Transforming Productivity with CAFM

Facilities managers are being pulled from pillar to post managing a host of new strategic demands. And while there is a clear need to explore the best way to deliver an effective and efficient hybrid working environment and achieve a company’s sustainability objectives, facilities managers are still wrestling with the day-to-day challenges created by spare parts shortages, rising costs and a lack of engineering resources. The only way to find the time and space to explore the strategic goals is to achieve significant productivity improvements – which is where CAFM can help.

Eradicating Paperwork – and Delay

Help desk and engineer manager paperwork – or lack of it – is enormously time-consuming. Paper-based work order sheets. Paper-based information from engineers at the end of each day or week. Information has to be manually recorded – often in more than one place, such as the equipment record and the spare parts stock record. A scan of the paper must also be attached. Not only does the process take time but errors are inevitable – from misreading engineers’ writing to simple inputting mistakes. 

Replacing paper-based information with CAFM Explorer® eradicates the need for paper and manual rekeying. Engineers use a mobile device to both check and update work orders, with information automatically available to the facilities manager in CAFM Explorer and, at a higher level, on a dashboard. With full visibility of all equipment, service schedules, support calls and engineers, team leaders can optimise job lists on the fly to improve productivity. The entire process is far more effective and efficient.

Improving Engineer Efficiency

Mobile access to CAFM Explorer® is hugely effective for engineers, allowing them to update work orders, check spare parts, look up service history, relocate jobs, and even add their own assets. But this is just the start. Using the detailed, up-to-date information within CAFM Explorer®, the entire schedule can be optimised to deliver even greater benefits. 

Facilities managers can use the reporting features within CAFM to understand how long engineers spend travelling, how many pieces of equipment they service or repair and the associated cost. In addition to providing a good benchmark for improvement and performance comparison, this information can be used to explore different ways of working. Would engineers be more efficient if jobs were prioritised differently – for example by location, to reduce travel time? Enabling an engineer to search for jobs within a specific place, such as a hospital ward, could be far more effective in some environments than opting for a strict priority list. Could an engineer also pick up a broken piece of equipment that requires off-site repair at the same time? 

With access to detailed, up-to-date information and powerful reporting tools, facilities managers can use intelligence to create a far more optimised and productive engineering workforce.

Supporting Strategic Goals

For facilities managers, these productivity improvements are not just about achieving better resource utilisation and less downtime. Using CAFM Explorer provides a better understanding of productivity, identifying priority problem areas. And it gives managers the space to look at the pressing strategic issues, such as reducing carbon emissions and exploring the opportunities to renegotiate leases or move to newer, more energy efficient buildings.