In “FM Notes from the Field“, industry veteran Jim Turner focuses on the Facilities Management Organization (FMO) maturity model and IWMS.
As the property portfolio grows in value, diversity and location, the Facility Management Organization (FMO) needs to become more resourceful and increase the creativity of its internal business practices as well as the power of its management systems. This week’s blog post begins the review of these FMO maturity model Level Two competencies by focusing on the business processes competency.
In addition to their many strengths, most commercial-off-the-shelf systems come with constraints or limitations. Because they are designed under a common denominator concept to address the most common challenges any FMO is likely to encounter, some adaptation is going to be necessary to adjust to the unique aspects of a given FMO business model. Thus, it is essential that the FMO acquire a thorough understanding existing business practices before making a final decision about purchasing management tools to minimize or streamline the difficulties of adapting to new system requirements.
A few years ago, I worked with a client who had acquired an early version of a maintenance work order management system. His facilities were aging and there were many service calls. He thought the new system would serve as a fix-all to other issues and that by purchasing and installing the system, slow response times and down times would be eliminated.
The approach we ended up taking on this engagement involved an extensive documentation effort of all affected business processes. It turned out that the majority of the problems this FMO encountered were related to staff succession within the dispatch area and in the field engineering branch. The solution to his problem included a process redesign to make the software a better fit, as well as staff training to remediate some experience shortfalls.
In looking at business processes, the FMO’s analysis will indicate areas for urgent attention, as well as some areas where the status quo is perfectly serviceable. Early process analysis within a few key areas can generate high returns.
These include several that are common strengths in IWMS solutions:
- Managing and communicating space utilization policies
- Forecasting space supply and demand
- Identifying the optimal space inventory to reduce churn and frequent departmental moves
- Strategically procuring space for growth in tightening markets
Likewise, each of the other functional areas we discussed earlier under the organization competency – operations and maintenance, and support services – will likely find candidate processes for improvement, each with the possibility of high payback.
Next week, I’ll be attending the National Facilities Management and Technology (NFMT) Conference in Baltimore (more information at www.nfmt.com) – in fact, on Tuesday I am giving a presentation on the FMO maturity model aimed at the assessment process for new leaders. In addition to meeting FM professionals in that session, I’m looking forward to visiting the exhibition hall and checking in with the IWMS vendors that will be there – and that will likely to be our topic next week.
Meanwhile, if you would like more details on the references mentioned in any of the posts, drop a note to me at jim.turner@iwmsnews.com and I will send a reading list. Thanks for reading, and thanks again to IWMSNews for hosting the blog.
