In today’s fast-paced global economy, organizations are increasingly relying on innovative digital technologies to gain operational flexibility, reduce costs, and achieve scale. This is especially true when it comes to facilities management. Whether you are tasked with managing multi-site retail locations, a corporate campus, or an educational institution, you need the right tools to help streamline complex processes, enable data-driven decisions, and alleviate maintenance-related costs. This is where facilities management software comes in.
In this article, we will explore what facilities management software is, why your organization needs it, what essential features to look for, and discuss some ways to reduce maintenance-related challenges and costs. We will conclude with a closer look at Accruent’s industry-leading solution – FAMIS 360.
What is Facilities Management Software?
Facilities management software is a type of digital technology that helps organizations maintain and manage their physical assets, facilities, and equipment. Facilities management software solutions can vary significantly in capabilities and use cases. For instance, computerized maintenance management software (CMMS) offers features to help streamline facilities maintenance processes. An integrated workplace management system (IWMS), however, allows organizations to optimize their entire facilities and asset infrastructure across an entire real estate portfolio.
Organizations of all sizes across many industries, including manufacturing, healthcare, education, hospitality, and real estate, use facilities management software to optimize their maintenance, repair, and operational processes.
Why Does Your Organization Need Facilities Management Software?
Facilities management has always been complex, but today's organizations face even greater challenges. These include a growing labor shortage and rapidly rising costs, among others. According to the Building Cost Information Service, there will be a 5.7% increase in maintenance costs in 2023 and an annual increase between 2.5% and 3.1% over the following 4 years. This will result in an overall increase of nearly 18% by the 4th quarter of 2027.
This projected cost increase will impact facility budgets and force teams to do more with less. Moreover, given rising costs, it is crucial for organizations to efficiently allocate resources and ensure that assets are performing at an optimal level.
Facilities management software serves as a centralized hub, simplifying maintenance tasks and streamlining the allocation of resources. It also helps organizations to reduce costly unplanned downtime and get more out of their assets. According to research, organizations that use facilities management software reported seeing a 30% to 50% increase in equipment reliability. Perhaps most importantly, facilities management software provides a holistic view of your data, giving stakeholders access to actionable insights to identify cost-saving opportunities and continue to improve.
Thus, facilities management software can help organizations to reduce maintenance-related expenses and overcome a broad range of operational challenges. The solution streamlines asset and facilities management, reduces unplanned downtime, ensures optimal inventory levels to reduce wasteful spending, improves safety and compliance, streamlines the allocation of resources and supports proactive maintenance strategies, and helps implement end-to-end maintenance processes to improve communication and quality throughout the organization.
Facilities Management Software: Key Features
For facilities management software to be effective it must have several core features, including:
- Asset Management. This feature allows users to create and maintain a detailed inventory of assets, equipment, HVAC systems, real estate, and more. This includes maintenance history and tracking information.
- Preventive Maintenance. Preventive maintenance is a proactive maintenance strategy that aims to minimize unplanned downtime and costly repairs by performing routine scheduled maintenance. Some important capabilities here include maintenance scheduling, task management, and access to relevant maintenance documentation.
- Work Order Management. This feature allows users to create, assign, and track work orders for routine maintenance, repairs, and equipment inspections. It streamlines approval processes and provides stakeholders with visibility over maintenance tasks.
- Inventory Management. Makes it easy to track and manage inventory for supplies and parts needed for maintenance and repairs.
- Vendor and Contract Management. Streamlines relationships and interactions with external service providers and contractors, including tracking applicable contracts.
- Space and Real Estate Management. For organizations with larger and/or multi-site facilities, this feature helps manage space and asset allocation.
- Reporting and Analytics. Robust, user-friendly analytics tools and reporting capabilities to assess asset performance, maintenance costs, and efficiency to enable informed maintenance planning decisions.
- Mobile Access. Gives technicians access to work orders while in the field. Allows them to easily update information and report issues from their mobile devices, eliminating the need to manually input written data into the system after job completion.
- Integration. The ability to integrate with other systems such as Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP) helps remove data silos and provides a holistic view of facility operations.
- Energy Management. Features that make it easy to monitor and optimize energy usage to support sustainable initiatives and reduce operating costs.
Leveraging Facilities Management Software to Reduce Maintenance-Related Costs
Facilities management software can help organizations to realize significant maintenance related cost savings. First, you can use the asset management features to create a complete inventory, providing stakeholders with a holistic view to help prioritize and plan maintenance more efficiently.
Second, you can use the software to implement proactive maintenance strategies including preventive and predictive maintenance. Preventive maintenance scheduling involves setting up routine maintenance tasks for critical assets. Technicians can identify and address issues before they result in unplanned downtime and costly repairs. Some facilities management solutions support predictive maintenance strategies. You can use these features to collect data from sensors to notify technicians when maintenance is needed based on real-time data. This helps eliminate maintenance tasks that are not required, which can reduce costs.
Third, use the software to easily assign tasks to the right technicians and track their progress. This ensures that problems are addressed quickly and that technicians are performing at an optimal level. Fourth, inventory and vendor management capabilities can eliminate time-consuming processes and reduce waste. Easily keep track of your inventory of supplies and parts and only order items as needed. Maintaining optimal inventory levels helps avoid unnecessary expenses. Moreover, vendor management capabilities can simplify the management of relationships with external service providers and help you determine whether you are getting the best value.
Next, if your facilities management software offers energy management capabilities, you can monitor and optimize energy efficiency, as well as implement energy-saving measures to significantly reduce utility costs. Lastly, user-friendly analytics and reporting features make it easy to keep track of costs to identify areas where you can cut expenses, help you spot areas for improvement, and allow stakeholders to make data-driven decisions.
Accruent FAMIS 360: A Comprehensive Facilities Management System
Facilities management software is an indispensable solution for organizations committed to furthering their digital transformation initiatives and enabling data-driven decision-making. The solution streamlines maintenance tasks, optimizes resource allocation, extends asset lifespan, and provides opportunities to realize significant operational cost savings.
Accruent’s FAMIS 360 is an industry-leading facilities management software for optimized maintenance that exemplifies these capabilities. The solution offers a comprehensive suite of features to help organizations streamline maintenance processes and reduce maintenance-related costs, including asset and work order management, preventive and predictive maintenance, space allocation, mobile access, robust analytic and reporting features, and more.
With FAMIS 360, it is easy to view comprehensive asset details and track crucial metrics, such as warranties and relevant maintenance activities. Detailed tracking and reporting capabilities ensure optimal operation of your equipment and maximize your assets’ ROI within your real estate and facilities portfolio. FAMIS 360 also integrates seamlessly with third-party systems including finance, human resources, and capital planning to power data-driven organizations.
To learn more about how FAMIS 360 can help you to alleviate maintenance costs and transform your facilities management processes, please visit the product page or contact a member of our team.
