Do you remember those teenage years when our parents used to constantly hound us to clean our room, keep our belongings organized, and stop hoarding unnecessary clutter?
We might not have understood the significance of staying organized back then but now most of us surely understand how staying orderly and systematic can boost our productivity and save so much effort in the long run! …I mean just try to look for your car keys somewhere on your messy couch when you’re already getting late for work. (Yikes!)
Can you imagine this problem on a much larger scale? For example, you are a seller on an online marketplace who has received an express order that needs to be shipped in 2 hours…. And you can’t seem to find the product in your inventory!
You may not want to miss our shipment tracking software development guide !
While dealing with a cluttered couch doesn’t make much of a difference, losing a deal (& reputation!) because of a 45,000 square feet messy warehouse surely stands as an alarming concern.
So there exists a savior in disguise called facility management software (FMS) that safeguards you from the probable loss ensuring your warehouse is on top of planned stock arrangement to say the least! Let’s jump into:
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What Is A Facility Management Software?
A facility management software allows a business to manage its facility space and operations enabling them to plan, implement and control all the activities within the space. It facilitates the users to handle jobs like maintenance, repair, communication, and scheduling from a web-based panel ensuring efficiency, control, and safety of the facility, assets, and people. As a result, facility management software can help organizations streamline operations and save a significant amount of time, money, and effort. It’s somewhat similar to a warehouse management system (WMS) but offers varying functionalities.
Custom facility management software manages multiple crucial aspects of a business like asset management, work order management, vendor management, site maintenance, scheduling, compliance, control & more. Investing in the right software development partner for your business’ end-to-end facility management can be extremely rewarding in the long run as it can cut day-to-day operational costs by optimizing space usage, assessing spending patterns, and improving overall efficiency, thus pulling up productivity & growth curve.
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Types Of Facility Management Software & Their Features
To plan the best facility management solution for your business, you must first learn about the different types of facility management software. However, understanding the core functionalities behind the confusing technical terms of facility management software and finding the right match to fit your requirements can be overwhelming!
….But don’t worry we’ve broken down everything you need to know about FM software for you in this blog so you can make the right decision for your business. Ergo, let’s get started with the three most popular types of facility management software and try to find which one is the right match for you:
[1] CAFM: Computer-Aided Facility Management Software
A computer-aided facilities management software is concerned with the entire facility and helps in controlling all the daily operations within the facility space. It focuses on coordinating the facility spaces with people and the organizations’ operations efficiently. CAFM can offer several administrative capabilities to a facility manager like planning, execution, management, and control of all the activities within the business location that are usually related to the maintenance of the facility. They can include the following functionalities:
- Asset Management
- Space Management
- Room Reservations
- Layout Planning
- Maintenance Management
[2] CMMS: Computerized Maintenance Management System
Computerized maintenance management systems are somewhat similar to CAFM Software, however, they tend to focus more deeply on the company’s scheduling, tracking, maintenance, repair functions. This software can strengthen communication between the managers and service providers hence improving the bottom line. CMMS usually ensures preventive maintenance of assets along with monitoring them throughout their lifecycle. They can offer the following functionalities:
- Building Spaces Management
- Equipment & Assets Management
- Automated Maintenance Scheduling
- Preventative Maintenance & Tracking
- Reporting & Analysis
[3] IWMS: Integrated Workplace Management System
An integrated workplace management system is software that is mainly concerned with the people and operations within the facility and it optimizes workplace resources and property management processes efficiently. This software can help you analyze and increase the functionality of your organization’s resources and assets. IWMS can be extremely helpful for property managers who want to manage their organization’s entire infrastructure and assets from a common software platform where information can be shared among all the concerned team members effectively. As a result, this software can increase transparency, boost productivity, and control operational costs within your organization. IWMS can offer the following functionalities:
- Project Management
- Property & Lease Management
- Real Estate Portfolio Management
- Asset & Maintenance Management
- Scheduling Maintenance Management
P.S. If you're finding this topic interesting or you have an e-commerce business then you should also read our blog on ecommerce order management for some valuable insights on ecommerce management solutions!
Components & Benefits Of Facility Management Software:
While it's true that going by a ‘one-size-fits-all’ approach for facility management solutions only implies nullifying USPs, there are a few essential features that characterize an FMS. Let’s have a look at the common components of facility management software and their benefits:
Asset Management & Tracking Function
One of the ‘must-have’ features of facility management software is asset management, which enables organizations to access details, monitor, and control their facility spaces, assets, and equipment from a single platform. This increases long-term system cohesion, boots reliability, improves compliance and provides optimal functionality in the most cost-effective way. Additionally, you can also develop the asset management module of your FM software to keep track of all the physical assets and equipment of the organization using GPS and other web-based technologies.
