How to get started with a Facilities Management program

Posted by TIm on December 6, 2009
Stored in Blog

Over the past several weeks, I have had a number of people approach me with the question,”How do we get started with a Facilities Management program?” Pic for website My guess is that there are many of you out there asking the same question…or possibly trying to re-evaluate your current FM program, process and staffing.

Those who have asked this of me have been looking for guidance in a couple of areas…the ones that seem to be the most common are:

1. How much should we budget for FM?
2. Same for utilities?
3. How do we staff for our current or new facility? (I have heard this a lot from people in the midst of a building project)

These are a great starting point of the discussion, but to answer these questions right off the bat is getting the proverbial cart before the horse. We need to first step back and ask more strategic questions before we can address the tactical.

With regards to setting up a Facilities Management program, I would suggest that there are a series of questions that should be asked before you dive too deep. Let me give us some things to think about:

1. How much do you plan to outsource? This is fundamental and clearly will impact the size and skill set of your internal team?
2. What functions do you expect them to do on a daily, weekly and monthly basis?
3. Will they also be responsible for set up and tear down of rooms?
4. Who will directly manage the daily activities of the staff?
5. Are you planning to have a full time facilities “manager” or “maintenance” people? There is a huge difference between the 2 skill sets? (more on this topic in a future blog)
6. What is your plan for capital reserve accounts?
7. Do you plan on using a room scheduling software program? If so, will it be web based or run on your local server? What do we want the tool to do for us?
8. Do you plan on using a facilities management software program? If not, how will you track work requests, work orders, historical data, vendor performance, vendor insurance, reoccurring PM, Etc.?
9. What is the Current Replacement Value of your facilities?

I would suggest that your systems and processes should be defined before you determine how to staff. Your systems/process and methodologies, coupled with the costs associated, need to be the foundation of any facilities management program…then staff accordingly. As part of that process, you need to determine the type of Preventive Maintenance you plan to perform in-house or outsource. To help you get started I checklist1 200x132 How to get started with a Facilities Management program have posted a DRAFT of “best practices” for a preventive maintenance program. Feel free to click on this and download for your use. This is not an “end-all” form, but will help get you started.

There are several things to consider as you explore these questions. To help answer some of these questions, I would suggest that you down load the white paper titled Church Facilities Management: The FACTS. This will give you some good guidelines for budgeting.

As another side note, if you are in a building project or just completed a project, now is the perfect time to develop OEM manuals for all of the systems and components of the facility. I would suggest that you capture the make, model, serial number, etc for every component of the facility. You should be able to get your contractors to provide this information for you.

I realize that I have thrown a lot at you and may have actually raised more questions than provided answers. The fact is that you are preparing to care for a large complex commercial building….that God has ENTRUSTED to the care of your church…and I applaud you all for being proactive to prepare for this process. I have posted many blogs on these topics including a recent post that can be found at http://coolsolutionsgroup.com/archives/744 I have also recently completed a blog series on the Top 5 Challenges of Facility Managers. Might be worth the read.