PSIwebware Blog

If you are like most managers, you have probably sworn to yourself on a number of occasions that you won’t let scheduling conflicts get the better of you again.

Scheduling conflicts can quickly drain your available resources, lead to unreasonable amounts of waste, and can turn a good project into one that keeps you up at night.  Managers and suppliers should work as a team to achieve the efficiencies needed to have successful operations.

Building Maintenance Software can be an effective way to help your team manage preventive maintenance, cyclical maintenance, repair projects, service orders, alteration projects, and capital projects.  These tools help your team coordinate successfully with a minimal amount of effort, even when the projects involve conferences, parties, and after-hours activities.

The objective of work coordination should be to make the most efficient use of everyone’s time.  When challenged with the many functions of facility management, scheduling conflicts and potential problems have become expected to some degree.

Keep in mind that efficient work may not mean eliminating all scheduling conflicts, since that may actually cost more than it’s worth.  Efficient work means eliminating scheduling conflicts that drain your resources and have excessive costs, knowing that you will still have some minor conflicts.

Using the right tools and techniques for proper planning and project management, along with a good communication process, will result in work coordination that everyone on your team will appreciate.

Capital Programs

Capitalization is the smart and orderly way to meet facility needs.  It is the facility manager’s job to actively participate in developing the requirements, prioritizing the competing needs, and managing the execution of a capital development plan.  Capital costs are associated with long-term assets.  These costs can often be met by capital expenses, which are used to expand or modernize a facility.

 Capital Budgeting

To measure the budget accurately, total space needs have to be assessed first.  Then, it is up to the company to decide whether they want to lease, build, or renovate the building. Capital funds are used if the renovate or build options are chosen.  Also, you need to determine what can and cannot be capitalized.  Two factors exist when dealing with this: existing tax code, which will determine depreciation schedules, and company rules, which usually have restrictions on what can and cannot be capitalized. Renovation brings questions of proper allocation of costs.

When allocating resources for Capital Programs, Maintenance Management Software can assist in planning, tracking, labor utilization, budget management, and ensuring that regular services are performed as desired.

In the Facility Manager role, it is important to be a persuasive supporter of your company as well as your staff.  It is essential that the Facility Manager understands both the formal and informal chain of authority and can communicate clearly in all situations.

It also helps to have the Ten Effective Facility Manager Traits:

1. Business Oriented
2. Technically Competent
3. Good Communication Skills
4. Customer Service Oriented
5. Cost Conscious
6. Politically Savvy
7. Decisive
8. Slightly Legalistic
9. Action Oriented
10. People Person

Facility managers should also be knowledgeable regarding efficiency tools such as CMMS Software, and about net present value analyses, cost-benefit ratios, payback periods, return on investment, etc.

The most basic definition of Project Management is ensuring that work is completed on a defined timeline within a budget.  In Facility Management, this means managing a project through the design-build schedule, meeting operational requirements, and staying within budget.  (Technical terms always make things sound better!)

To manage projects efficiently, it is best to break down the components and prioritize each component to closely match expected outcomes.

Some ways to view, prioritize, and manage Projects are by:

Dollar Value
Timeline
Available Resources
Level of Effort Required

Good candidates for Project Management techniques:

Capital Projects
Discretionary Annual Projects
Periodic Work
Repair Projects

Inappropriate candidates for Project Management:

Administration
Leasing
Preventive Maintenance
Routine Custodial Work
Utilities

When dealing with projects, don’t view each task that needs to be completed as a separate project.  This can decrease capital costs, but it will also increase operating and maintenance costs.  This type of thinking places barriers that leave little room for alterations.

Productivity tools such as Facility Maintenance Software help manage projects in a number of ways including prioritization, scheduling, labor management, resource allocation, and budget control.  These tools can also help with routine custodial work, preventive maintenance, and administrative tasks.

There will always be pressure to minimize initial costs due to the visibility of most projects.  Unfortunately, this usually guarantees increasing the life-cycle costs, which can be three times more costly than capital costs throughout the useful life of most equipment.  Keeping things simple through organized project management can help minimize project costs without incurring any downsides, resulting in an opportunity for a great return on investment.

Leadership plays a vital role in facility management.  Good facility managers lead by example, earning respect.

However, the skills that made successful facility managers in the past (such as technical knowledge) no longer are enough.  New skills are needed to adapt to changing facility and client demands to remain a successful leader.

Keep in mind that your facility management department may have different views of successful facility management than people outside of the department.  Since your facility management department deals with extensive requirements, meeting all of the needs and desires of your company, clients, and tenants can severely strain available resources.

Strong leaders focus on remaining flexible in both thinking and resource allocation to balance business needs, client satisfaction, and tenant public relations.  Along with technical knowledge and effective supervision, leadership also needs to include planning, communication, performance verification, and client relations to optimize performance in your facility.