Preventive Maintenance & Scheduling
Your FM software can automate routine preventive maintenance (PM) and scheduling of all the assets and equipment in your facility to keep them functioning efficiently and prevent any sudden and unexpected system shutdown or failure. Automating this function saves a significant amount of time and effort along with eliminating a considerable scope of error by deeply analyzing the patterns and functions of the assets and equipment.
Personnel Management
Personnel management is another essential feature that can create and maintain a comprehensive database of all the employees of the organization. It can include their credentials, individual information, background details, and performance history. With this feature, you can make more informed decisions, optimize resource allocation and ensure the long-term welfare of the team and the organization.
Maintenance Calendar
FM software maintains a calendar that includes all the important facility management schedules with the associated stakeholders to improve communication and coordination among the team. Implementing this feature can also enable your team to get a clear understanding and control over the timely scheduled activities in the facility and collaborate on different tasks.
Work Order Management
A facility management software can simplify work order processing and project management functions by allowing you to track and maintain logs of work order tasks, performance, and detailed documentation. It includes a comprehensive dashboard where team members can generate work requests, assign tasks to a member, and also track hours, inventory, and resources spent to resolve a work order. This feature can greatly improve employee productivity and accountability along with optimizing the performance of assets and equipment.
Building Specification Management
Building specification management is a feature that can come in handy for organizations that want to manage large facility spaces efficiently. Consider this as a centralized detailed blueprint of your entire facility building(s) in one place. This feature can allow you to access all the information regarding your organization’s property like the building layout, models, floorplans, and other construction details in one place. It can help in ensuring the safety and security of workers, utilize large facility spaces efficiently, extend the building lifetime and reduce the cost of operations and maintenance through energy optimization.
Inventory Management
One of the most important features of facility management software is inventory management which helps organizations in maintaining a centralized stock of their inventory and keeping accurate records of equipment parts and supplies. It provides the facility manager with control and insights over the inventory parts and equipment in order to prevent the risk of overstocking or stockouts, shortens lead time, reduces costs, and increases employee efficiency.
Facility Scheduling
Facility scheduling is a great feature for organizations who want to manage a large space efficiently. It allows members to reserve a facility space or asset at a specific time and date through the software. This prevents overbooking a facility and prevents any conflicting events to take place at a given time. These features optimize workflow, utilize available resources efficiently, increase transparency, and contribute to the overall building operations success.
Facility Management Analytics & Reporting
The FM analytics tools & reporting panel provides various operational metrics and reports to the managers to help them gain better insights and analyze the performance of the assets, equipment, and team members. This helps the managers in understanding business trends, making better data-driven decisions, providing the scope of improvements, and saving costs without compromising on the overall quality.
Mobile Work Orders
Custom facility management software can also offer the functionality of operating and managing your organization’s remote operations through integrated mobile applications. This can support field-related service activities where your crew members can submit, respond to and resolve work orders from anywhere through the mobile application. This feature can be extremely helpful for facility managers to monitor and communicate with their crew members working on the field efficiently and facilitate collaboration among all the team members. It also supports and improves multi-location tracking, task designation, real-time synchronization, and employee accountability.
The list can go on and on but your requirements are unique and they should be addressed carefully and individually. Your business might require some extremely rare or ground-breaking functionalities that only seasoned professionals can handle. So go ahead and talk to some experts now!
Get a Free Facility Management Software Consultation Now !
Off-The-Shelf FMS vs Custom FMS
Now that you’re aware of the numerous benefits that facility management software can impart to your business, you must be eager to implement this amazing technology in your company, right?
Sure, you’re just one google search away from finding several ready-made FM software available in the market today. I can also understand why you might be tempted to opt for an off-the-shelf solution as they can be installed instantly, can cost less, and might require fewer efforts in the short run. But before making an impulsive decision think about the exceptional advantages that only a custom facility management software can provide and decide if you’re ready to give up on the following advantages for your business in the long run:
[1] Performance, Quality & Flexibility
Off-the-shelf facility management solutions might cost less than custom-made software because they are built to cater to a large number and types of businesses, but it also means that they are made considering the entire market in mind and they won’t be able to address your business’s specific needs effectively. Whereas, custom-made facility management software might cost a little more initially but it can address all the unique pain points and specific requirements of your organization to offer a much higher quality performance by optimizing the necessary functionalities. This makes custom-made FM software a smarter choice for your business in the long run.
