This is part one of our deep-dive into benchmarking. Stay tuned for the next one where we look at how to benchmark for building efficiency! Energy efficiency has become more important than ever against the background of rising energy costs, the need for efficiency and the importance of fighting climate change. Facility managers worldwide are shifting their focus to how facilities can reduce energy bills and become energy efficient while at same time ensure greater employee experience and comfort.
Benchmarking plays a very important role in this as it is the best way to consistently monitor your progress and set goals. And this is best achieved through benchmarking.
Imagine you are starting a fitness regimen, you take note of your starting weight and regularly monitor the progress on your weighing scale.
The same principle applies to benchmarking your facility. The key step is to measure. Unless you are aware of the current performance of your facility, there is not much that you can do to improve it. The benchmarking process requires the evaluation of key performance indicators KPIs using which you can compare your performance against competitors or best-in-class facilities.
As you can see from the graph, you can divide the process broadly into - the internal performance indicators and the external company that you wish to compare yourself against. Once the benchmark is identified, real time analysis of the various variables can lead to an understanding of gaps, trends and insights that will help facility managers improve the performance of the facility.
Areas of opportunity are those where your performance is above the first quartile and there are likely to be action you can take to improve. One caveat- be sure to look at complementary or opposing metrics to understand the potential implication of optimizing one metric at the expense of another.
This can help you determine which opportunities to pursue, along with the anticipated difficulty of making the change. See the potential impact of different facility management benchmarking practices on operating costs to better understand the likely opportunity or cost impact of practices that you are considering.
Some practices increase costs because their purpose is to improve sustainability or other non-financial performance criteria, so understanding potential budget impact can be useful. Start with those that align with your current organizational priorities — if you have a significant sustainability initiative then facility-related sustainability actions can fit nicely. Finally, select one that reduce facility costs, improve facility conditions, improve service levels, or improve occupant satisfaction.
The action plan from your benchmarking review will have to be integrated with action plans from any number of other department and organization initiatives, so proposed actions are probably sufficient. Facility management benchmarking results are usually intuitive so they can be used to communicate with different audiences.
Comparison charts illustrate your performance with respect to your goals, and trend charts illustrate progress. Like most communication campaigns, you need to be clear about the message you wish to share and select just a few supporting sections from the benchmarking report.
FM Leadership — Summary of results with list of significant items for all metrics, list of improvement opportunity candidates, list of data issues or further analysis to be considered, and draft action plan your recommendations of things to pursue in next year. FM Organization — Key charts related to function by department in visible locations; more detail available for those interested.
Facility management benchmarking data provides a good reference when you need to forecast future needs, especially for something where you do not have your own historical data. Some examples are:. In addition, the benchmarking data has been a valuable resource in evaluating strategies around outsourcing and in-sourcing functions within the Facilities Management organization.
Most of our participants review their benchmarking results to understand how they compare and to identify areas of potential opportunity for improvement improved quality, lower cost, lower risk.
It provides a basis for not just where improvement is possible but also how much value is realistic. Some use data from the report as the basis for proposed budgets when major changes are proposed; others use it for backup in reviews with regulators and during funding reviews. Even if you consider your own in-house management to be well streamlined, you may be missing something by not considering outsourcing when forming your strategy. One of the best ways to ensure your facilities management processes are always cutting edge is through benchmarking.
Skip to content When it comes to improving business processes, particularly those associated with facilities management, benchmarking is an extremely underrated and underused tool. Evaluate the performance of your office building In order to improve the efficiency of your office building, you first need to identify areas for development. Use this knowledge to justify expenditure Identifying these areas quickly and devising a new strategy is only the beginning. To find out more Contact Us.
In terms of facilities management, too many buildings eat up your resources. Benchmarking helps you overcome this negligence by giving you a complete property profile. Learning these details will ensure that you know which projects require more attention.
At present, lots of organizations have started to reduce their carbon footprint by prioritizing energy-saving solutions. Not only does this help you earn a few brownie points in terms of public relations, but it also minimizes your expenses. Many companies use benchmarking to develop alternate strategies to improve their energy efficiency. These include:.
Benchmarking is the only way to ensure that your plans work. The assessment strategies help you predict how well the new building will perform. It does this by comparing the status of your current properties and other buildings in the area.
0コメント