When it comes to facility management, staying ahead of the curve is not just an option; it’s a necessity.

Modern facilities are complex organisms, teeming with advanced equipment, technology, and processes that require meticulous coordination and continuous maintenance. And one of the ways businesses and organizations achieve this is by implementing facility management software.

Facility management software not only simplifies many daily processes and communications, but also helps you ensure nothing slips through the cracks. This offers facility managers the unparalleled ability to oversee, streamline, and optimize their operations.

What is Facility Management Software?

Facility management software is a digital solution that helps organizations manage their buildings, spaces, infrastructure, and other physical assets. This tool provides a centralized platform where users can access and control aspects like maintenance schedules, asset lifecycles, space allocation, and even energy consumption.

Cloud-based facility management software is designed to help organizations manage their maintenance operations, track inventory, and schedule and monitor preventive maintenance tasks. This provides facility managers with the tools they need to ensure the infrastructure and assets they’re responsible for are maintained efficiently, safely, and cost-effectively.

The Growing Demand for Facility Management Software Solutions

With the increasing complexity of infrastructure and the diverse needs of today’s businesses, facility management has become an intricate and arduous task. That’s why the demand for sophisticated, easy-to-use, and efficient facility management software has grown exponentially.

Some of the most important features of a capable facility management software system are:

  • Real-time monitoring: The ability to monitor assets and operations in real-time allows for timely decision-making and intervention.
  • Integration capabilities: Modern facilities often use various systems, and the ability to integrate them into one platform is invaluable.
  • Data analytics: Understanding trends, predicting failures, and optimizing resources can be made easy with data-driven insights.
  • Mobile accessibility: With managers and teams often on-the-move, mobile access ensures that they remain in the loop, no matter where they are.

eMaint CMMS: Taking the Pain Out of Facility Management

While the market is filled with numerous facility management software options, eMaint’s Computerized Maintenance Management System (CMMS) stands out as a particularly versatile and powerful tool.

Below are just a few of the ways that eMaint CMMS is revolutionizing the task of facility management:

  • Asset Management: eMaint allows facility managers to effortlessly track and manage all types of assets, including buildings, equipment (HVAC, water, security, etc.), vehicles, and more. With a few clicks, users can store detailed asset information, such as make, model, serial number, warranty information, and maintenance history.
  • Preventive Maintenance: eMaint can automatically prompt users to schedule preventive maintenance activities based on time or usage intervals. This helps in reducing downtime and extending asset life by ensuring that assets receive regular maintenance.
  • Work Order Management: The software enables the creation, assignment, tracking, and closing of work orders, which can be annotated with documents such as manuals, images, and purchase orders. A drag-and drop calendar view of maintenance activities allows for easy planning of scheduling of maintenance tasks.
  • Inventory Management & Reporting: The system makes it easy to track parts and supplies, manage stock levels, and automate reorder processes. Customizable reports also capture information on work order history and performance metrics, as well as track costs and usage trends to aid in budgeting and forecasting.
  • Mobile Access: eMaint CMMS offers mobile capabilities that enable maintenance personnel to access the system from anywhere using their mobile devices. This can significantly increase productivity by allowing on-the-go management of work orders and asset data.
  • Safety & Compliance Management: eMaint can help facilities comply with safety regulations by tracking safety procedures, managing safety plans, and maintaining records of safety inspections. The software also assists in ensuring compliance with industry standards and regulations by maintaining detailed records and providing necessary documentation for audits.
  • Customization and Integration: The software can be highly customized to meet the specific needs of any organization. It also integrates with other systems, such as accounting software, SCADA and ERP systems, and building automation systems, unlocking a more comprehensive approach to facility management.

The Business Functions of Facility Management Software

Facility management software is a business function that coordinates the supply and demand of commercial infrastructure throughout a public or private organization. As a concept, it regulates the comfort, safety, and productivity of a building environment, by delivering logistics and support services tied to company properties. Managing maintenance is a key component to facilities management.

The scope of facilities management is segmented into physical locations and company personnel: The former discusses the planning, construction, and occupancy of buildings, while the latter points toward hospitality, marketing, or HR departments.

This refers to all sizable assets located on-site including:

  • Real estate
  • Hardware
  • HVAC
  • Lighting
  • Transportation
  • Furniture

Facilities management can be broken down further into different types of management in order to promote excellence in maintenance, operations, business, and leadership for space allocation purposes. Think of it as a central dashboard for uploading valuable documents such as your OEM manuals and building schematics.

The facility manager’s job is to supervise places of work and prioritize employees’ health and safety, ensuring that business continues as usual. A fine example would be scheduling inspections to assess the condition of equipment inside a plant.

The Essential Role of Facilities Management Software in Organizational Operations

Facilities management software plays a part in capturing data for an organization and converting it into actionable insights the facility manager can respond to. It keeps work orders from piling up by scheduling, tracking, and communicating the tasks involved to the technicians completing those requests. Facilities management software is designed to reduce costs and improve productivity using tools that monitor internal structures for signs of failure. Software for work order management or preventive maintenance planning is often used as facility management software.

