system is developed, the next step is to establish low-limit thresholds, to integrate replenishment protocols, and to create the framework for managing a product-in, product-out inventory.
Additional considerations include whether the organization will order directly from the supplier or through the purchasing agent. This decision will determine the support systems that can guarantee on-time delivery of competitively bid supplies and materials.
Life-Cycle Component
Even with proper maintenance, systems must eventually be replaced. This life-cycle component of a facilities management system inventories an organization’s capital assets to strategically determine when to retire them based on projected cost or realized savings.
Because facilities age and circumstances change, it is important to enter as much data as possible during the build-out of this component within the facilities management system. For example, an inflation escalator built into the system can provide market condition replacement costs in future dollars. To replace an HVAC system that has been in service for 25 or more years will certainly cost more than 25 plus years later. Data points provide stakeholders with concrete information to support funding an initiative.
Conclusion
As facilities management continues to evolve to meet consumer behavior, the facilities software industry will provide solutions to meet those behaviors. Think critically about what makes sense for your organization. Analyze how facilities management software systems can better support your core purpose and the stakeholders you serve.