Facilities management has become infinitely more intricate in the last few years, and the current pandemic and the urgency it has created in the Life Sciences industry has not made running a laboratory any easier.
There are endless configurations of integrated facilities management (IFM) programs. Finding the IFM program that can be tailored to your unique requirements across a range of asset types can be challenging, but worthwhile.
While there are many facilities services partners to choose from, the gold standard is a facilities management company that is large enough to be able to expand and contract its Scope of Work (SOW) in your facilities and yet small enough to adapt quickly when that is needed. Read on for four reasons why finding that gold standard may be right for your facilities.
Have more time to operate the business and engage employees
It’s obvious that managing one provider that can meet all the needs of your facility is a lot easier than working with dozens or hundreds of providers that are one-offs or who manage one or two things throughout your facility.
Let’s say you were trying to reopen your facility after it had been closed partially or fully for the pandemic. Where did you start?
Did your facility partner have a guide to follow, and logical steps to ensure a smooth return to the office or lab? Flagship provided Reopen Responsibly, A "New Normal" Guide for Safe and Healthy Workplaces, as a map for safely reopening facilities.
But, without a single-source provider, there were many calls to contractors for landscaping, outside facility care, installing sanitation stations, cleaning, indoor air quality, HVAC, space management, and plumbing, and the list grows with the complexity of the facility.
Even if you use a dozen responsive providers, there is always the issue with scheduling each of them, trusting they can work safely within the systems and technology of your facility with minimal disruption to your occupants.
There is the issue as well with a fragmented view of your facilities' operations via an inconsistently populated computerized maintenance management system (CMMS).
Having that single provider eliminates these issues and frees you to spend more time managing your facilities to support your business's goals.
Work will be done by vetted and trained professionals
With the right facilities services partner running your IFM program, the quality of the tradespeople and professionals in your facilities is assured and defined in the SOW. Stop checking out reviews, keeping up with dozens of liability insurance documents, or trying to find elusive tradespeople in this challenging labor market.
A single-source IFM partner will take the reins to manage everyone working on your facility and help alleviate all your headaches. When your single-source IFM company hires or contracts people to work on your facility or equipment, they also take on the responsibility for that person and the quality of their work.
Companies like DENS Facility Services (a Flagship Company) take the time to train their employees in the specifics of your IFM program and facilities. We manage them consistently and help them improve and grow their careers in facilities services. Even before day one, Flagship will be onsite researching and working with your advance team to scope existing challenges and spot opportunities for rapid improvement.
Improve technology, data, analytics, and reporting
Almost every FMP's dream is to have a single source of information for their facility's operations, top to bottom, inside and out. Wouldn’t it be wonderful if you could look at one dashboard and see everything that is happening at your facility in real-time?
That is a reality with a single-source IFM company that implements facilities technology that integrates with your CMMS or introduces your facilities to our proprietary CMMS.
There are a lot of different areas that can benefit from technology and the concepts brought to life in the internet of things (IoT). In a large organization, while it’s not easy, it’s important to continuously track what equipment needs maintenance and when it needs it. Improving the technology throughout the facility can help to ensure that small oversights don’t turn into costly mistakes.
With a fully integrated CMMS, you'll be able to see what work orders have been requested and completed, upcoming maintenance or disinfection jobs, scheduled maintenance downtime, and the scheduled usage of certain areas, machines, or rooms. This allows you to operate on “use” versus “time” and ensure your resources are being used in the best way at the right time.
Self-performed IFM saves money AND time
It may go against everything you were ever taught but hiring a professional IFM team will not always cost more than doing it yourself. Especially when you consider everything that is involved when establishing and managing internal and external teams of tradespeople and other facilities professionals.
Most nationwide facilities management companies have a strong system for hiring and training employees, a great understanding of IoT, IoB, and other facilities-based technology, and a network of product suppliers and contractors.
All these things work to your benefit, but the key savings opportunity lies in removing multiple profit margins for the services from multiple vendors, partners, and ad hoc repair teams. Flagship put together a quick illustrator video to explain this further.
Check out more benefits of working with a self-performed IFM company in the short video: IFM Benefits – What is Integrated Facilities Management?
(It is possible that a public facilities services company that has to please stockholders, produce dividends, and pay large bonuses to its executives may not always have your best interests top of mind. But a private company like DENS Facility Services (a Flagship Company) only reports to you, and making sure you’re satisfied is our number one goal – our 96% customer retention rate says more than we ever could about that!)
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