Facility managers today are expected to understand their company’s core business strategies and contribute to the bottom line — not only by decreasing facility costs. But also by improving productivity, revenue generating capacity and the image of their organizations. Companies also look to their facility managers to ensure their office buildings, factories, and other physical properties stay competitive with other companies in the same industry.

I recently held a Program Advisory Committee (PAC) meeting for the Certificate in Facility Management at Ryerson University in Canada, for which I am the Academic Coordinator. It is a continuing education program for people in the facility management industry to develop and upgrade their skills.

Throughout the United States, about $400 billion is spent on energy each year to serve commercial and industrial buildings. About 20% to 30% of this energy is lost. By now most facility managers (FMS) recognize that energy efficiency can decrease costs and aid in the bottom line, but they might still be seeking the most efficient solutions. Despite the fact that there is no “one size fits all” when it comes to efficiency solutions, the desire to innovate and collaborate is necessary.

Sustainability is no longer an issue for tomorrow, but a significant consideration for today. The increasing demands for sophistication with data, and for reporting under legislation such as Dodd-Frank and emerging standards as set by the Sustainability Accounting Standards Board (SASB), are creating the awareness that sustainability is already a business imperative, so much so that many organizations are recognizing the need for sustainability oversight. It is a perfect time for the introduction of a high-placed sustainability executive — possibly even a Chief Sustainability Officer (CSO) — to bring an organization into the sustainability space beyond compliance. Here's why facility managers are top choices for those sustainability executive roles.

Driven by the ever-increasing number of construction projects and infrastructure developments in the UAE, the FM sector is expected to witness massive growth as service providers move to support the growing market. Sandrine Le Biavant, Director of Consulting at Farnek, talks about the sustainability, technology and everything in between.

Labor efficiency — or basically time saved — is another key metric and benefit of using mobile technology effectively. Time saved by using CMMS on mobile is one of the most-cited advantages of mobile technology — indeed, 73% of respondents to the BOM survey said mobile technology helped improve work-order response time and tracking, and 62% said it improved workflow and reduced work order redundancy.

Strazdas is the poster child for using mobile for work orders. He’s spent the last few years implementing a process of creating BIM models for all his buildings, and then, with some cooperation between vendors, tying the BIM models to his CMMS and making it all available on tablets.

“Essentially, we bring a library room full of books directly to our technicians’ iPads,” he says. “The travel time is significantly cut.” That’s because the technicians can do their research on their tablets directly in front of a piece of equipment, not have to travel back and forth to get information from a desktop, or worse, the maintenance manual. “A computer in the shop did OK for awhile,” he says.

“Now the shop computer is in their tool box vis-à-vis their iPads. All the information in the library is scanned, and the iPads include all the applications they need.”

One thing to keep in mind, Strazdas says, is that the more information you make available, the easier you need to make it to find what you’re looking for. “How do you find the needle in the haystack on this little device?” he says. “Make sure the information is easily saved.” Strazdas created a standard “home page” on the iPads that includes links to all the technicians’ favorite applications, and a search engine to search BIM information.

Strazdas says that in the first year of measuring reduced time on work orders, labor efficiency improved 15%, with a savings of a half million dollars.

Facility managers don’t normally spend much time in the boardroom with their organization’s executive leaders. But given how drastically the facility management role has changed over the past several years, it may be time to extend an invite.

Facility managers, along with property managers, are some of the most unrecognized heroes in business today. They work diligently to make sure all the core services of the facility or property are managed properly. They also coordinate events, work with many different departments regularly and are also in charge of paperwork & processes for the facility or property. This is no simple job. It takes someone who can multi-task while implementing best practices. It requires that person to perform on the present while considering how to do it better and more cost effectively in the future.

Your company data is extremely precious. However, a lot of companies don’t spend the proper amount of time protecting their data. Often, when company data is compromised, it could have been prevented by following appropriate security measures.

As a facility manager, keeping company data safe must be a priority. To avoid any emergencies that will add to your already overflowing to-do list, it’s essential you take proactive measures.