Categorized | Research

Posted on 11 February 2009
Tags: ERP, FM Notes, IWMS, Research

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The Facilities Management Organization Capabilities

In ”FM Notes from the Field“, industry veteran Jim Turner focuses on the Facilities Management Organization (FMO) maturity model and IWMS. Today he describes the linkages between IWMS and FMO. I’d love to hear your comments about this post!

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Dear Readers of IWMSnews.com,

“FM Notes from the Field” is focused on discussing the Facilities Management Organization (FMO) maturity model concept.

But I think it is important to begin with a discussion of the linkages between IWMS capabilities and the Facilities Management Organization (FMO) capabilities, in order to gain a sense of how the technology can support the development of the FMO. After all, we use tools to make the job easier, and applying a solution like IWMS is no exception.

For example, maybe you are reworking facilities management processes in order to make them more efficient – either by reducing how long they take to complete, or eliminating low value steps so that your FMO team can focus on more rewarding assignments – basically, you’re looking for a solution that will support the new processes. Or perhaps you are looking for more visibility into facilities management lifecycle costs, and you are not able to easily extract them from your company’s Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP) solution.

A quick scan of IWMS products, such as TRIRIGA, FM:Systems, or Intuit MRI, highlights a few features of these tools, giving an idea of how they might support those goals:

They integrate with ERP products such as Oracle, SAP or Exact.
They provide a real-time view of leased or owned property, as well as utilization metrics.
They help manage service requests.
They have vendor and service level agreement (SLA) management components.
They can facilitate the translation of a multi-year maintenance plan into an annual plan, providing contractual scheduling.
They improve visibility into portfolio management, with dashboards and other graphical interface features to ease interpretation.

The products promise to make the FMO’s job easier, and that’s a welcome development, not to be underestimated. It seems like a good idea to get a handle on the IWMS constellation, but also get a basic familiarity with upstream ERP systems and downstream specialized products.

Even though this is a dynamic commercial-off-the-shelf market, with new products constantly coming online and constant merger activity, this IWMS constellation will provide a useful approach for demonstrating how IWMS supports the FMO maturity model capabilities (as a reminder, the FMO capabilities are inventory baselines, management policies, organization and systems, processes, performance metrics, performance improvements, short-term planning, mission/strategy validation, and long-term planning).

Basically, there are four categories of products that support the FMO function – even though the FMO is not always the primary user or beneficiary.

The ERP category includes products such as SAP, Oracle, and PeopleSoft. Integrated modules include enterprise asset management, human resources, finance, and customer relationship management. For organizations that use ERP, they are the source of business management and financial planning and control information.
On www.IWMSNews.com, we are interested in the Integrated Workplace Management System (IWMS) category, where the tools support planning, design, management, use, and disposal of “location-based assets” – most often, facilities. Primary IWMS functions are lease administration, space management, project management, and maintenance management. In addition to the products referenced above, other IWMS products include AxisFM, Planon, Archibus, and FAMA Software.
Depending on the assets being managed, an application from the Enterprise Asset Management (EAM) category may be needed. These include IBM’s MRO, Lawson, invensus, IFS, Mincom and others. EAM’s are chosen for to maximize the assets’ life-cycle, to minimize Total Cost of Ownership (TCO), and to support upstream technologies and infrastructure.
A category of products useful to FMOs are the specialized applications such as Autodesk, Bentley, ESRI, and others, which extend the capability of the IWMS platforms and provide further visibility into the portfolio under management.

Beginning with next week’s post, the FM Notes from the Field blog will begin to delve into the concept of the FMO maturity model. As we look at each of the capabilities, give some thought to whether an ERP, IWMS, EAM, or specialized product is available to your FMO already, or might be a useful component of upgrading your performance on a given competency.

This is my second “guest blog” post here at IWMSNews.com. Your comments and discussion are welcomed in response to these posts, or you can send them directly to me at jim.turner@iwmsnews.com.

Yours Sincerely,

Jim Turner