10 benefits of Facilities Management Software for your business case

Facilities management software comes in a variety of flavours and costs, so it can be difficult to identify where you can expect to find the best Return on Investment for your money. In this brief blog I will give you 10 benefits you can put in your business case and one solution which will give you it all in a single package.

Over the years many departments have used individual point solutions which do what they claim, they solve one issue but in the background as these “one-off” solutions become more pervasive, they create critical, costly, technical problems such as:

Integration

Information Silos

The main enemy to Efficiency and Agility. This comes in two main varieties: the inability to share information with other parts of the department that needs it, unless it is printed or exported to a spreadsheet. Staff become expert at using their system, often this means it can be difficult to replace their skill when they leave. Or when you want to redeploy the current staff available to you. Very quickly this discipline becomes a blockage to the successful running of the whole department.               

The inability to support all the systems the department runs

From my conversations with several universities, it is not uncommon for a Facilities and Estates department to run 40 – 50 systems. However, given the reasons above in integration, support is not always available. When you add this to the desire of the university to reduce the number of systems and software licences deployed, support becomes a nightmare.

Today, the workplace requires and demands a more collaborative working, this can be achieved by deploying an IWMS or Integrated Workplace Management System. For a more detailed definition of an IWMS and how it fits into the other software systems, such as CAFM & CMMS. Please check out this blog, 5 key questions to ask when selecting the right Estates or Facilities Management System for your University.

How do we build the business case for change? 

For this blog I did promise 10 benefits of Facilities Management Software for your business case. So here they are:

1. Increase Efficiency
   • Automation of Standard request:
     • Reduces costs and increase speed of process.
     • The outcome is increased efficiency. 

2. Improve Agility
   • A single system to learn:
     • Team members can easily be redeployed better use of FTEs.
     • The outcome is improved agility. 

3. Improve Space Utilisation
   • Unify all Space and user information:
     • Fully supports the build or repurpose decision making process.
     • The outcome is improved efficiency.

4. Simplify End-to-End Processes
   • Simple, transparent movement of information from module to module.
     • Ability to prioritise work orders and update service users.
     • The outcome: Improved agility and efficiency.

5. Large Cost Savings
   • Along with the improvements in efficiency and agility.
     • The cost-of-service delivery falls.
     • The outcome: Large cost savings, reinvest in reducing the maintenance backlog. 

6. Prove compliance
   • All compliance certification stored with the assets for prompt inspection:
     • Certification documentation found easily and quickly.
     • The outcome is improved efficiency and the ability to be highly responsive at all times especially in times of emergency.

7. Single Source of Truth, Through Shared, Real-Time Information
   • Everybody uses the same data/information:
     • No duplication of data entry, reduces errors and no working from outdated documents or data sets.
     • The outcome is improved efficiency accuracy and consistency.

8. Remove Silos
   • Releasing of all information:
     • Information available to all, even at the point of service delivery, via mobile applications.
     • The outcome is more efficient working and increased agility. Improve safety and reduces the carbon footprint.

9. High-Quality Real-Time Data to Inform the Decision-Making Process
   • Base decisions on real data not estimations:
     • Data has a time value, the closer to real-time the greater the value.
     • The outcome is improved efficiency and supports the drive for Data based decision making.

10. Faster More Accurate Reporting
    • Increase the speed of reporting from weeks to seconds:
      • Automated reports have real-time information available 24x7. Share dashboards with the whole university.
      • The outcome is improved efficiency monitor performance accurately and intervene quickly where required.

All these and more are available in a single, tried and tested software package, especially developed for universities, the AssetWorks IWMS suite.

If I told you that this extremely powerful suite was available in modular form so that you can start with a core solution which you can build upon. The platform can be on premise or SaaS, delivered form a UK data centre. The AssetWorks IWMS is starting to sound like something you would have designed for yourself, you are not alone in that thought. 

After three years of searching for a solution which would deliver the above The University of Leicester had almost given up hope of finding a solution that delivered all the above and integrated fully into key university finance and HR systems, until they discovered AssetWorks. 

Read more about The University of Leicester’s 3-year journey and why they chose to deploy the full AssetWorks IWMS, so that they achieve the greatest benefits of all the departments disciplines working together as one unit.

To discuss your requirements and the outcomes you want to achieve, contact the higher education team and we can start your journey together.