Practical, step-by-step guides for the busy FM
October 1999
Benefits of Computer-aided Facilities Management
Many benefits are available to those who automate facilities management operations. Some benefits are more important to some organizations than to others. When considering whether to automate facilities management operations, one of the first steps is to understand what benefits are most critical to each organization. Benefits are typically divided into five categories, as follows:
1. Cost-effective management of inventory: This benefit is often the most important for justifying the cost of computer-aided facilities management (CAFM). Most of the cost savings and avoidances made possible by CAFM fit into this category.
2. Support for individual projects: This benefit helps get the work done faster and more accurately. Projects could entail developing space requirements, drawing floor plans, or tracking leases or maintenance requests, for example.
3. Reporting: Often, data must benefit more than just the facilities staff’s and management’s needs. It also must be summarized and reported to others in a presentation format. CAFM systems can prove valuable help in upgrading the professional quality and timeliness of delivering such information.
4. Budget preparation and justification: By tracking cost data in each application area and using some of the trend analysis and projection capabilities of CAFM, facilities managers are better able to prepare and justify facilities management budgets.
5. Benchmarking: Benchmarking is important since corporate management is often interested in knowing how well your facilities management organization compares to others in the country. Making such comparisons is difficult, and facilities managers must compile data from their own organizations without taking an inappropriate amount of staff time. Furthermore, this data must be in a format similar to data compiled by other organizations that publish benchmarking statistics. CAFM can provide this information in a timely and cost-effective manner.
This installment of FM Check List is adapted from BOMI Institute’s Technologies for Facilities Management course, (www.bomi-edu.org/13041.html), a required course in BOMI Institute’s Facilities Management Administrator (FMA) program.