[2] Scalability
With time your business will grow and so will the need to add new features and components to your facility management software to make room for these changes. But OTS software would be unable to provide you with the flexibility and adaptability you want. This is because an OTS is designed to serve a common objective for multiple businesses at the same time, yet not all of those firms have the same scalability requirements. Therefore, if you want to future-proof your investment in FM software then you should go the custom route because it can not only handle all of your present requirements but also accommodate any incorporations in the future.
[3] Convenience
Because custom software is tailored to your organization's unique workflow and business operations without any unnecessary complexity, it can provide you with a very simple and intuitive learning curve. A good development team prioritizes improving and digitizing your business process and specific requirements over changing them. This ensures ease of usability and adaptability for all your employees which will not only save time but also boost productivity. OTS, on the other hand, is unlikely to provide your business and employees with such convenience and independence because it forces you to accept common and rigid processes that are available to the entire market without any customization.
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[4] Integration
In the current age of technology, it’s important for your businesses to establish strong channels of communication and ensure the seamless integration of software with other enterprise systems. Facility managers will require access to real-time data analytics, business trends, and strong communication mechanisms throughout the facility to manage the operations efficiently. The problem with off-the-shelf software is that it can only offer integration with a few pre-selected software solutions, which would probably not be suitable for your company's comprehensive and unique requirements in the long term (unless yours is a copycat business). A good custom software development team will build the software aligned to your core business processes and facilitate seamless integration throughout the organization.
[5] Competitive Advantage
Ready-made software is designed to cater to a large number of businesses, hence it prioritizes the general needs of the masses and makes these functionalities easily available to your competitors as well. OTS software does not accommodate the process and techniques that are unique to your business and this has the potential to detract from your company's unique selling proposition! However, when you go the custom route you’ll get FM Software made especially for your business with exclusive features and components that other businesses don’t have. As a result, a custom FMS will help you maintain your company's USP while also giving you an advantage over your competition.
How Much Does It Cost To Build Facility Management Software?
Now it’s a no-brainer that each business is different with its unique requirements and processes that should be considered and addressed accordingly. An FM software built for a private school will have different features and elements than the software built for an ecommerce warehouse. Similarly, software built for a large enterprise is usually more complex than software built for a new startup.
It’s important to note that there are several components and functionalities that can be included in facility management software, according to different business needs and that can affect the overall cost of building a software distinctly. As a result, the cost of developing a custom FM software can depend on the following factors:
- The complexity of the business requirements
- The type of facility management software to be built
- The number and types of features and components to be included
- The timeline of the project
Although the above parameters vary widely based on the features and components you need in your software, here is a rough estimate for developing an FMS for your company:
A very basic facility management software with basic functionalities and a modest design can cost anywhere between USD 20K and USD 80K.
However, to get a clear idea of the cost of building your custom FM software you should discuss your requirements with a good software development company with proven expertise in developing facility management software solutions.
If you have any confusion or require more details then we would be happy to sit with you for a free consultation and provide any support you may need!
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Why Is Developing Your Facility Management Software With BinaryFolks A Good Idea?
Building custom facility management software can be extremely rewarding if you work with a great software development company with proven expertise in the field.
Are you looking for the right team of developers to make this happen for you?
Look no further, we at BinaryFolks have a skilled & experienced software team of developers who possess hands-on expertise in delivering cutting-edge facility management software solutions for a range of clients from various business verticals.
We can help your business scale and reach its highest potential by delivering the best-in-class software built exclusively to address your business requirements. Here's what to expect when you’re developing your facility management software with BinaryFolks:
Driven by ex-engineers from Google, Amazon & Salesforce
101% Value For Money (+1 for Our Complimentary Consultation before You Spend Your 1st Dollar!)
Reviews That You Can Verify!
Safeguarded Business With An NDA
Out-Of-The-Box Innovations
Eye For Details
Questions Galore (Until Your Requirement & Our Understanding are mirror copies!)
Insight-Rich Scope Enhancement
Intense Domain Expertise
Close-knit feedback loop
Conclusion
In the current days of rapid modernization and technological advancements, it’s important to ensure that your business is moving forward in the right direction and staying ahead of the competition. facility management software can give your business that edge and competitive advantage by streamlining your operations and optimizing workflow unprecedentedly!
And I’m hoping that after reading this article you have a better idea about the different functionalities and benefits of building custom facility management software
…But wait, do you have more questions? Or do you want some expert advice?
Let’s catch up and discuss your requirements in more detail :)
Let’s Plan Your Facility Management Software !
