We want to share with you a summary of what FM means and encompasses. They are from different sources but all of them are online and in different news outlets.
We hope you enjoy them.
FM&S
Evolution of Facility Management in Europe
The Facility Manager’s Activity
The discipline of Facility Management, translated according to the recently approved European standard EU 15221/1 as “property management,” is defined as “the integration of processes within an organization in order to maintain and develop agreed services that provide support and improve the effectiveness of its core activities.” Experts in this field design, build, and manage offices and other properties to optimize space and resources based on the specific activity to be carried out. This work materializes in a multitude of daily actions for which the Facility Manager is responsible and which are common to many organizations, such as the supply of stationery materials, maintenance of technological equipment, cleaning services, catering product provisioning, parking control and regulation, etc.
All these areas are thus subject to strict control, prioritizing the achievement of maximum quality at minimum cost, and preventing companies from having to dedicate their own resources to carry out these tasks. According to IFMA Spain, the increase in productivity, if spaces are properly managed, can reach 20%.
A Market in Full Growth
Although this activity emerged in the United States in the early 1970s, it did not arrive in Spain as a professional discipline until the late 1990s. Currently, in our country, a high percentage of large companies have a position in their structure responsible for Facility Management tasks, either internally or through external consulting. However, this activity is not yet widely established as such among small and medium-sized enterprises.
The sectors that most demand Facility Management services include, among others, Telecommunications and Banking, primarily because they have many square meters of work areas. Conversely, the industrial sector registers a more incipient penetration of this activity, although it is expected to be one of its main lines of development in the future.
Facility Management is the professional discipline that has grown fastest in Europe over the last fifteen years. According to IFMA Spain, international studies have determined that its potential market in Spain could exceed 30,000 million euros in five years.
Source: IFMA
Source: euroinmo.com
Facility Management, a Key Discipline in Times of Crisis
How to reduce costs, improve management, and properly select suppliers for our company?
This is the question we ask ourselves daily, all of us who have the responsibility of moving an organization forward in times of crisis. Facility Management, a business discipline that studies the management model of properties and their associated services, offers the opportunity to achieve greater control of resources and reduce operating costs, achieving savings of up to 20% in global models.
It is structured in organizational models, tools, and techniques with the objective, among others, of improving the support service provided to organizations. Experts in this field—facility managers—design, build, and manage properties that optimize the relationship between their organizations’ needs and the resources available, based on the specific activity to be carried out.
Facility Management enables the management of a company’s services, in line with its strategy and needs, at all levels: from rental, facility maintenance, cleaning, documentation, fleet management, catering, to reorganization processes, relocations, construction work, energy management, etc. These services, or Facility Services, can be contracted to internal or external providers through a type of agreement that establishes service levels (SLAs) that will be measured and monitored through performance indicators (KPIs).
Although the origin of this discipline—in the United States in the early 1970s—is linked to its more operational aspect, focused on cost reduction through a change in the service contracting model, Facility Management is currently not limited to this single competency. The more strategic area of FM includes aspects such as real estate portfolio management, contingency plans, and continuity plans; while the tactical part is related to workspace management, understanding space as a factor that affects both overhead costs and employee productivity and talent retention.
Good space design, with the intervention of FM techniques and methodology, can generate direct savings in costs (contracted m², energy, supplies), but also contributes to the introduction of flexible work models that promote new uses of space and improve comfort, environmental quality, and the application of sustainability criteria in companies.
The key to FM consists of creating synergies and a different organizational structure that improves processes, introducing a service and facility management design with the capacity to respond to the specific needs of companies. Finally—and no less important—it enables space optimization by accessing new typologies and new ways of working, which involve not only the reduction of contracted space but also an improvement in its functionality and flexibility of use.
Implementing a controlled management strategy, an aspect not achievable with traditional management, is the advantage offered by this discipline, which already has training courses in most provinces of Spain. These courses comprehensively cover everything from supplier management and evaluation, service level agreements, variable compensation models, and process management, to the design and management of workspaces and IT tools supporting FM.
Facility Management is the professional discipline that has experienced the greatest growth in Europe. According to the International Facility Management Association (IFMA), its internal and external potential market in Spain could exceed 30,000 million euros in the coming years.
History of Facility Management
Around the 1970s, the term Facility Management was unknown to most professionals, and those dedicated to it were unable to correctly identify their profession.
In 1978, a group of Facility Managers set out to give greater recognition and credibility to this discipline. At the first meeting organized by this group of professionals, George Graves became the first president of IFMA and Dave Armstrong took the reins of the FMI Institute, whose function would be to bring together professionals in the sector. By the mid-1980s, the foundations had been established for the formation of an organization that would be called the National Facility Management Association. Both organizations would work to promote this discipline throughout America.
The FMI Institute held its first annual meeting in 1980. One year later, the number of people who attended this meeting doubled. Following the enormous interest generated in Canada by the Institute’s activity, the definitive name change occurred and the International Facility Management Association (IFMA) was born in late 1980 as a nonprofit association.
The profession currently known as Facility Management was born in the USA and reached Europe through England, passing through Norway and Northern Europe to later reach Asia, South America, and Africa.
The Spanish chapter of the International Facility Management Association was established in our country in November 2001 thanks to the effort and dedication of a group of professionals from the most diverse sectors of the economy, who saw in the promotion of this discipline an added value for the proper management of properties and their associated services, and that this could have a positive impact on the proper functioning and productivity of employees and companies.
Since its inception, IFMA Spain has identified new market trends, conducts research work, offers continuous, practical, and specialized training programs, and assists companies and those responsible for this area in developing strategies for the proper management of properties and their services.
Source: IFMA
Facility Management is a management model for companies’ real estate resources that aims to permanently adapt these to the organization and human team of companies at the lowest possible cost, through the integration of all management responsibilities for these resources in the figure of the Facility Manager.
The Facility Manager’s functions include, among others, the following:
• Development of corporate strategy regarding tangible assets (infrastructure) that provide support to the organization.
• Establishment of space planning policy.
• Coordination of construction, renovation, and relocation projects.
• Contracting of all products and services related to the proper functioning of facilities, conservation and maintenance of facilities, and their engineering.
• Provision of necessary services to internal clients with appropriate quality and price.
Source: SEFM
Famase is a member of IFMA Spanish Chapter and APFM Portugal.
