5 Common Facility Management Mistakes and How to Avoid Them

by Lisa Watson Facility Management Expert

Facility management has evolved greatly over the past few years. With time, this sector has revolutionized greatly and has embraced a lot of new changes whether it has been in terms of a new process or a new technology.

Every organization wishes to optimize its facility management. There are often a lot of mistakes that we as facility management organizations do unknowingly and might be overlooking these mistakes over the period of time. Theas might however be casting a cloud over your ability as a facility manager. Let us take a look at a few ways in which we can identify these problems.

Not using the right facility management app or facility management software: this is where it all begins. While trying to stay ahead of the competition by embracing the latest technologies, we often jump to conclusions of using just about any app or software too soon. It is only later that we find out that the app or the software is not technologically at par with other apps in the market. Doing a proper research before you select the app or software therefore is very important. It is not just important because it organizes your schedule but it also provides you with instant access to data and information about your building and equipment. The right facilities management software uses the latest in contextual search, machine learning and artificial intelligence which makes it extremely easy to extract information from building drawings and floor plans. The optical character recognition makes it extremely easy to read old and faded building drawings and extract the correct information right to you. The advantage of using a facility management app is that you can get access to critical facilities information remotely, from any locations, by just a tap on your mobile device and tablet. Therefore, to begin with, you need to choose the correct app or software for your business.

Do not make decisions based on hard data: one of the most common mistakes that facility managers make is that they base their decisions on their experience or on intuition. With the help of the correct facility management software, you will be able to control the inventory on a real time basis. It will also help you to track your order details and monitor the recent and changing trends. With the help of different maintenance indicators, you can improve your management capabilities on the basis of hard data and not just make any awkward guess and take decisions based on these guesses. Remember, at the end of the day, the job of a facility manager is to make decisions based on the information they receive about their facilities and equipment.

Not being able to control your inventory: this is another factor that is very important. As a facility manager, in order to execute your job efficiently, you need organized information on a real time basis. Not tracking the inventory is a facility management mistake that is truly unforgivable. And this transforms into long repair and maintenance times. This on the other hand results in huge costs that pertain to emergency shipping, long breakdown times, huge loss and the like. By now, you must have developed an idea about how grave an error is not controlling your inventory in the facility management sector.

Not considering the input of your employees: In order to be able to strongly understand what is going on with your employees you are heavily reliant on the information that they provide you. Therefore, it is extremely important that you promote a culture of mutual support and trust so that your employees always feel comfortable in reaching out to you and talking to you. Therefore, not considering the input of your employees, can be a big mistake if not identified and rectified on time.

Knowing the difference between predictive maintenance and preventive maintenance: whether you should invest in preventive maintenance or predictive maintenance is still a very controversial topic in the facility management sector. The biggest mistake that facility managers face start here. It is not a question that as a facility manager that you are expected to answer. These both go hand in hand. Therefore, you need to prepare a maintenance plan that integrates with both the plans and evaluates which solution offers the best solution and is cost efficient for various equipment and the kind of maintenance schedule that you are about to execute.

Therefore, a facility manager, you need to be extremely aware of the potential mistakes that your business might be exposed to and the steps or measures that you need to rectify them. As facility management is a continuously evolving process, it is important that you keep measuring and analysing your strategies from time to time. The more quickly you are able to identify the errors, the better you are able to manage your facility.