Facility Management vs. Maintenance Services
The terms facility management and facility maintenance are often used interchangeably. This leads to some misunderstandings when it comes to hiring the right companies. In order to avoid them, it’s important to understand the clear definition of each one of these concepts.
Once you understand the differences and the similarities, you’ll see how bad of a mistake you can make hiring a facility maintenance service instead of a facility management company and vice versa. Save yourself time and money by gaining a deeper understanding of terms.
What Is Facilities Management?
The term facilities management is broad. It includes a special approach to maintaining, improving, coordinating, managing, handling and directing matters which have to do with the business facility.
Facility management deals with the building, equipment, and the rest of the environment to ensure the best possible output. Doing that includes facility maintenance.
Facilities management usually requires a proactive approach. These managers are constantly looking for new ways to manage the facility, cut costs, find new resources, and more. They are doing everything possible to maximize the efficiency of the company by servicing the environment.
The scope of facility managers’ tasks is much broader than basic facility maintenance. They view the building, the equipment, and all other items involved in the company’s function as one organism. They make sure everything works harmoniously together and constantly discover new ways to make it work better.
The goals of facility management include:
Ensuring the business runs efficiently
Ensuring the staff’s safety
Abiding by building code and other regulations
Improving productivity
Creating a high-quality working environment
Special facility management software exists to simplify the work of facility managers and help them achieve their goals.
What Is Facilities Maintenance?
Facilities maintenance is an important part of facilities management. It has to do with maintaining the building and ensuring its compliance with the regulations. Facilities maintenance includes actions needed to keep the building in a working condition so it doesn’t interfere with the running a business or anything inside that building.
According to experts from a Florida facility maintenance company, CSG, such maintenance may also deal with the building’s infrastructure and internal systems. Maintenance technicians can be responsible for ensuring the equipment works properly. However, unlike facility managers, their responsibilities don’t include improving business output.
The goals of facility maintenance include:
Abiding by building maintenance code
Keeping the facilities clean
Ensuring timely facilities repair
Maintenance of life safety and alarm systems
Ensuring strict pest control
Landscape care
Parking lot care (snow removal, pothole repair)
Interior and exterior painting.
Conclusion
As you can now see, facility maintenance is just one part of facility management. Using these two terms interchangeably is incorrect. Facility managers are usually responsible for hiring facility maintenance teams.