FACILITY MANAGEMENT
Facility Management can be defined as an organizational function integrating the 3Ps i.e., people,
place and process of a built environment working towards improving the productivity at the workplace
and the quality of life.
The British Standards Institution defines facilities management as: “The integration of processes
within an organization to maintain and develop the agreed services which support and improve the
effectiveness of its primary activities”.
IMPORTANCE OF FACILITY MANAGEMENT
Management of facilities in any organization is must in the competitive world. The reasons for this
are varied from safety to employee motivation and from reducing maintenance costs to improving
productivity. The following reasons will further explain why facility management is not only necessary
and important in the fast competitive world:
Increased efficiency: Properly managed facilities is a must for any organization as it helps very little
disruption of work. This ultimately exponentially increases the efficiency of the organization. The
organization can concentrate on its main business. The specialized facility management agencies not
only help in recognizing and predicting problems beforehand like ordering stationery items or other
material and helps if there are going to be any issues regarding the malfunctioning of equipment.
Save on cost: It is always economical to outsource the services to specialized facility management
agencies as they know how to optimally utilize the resources as also reduce costs. The experience
indicates that generally when such task is handled by any organization directly it results in high costs,
including the human resource cost. Managing equipment and premises will reduce maintenance
issues and thereby helping on costs significantly. It also ensures that the organization gets value-for-
money service that meets all required standards.
Quality and Performance:- Facility management helps in creating quality standards and increase in
performance which also includes benchmarking, assessment methodology, best practices. This also
helps in redundancy of services and overlapping which will be visible in efficiency.
Role of a Facility Manager includes
This may range from a small to a bigger role depending on the size and location of the organization.
Stacking the requisite resources-An organization to work effectively largely depends on the
availability of the resources at the right time and place, which can be maintained only after proper
analysis of the daily operational requirements and planning it in advance.
Acting as an information Manager: -any shortage or a problem at the workplace to be analyzed by a
manager and disseminating the information appropriately in the workplace.
Acts as a risk taker: -Facilities Manager is the first one to face any risk arising at the workplace which
may be fire, smoke, hazardous gas, short circuit etc.
Taking care of the natural surroundings: - Acting as an environmentalist to adhere to the norms and
standards prescribed by the regulatory bodies, hence, facilitating the organizational functions without
any hindrance.
Always act as an Innovator: - Acts as a person who is open to accept the changing trends and applying
the same in their own organization. It is vital for any organization to sustain in the rapidly changing
world to be innovative in their services, upgrading the standards time to time and sharing the
knowledge with other organizations.
Managing the overall property: -The structural management (Hard) of the premise as well as
maintaining the cleaning & catering (Soft)
Operational Management: - Managing the day-to-day resources.
Overall Maintenance:- Overall maintenance of the built environment
Managing the human resource: Assigning right kind of people at the right task.
Managing the financial affairs: - Managing partial or complete financial affairs of the organization.
COMPONENTS OF FACILITY MANAGEMENT
The components of facility management may be broadly categorized into the following: Hard Facility
Management: These services are to ensure employee welfare and safety. These are the necessary task
to be performed to maintain and enhance the life cycle of the equipment. These standards are to be
maintained as per the law. These are the physical aspects of any organization.
Some of the hard facility managements are:
Maintenance of the building (planned or predictive)
Maintaining the thermal temperature
Maintenance of Air conditioners
Measures for fire safety
Ensuring effective lighting
Plumbing
Soft Facility Management: All those services which are limited to the usage and maintenance it refers
to as the soft facility management.
Cleaning of the work space e.g. table and floor, washrooms, common areas etc.
Mail management
Management of the waste
Assessment of facility needs
Decoration of the common places like the eatery etc.
Pest Controlling
Managing the parking facility
Specialist Facility Management: All the technical tasks are performed under the specialist Facility
management. These services are performed through Computer Aided Facility Management (CAFM)
software.
