Maintain Your Facility Management with CAFM Software

1. What does facility management mean?
2. How can CAFM software help and how do you find the best one?
3. CAFM as an insider tip for building management and property administration

Nowadays, everyone is a manager. It's often mocked that many - even tried and tested - jobs are being given a new, usually English, name. But if you currently have no idea about the profession of a facility manager and might even imagine it to be banal, you should be taught better here: The areas of application are diverse, complex and not at all obvious.

Behind the term facility management are several administrative and business management professions and even an academic field of study. You probably know this too if you deal with building management or property administration. And then this article is important reading material. Because here you find out which software supports you in the work that arises and how you save time and money in this way.

What does facility management mean?

The English word Facility can mean many things translated: in addition to "facility", "factory", "operating site" and "building" also "dexterity", "simplicity", "opportunity", "help" or "ease". In banking we even speak of "loans". Together with Management the administration of buildings and properties is meant. So Facility management is, pretty much, the administration of commercial facilities, which in turn Facilitys are called.

Behind this administration lurk several processes. They all aim to keep buildings clean and maintained and to plan their use efficiently and cost-effective:

• Asset-Management: Administration of physical resources in buildings like equipment, furniture etc.
• Space Management: Disposition of spaces in a building. This can include the management of conference rooms, offices or other workplaces.
• Resource Management: Management of consumables, services and other working materials that are necessary for daily operation.
• Maintenance management: Planning, documentation and tracking of repairs to facilities and installations. This also includes preventive maintenance of the facilities.
• Energy management: Monitoring and control of energy consumption including the energy efficiency of buildings to reduce costs and work in an environmentally friendly way.
• Compliance management: Compliance with legal regulations, safety standards and other regulations to ensure the protection of workers and facilities.

So if we first think of the operational part in facility management, this is not wrong, just a little one-sided. In addition to cleaning and craft personnel, strategic professional groups are also involved, who arrange and are responsible for the economic component of operating facilities.

Especially with this administrative part, tools can help you to save and work efficiently, environmentally conscious and sustainable. Only in this way can a company, a residential complex or another building complex remain profitable for the owners. In addition you make your specialists' daily work easier with the use of suitable programs. And this is more important than ever, given the current labor market with its labor shortage .

How can CAFM software help and how do you find the best one?

Systems that help facility managers are called CAFM software. That stands for "Computer-aided Facility Management Software", or simply: "computer-based building administration software". And as varied as the areas of application of the affected teams are, so varied are the fields of tasks and functions of the supporting programs.

All CAFM systems should offer you the following if possible:

• Workflow editing of listed to-dos
• Reporting on planned and implemented projects
• Reporting / Dashboards for analyzing measurable data
• Monitoring of files such as contracts, budget planning etc.
• User support through ticket system or feedback function
• Integration possibilities with other systems

Depending on the industry, area of responsibility, and exact case, other systems can be integrated into CAFM software: 

• (Specialized) building administration systems
• BIM (Building Information Modeling)
• CAD software (Computer-Aided Design)
• ERP systems (Enterprise-Ressource-Planning)
• GIS solutions (Geographical Information Systems)

Take, for example, an office complex with a large corporation as a tenant. A CAFM software can help HR assign desks or conference rooms so that employees can book them online. On the other hand, a facility management tool can manage repairs or cleaning plans. Thanks to the collected data, owners, investors and managers know about the expenses for maintenance, servicing and possible replacement of facilities.

Since Facility Management covers a wide range of possible to-dos, there are many different CAFM tools that can help you with the tasks that arise:

ARC Facilities

Corrigo

IBM TRIRIGA Application Suite

iManSys

MaintainX

ML Work Orders

Oracle Primavera

PAZO

Planon

RepairFix

Rent Manager

Seatti

Silvertrac Software

wave Facilities

Wooqer

Yardi Breeze

CAFM as an insider tip for building management and property administration

So CAFM softwares take over digital caretaker, property manager, energy consultant, and dispatch tasks. Of course, they don't take on the operational measures to maintain or maintain a building or facility. But much more the organizational, administrative and performance-oriented tasks to supply specialist staff with the orders.

When selecting a program, you always have to keep all participants in mind and respond to their needs: While the respective factory managers and owners value cost of use, efficiency and environmental friendliness, the users of the software logically focus on functionality and user-friendliness. With a suitable CAFM software, you can increase your employee satisfaction, simplify work processes, and create transparency for all those involved.

From databases, over a Project Management- or Ticket system to budget planning and economic evaluations, tools with a facility management focus offer a versatile range of application possibilities. And so we are at two other translations of Facility, namely "Help" and "simplicity".