Facilities Management Best Practices: 7 Ways to Improve Efficiency

From one industry to the next, facilities management best practices are shared and implemented every day by facility managers worldwide. While not all organizations operate the same way, facility leaders still share a common goal when it comes to facilities management: to work efficiently and effectively, improve their organization’s operating costs, and boost employee productivity. 

Facility management is an ever-evolving process because, as facility leaders know, every day is different, and procedures grow and change to match daily demands. That is why it is so crucial for facility managers to continue to utilize and stay up-to-date with facilities management best practices. It’s the only way to realize cost savings and maintain their facilities and building systems as efficiently as possible.

Here are 7 common facilities management best practices that can help you cut costs, improve maintenance management efficiency, and achieve operational success in no time.

Facilities management best practices to increase efficiency

1. Automate and streamline facilities maintenance and operations

An essential best practice of good facilities management is creating a streamlined workflow that can be modified as needed. An automated and streamlined workflow will help to increase visibility, maintain consistency, and improve facility efficiency.

Many facility managers have found that automating processes like facility lighting and/or HVAC systems has led to increased efficiency in their facilities operations. HVAC schedules connected directly into your building automation system will allow you to control heating and cooling settings based on facility occupancy leading to better energy usage. Similarly, lighting controlled on an as-needed basis can help improve facility energy efficiency, saving organizations money in the long run.

Facility managers are also streamlining facility and maintenance operations by submitting electronic work orders generated by facility management software or other avenues. Eliminating paper work orders enhances visibility for all facility and maintenance activities, helping to improve team productivity and efficiency.

Learn how FMX can help your organization automate its work order process with its work order capabilities.

2. Customize your facilities management operations to fit your organization’s needs

When it comes to facility management, every organization operates differently. Whether your top priority is preventive maintenance, special projects, asset management, event scheduling, etc., your workflows must be flexible and customized to fit your organization’s unique facility maintenance needs.

One size doesn’t fit all when it comes to facility management practices. Customized facility management workflows help facility managers capture, track, and report on all crucial details surrounding their facility’s processes, providing them the tools they need for operational success, and ensuring that all facility decisions support the best interest of their organization.

3. Communicate with your team, across departments, and with outside vendors

Communication is key to success, and a key facility management best practice is to have clear and effective communication amongst team members, across departments, and outside vendors. Be sure to include keeping everyone up-to-date on any changes that are taking place within your facilities or with your facility processes, any emergency repairs that took place, and always be open to listening to your team members’ concerns by answering any questions they may have.

With the proper communication tools in place, you will be able to:

• Improve your team’s productivity and accountability by informing them of all facility activities and their current assignments.
• Maintain contractor and vendor relationships by communicating planned maintenance and current projects, service requests, invoicing, training programs, equipment, etc.
• Eliminate any unnecessary tasks, allowing you and your team to dedicate more time to the work that matters most to you, your organization, your technicians, maintenance schedule, and facilities.

Facilities management best practices to cut costs

4. Implement a preventive maintenance plan

As a facility manager, you strive for optimum efficiency for all of your assets to cut maintenance costs at the same time. By implementing a preventive maintenance (PM) plan for your facilities, you will be able to extend the life of your equipment, reduce downtime and reactive maintenance, keep an organized calendar for all PM tasks, track metrics and maintenance schedule KPI analytics that help you achieve data-driven decisions for your facilities, and cut down on reactive maintenance costs. Organizations that put a preventive maintenance plan in place have saved anywhere between 12%-18% on their annual maintenance expenses.

To some facility managers, the idea of tracking and maintaining the necessary details for a PM plan may seem overwhelming; however, with the right tools in place, routine maintenance is simple. Click here to learn more about how you can benefit from implementing preventive maintenance software.

5. Use data trends to track and measure facility management processes and performance

A recommended facilities management best practice is to collect and track as much information as possible. The list includes storing details such as manufacturer, serial number, emergency repairs, and warranty information for all of your equipment and assets, tracking worker labor rates and hours, inventory levels, equipment downtime, and much more.

With access to this data, you will have complete visibility into all aspects of your facility operations, helping you to set and reach facility and maintenance goals for your organization. For example, with access to all of your assets’ logs and data, you will be able to establish operational benchmarks or key performance indicators (KPI) that allow you to predict and prevent asset breakdowns, prolong the lifespan of your assets, maintain asset warranties, prepare for future operation costs, and lower your maintenance costs as a whole.In addition, through reporting and analytics, you will gain better insight into your facilities’ operations and performance on a daily, weekly, monthly, or even yearly occurrence. The intelligence will help you analyze trends and make data-driven decisions regarding your facility and maintenance processes, asset enhancements, productivity, additional staffing needs, and future budgeting plans. Decision-making on this level will give you an increase in profitability, a strong return on investment (ROI), and lead to operational success—ultimately improving your overall bottom line.

6. Embrace and utilize the capabilities of IoT

Facilities management best practices are continuously evolving and improving in terms of technology, which is why it’s important that facility managers embrace the use of technology to help them with their everyday facility management processes. In fact, the Internet of Things, or IoT, is changing the way facility leaders operate.

With so many cloud-based facility management software options, facility managers are no longer sifting through paper work orders, tracking down lost request details, or spending unnecessary time organizing schedules for their maintenance team. Instead, they are communicating and accessing all of their facility activities and schedules directly from their smartphone or tablet, giving them their maintenance team the ability to work from anywhere, at any time, and even in multiple facilities. Throw in the ability to control your facilities’ HVAC and lighting settings directly from your mobile device, and you’ve got it covered.

From saving time, cutting costs, aligning your team, maintaining a safe work environment, and improving productivity, the IoT offers you just the right tools so you can focus on the things that matter most to your organization.

7. Control your operations through maintenance management software

All of the above best practices will help you achieve facilities management success. However, facilities maintenance software can help you achieve better results faster. With many options to choose from, it can tend to be a little overwhelming. To help you narrow it down, we highly recommend software that offers these key benefits: 

• Asset and equipment management 
• Open communication and idea exchange 
• Workflow and routine process automation
• Time management improvements
• Reduction in maintenance costs and space
• Configurable reporting

A facilities management system helps facility leaders prioritize tasks and assign work orders to teams based on technician availability and the work order’s level of importance. Storing information in the system regarding how something was fixed in the past also decreases time spent on work orders and provides an excellent means of reporting employee and asset productivity. This keeps teams on track, ensures that need-to-have request items are being worked on first, decreases overall work order resolution time, streamlines processes, and decreases costs.

Whether it’s choosing the correct cost-saving maintenance management software or setting up the most efficient preventive maintenance plan, rather than reinventing the wheel, utilize the tools and facilities management best practices that have proven to work for facility managers time and time again.