To meet all of the challenges of today’s facilities, it has become increasingly important to utilize time saving tools such as Facility Maintenance Software to keep your team on track and communicate performance.  Having the ability to plan work efficiently, communicate requirements instantly, and track work performance helps facility managers retain control of resources and provide stronger leadership.

Exceptional companies are made, not born.  They start with a strong desire to achieve meaningful goals, and work every day until their entire organization is behind them.  Along the way, they achieve a true sustainable competitive advantage.

Excellent teamwork within your organization is the right starting point for unity.  But unity is more than just teamwork, it’s the way your entire workforce interacts with each other to complete tasks accurately and quickly.

Motivation and efficiency are two more important elements of unity.  Your team must know their goals, how they fit within the organization, and what success means to everyone.  Efficiency is the means to carve time out of the day to plan, communicate, track, and reward performance.  One important efficiency tool is Facility Maintenance Software that shows your management team what is being done as it is happing, so they can fix any problems quickly, and know they stayed fixed.

Employees play a key role in unity.  Your team needs to be strong and reliable.  If someone is working below company standards, it is up to management to effect change.  This is the most important aspect of having strong unity in your organization, because if employees aren’t doing what they are supposed to be doing, work isn’t getting done efficiently, and the most you can achieve is teamwork.

Unity will make your company strong and ensure you to stand out from the competition.  Your customers will value your service if it is easy to work with your company.  Unity in your organization becomes a culture over time that will help you retain the right employees that continue to build on your success.

Service:

Only your client can truly reflect on your service and how well you are doing it.  No one else can accurately determine how well you are performing your service.  Unless your client performs regular inspections, they will rely on perceptions and tenant satisfaction to make their determination of your net worth.  If you are performing your own Quality Inspections on a statistically valid schedule, you may be able to demonstrate some value directly.  One of the best ways to show value without doing a lot of work is Facility Maintenance Software.

Commitment:

Committing to continuous improvement is a very important aspect of quality.  This also ties directly into providing superior customer service.  Continuous improvement demonstrates a willingness to invest in stronger relationships.  When it comes time to evaluate performance, having a strong track record of improvement will likely increase your ability to retain and grow your business with clients.

Willingness:

You must be willing to dedicate your time to improving the client relationship.  This may mean doing those little things that can improve satisfaction without draining your resources, attending meetings with them, or stopping in on a regular basis to be seen more as a partner in their success.  How is this quality?  If you have a great relationship, have invested in their satisfaction, and are well known, their perception of satisfaction will be higher.  Even when your actual quality of service is excellent, if you fail on willingness, your value to the client may be perceived as average to poor.

Accountability:

You have to hire employees that you can count on to get the job done to the best of their ability.  If you have employees that are not taking the job seriously, it is time to look for new employees, because their actions directly reflect your company as a whole.  Your employees need to be held responsible for their actions and they must value their jobs.

Recognition:

If you have achieved a high quality of service, the value of your team should be recognized and marketed both within your company and outside your company.  If you have done a good job with the first four areas, your client should be impressed, and they may be willing to help you get new business.  Ask if you can use them as a reference.  A good group of happy clients can make a tremendous difference when all other areas of your service look the same to new prospects.

In any facility, there are conflicting priorities that can strain resources.  Although political and financial pressures can sometimes change priorties in disproportionate ways, it is important to remain focused on the critical priorities in your facility.

Efficient facilities have found that their first priority should be maintenance that protects life and property, their second priority deals with problems that can affect tenant satisfaction, and their third priority is routine maintenance that reduces the cost of operations.  Identifying, prioritizing, scheduling, and tracking these three fundamental objectives can be made easier and more cost efficient with Facility Maintenance Software:

Issues that involve protecting life or property obviously need to be dealt with immediately.  An effective emergency response plan with a “calling tree” that outlines who should be notified based upon the situation is invaluable when these emergencies arise.  Easy access to your emergency response plan is critical to your performance, and many organizations have found it valuable to have this information secured (password protected) on a website to ensure availability.

Tenant satisfaction is sometimes difficult to achieve, but with a good plan and the right tools, your team can peform consistently and efficiently.  This type of work is initiated by your client or it can be scheduled work that avoids future costs by performing it concurrent to an ongoing project.  Typically this type of work is requested through a work ticket or service request.  Facility Maintenance Software can make service request work much easier and more productive by helping you schedule & notify workers, track performance, and analyze costs.

The third level priority involves routine maintenance.  Routine maintenance can include non critical repairs and preventive maintenance.  Usually, this is the work that is done when the other two levels are in control.  Your goal is to help avoid future costs while remaining efficient with the use of available resources.  Facility Maintenance Software can also help keep your team efficient in this area, especially when integrated with managing second level work requests.

These concepts may be second nature to you by now, but the key is to ensure that your entire staff understands how to properly handle work prioritization to minimize costs and avoid mistakes during emergencies.