Facilities management software gives you a bird’s eye view of the whole facility so you can effectively manage or reserve office rooms, movable assets, and floor layouts. A mobile app that performs the same functions helps with reporting on the go. It allows your team to conduct walkthroughs, install new machines, test security systems, and upgrade the building.

It shouldn’t be confused with computer-aided facilities management (CAFM) software because the latter describes the administrative planning and reporting that goes into managing individual facilities. Likewise, FMEA expands quality risk assessments on a micro-scale, targeting the criticality of manufacturing processes. So if you want faster results, establish an facilities management program with resource monitoring, and train your staff on using the software to send detailed reports.

Maintenance worker in a white hardhat using facility management software on a desktop.

What is Facility Project Management?

Facility project management is a methodology for developing a project plan that balances the company budget and the interests of stakeholders by aligning all the key players to the same objectives. This version of project management is about understanding the property lifecycle and how each project milestone falls in line, starting with an approved request and ending on a closeout once renovations are done.

Building services greatly contribute to an organization as occupiers are becoming more conscious about the quality of their work environment. How those are managed and operated will determine the satisfaction of your employees.

Anyone partaking in construction efforts or maintenance is responsible for adding value to the business, through conserving energy, upholding residential safety, and lowering carbon emissions.

Similar rules apply to decision-makers whenever they contract out work to third parties. As a leader in facilities management, you’re in charge of selecting, evaluating, and supervising contractors with access to the company’s private data.

Another proponent is continuity planning, which involves handling major disruptions to the workflow. Besides server downtime, you might encounter natural disasters or industrial accidents. As such, you should practice techniques that focus on damage control to slow the spread.

At every stage, facility project management is there to ensure an organization prospers in the long run. It not only improves communication among team members but also standardizes workflows through SaaS products that drill down into work orders, analytics, compliance, financials, or other crucial indicators.

What is Asset Management in Facilities Management Software?

Facilities management software does more than summarize work orders; it enables your team to put an facilities management program to the test. For supporting asset management, they’ll be able to identify recurring trends from the asset status screen. This helps them to overcome difficult obstacles and turn around work orders quickly.

Asset management strategy varies by the organization’s size — smaller companies prefer to look at life cycle investments whereas enterprises pay attention to leased or depreciating assets. In many cases, effective management is led by example, but facilities management software does make that process simpler by estimating how long assets will last before they need to be replaced. You can’t really go wrong by planning ahead for repairs.

Scheduling is a breeze when you have a calendar to set dates on. Each work request can be reserved for a time slot, with the necessary documents attached. Furthermore, those insights are gathered in real-time, creating enough data to reliably take action on. Once introduced to a facilities management program, you are sure to realize substantial cost-savings in the maintenance sector, and thus minimize production delays by always having spare parts on hand. Eventually, you can even evolve your program to adopt predictive maintenance strategies.

If you want to build a better facilities management strategy, then eMaint has you covered with asset management features fused into a cross-functional CMMS.

What Does Facility Management Software Do?

eMaint facility management software harnesses data from across an organization and turns it into actionable insights for facilities maintenance managers. With its robust work order management, many “go do” tasks can be easily prioritized, scheduled, tracked, and broadly communicated. Even work backlogs can be more easily tackled. Facility management software helps teams manage spaces, rooms, assets, and the associated reservation processes for each of those.

A powerful software platform can help facilities maintenance teams do their jobs better and faster—from wherever they are. Mobile capabilities offer simplicity and flexibility. Facility management software helps teams save time and optimize their efforts so they can get better results.

With eMaint, facility management teams can create custom dashboards and reports, order parts in just a few clicks, and increase their productivity while reducing costs. Integration allows facilities teams to use eMaint to get more out of their existing tools and data.

 Infographic explaining eMaint's facility management software features that include building management system data integration, room/asset reservation, work order management, asset management, preventive maintenance, parts & inventory management, reporting and analytics, mobile CMMS app, regulatory compliance, integrations, predictive maintenance, and multi-site capabilities.

What are the Most Common Facility Management Tasks?

Facilities maintenance management includes a wide range of responsibilities—from workstation ergonomics to building envelopes and everything in between.

Keeping spaces, structures, and systems operating as designed requires facilities maintenance teams to
plan and schedule actions that will prevent failure. Facilities management teams are responsible for a wide range of assets and areas in and around commercial and other buildings, from HVAC units to parking garages.

From mitigating environmental impacts to supporting the health and safety of personnel and visitors, facility management makes the most of the built environment.

The exact needs of a facility management team depend on the type of facility, whether there are multiple sites or just one, and more. All types of facilities teams need a work requester function for employees—including employees who aren’t on the facilities team themselves. For example, teachers at a school need to be able to fill out work requests.

Facility Management Projects Vary by the Organization and the Day, but Can Include:

  • Conducting regular walkthroughs
  • Installing or servicing equipment
  • Testing or upgrading fire and other safety systems
  • Upgrading lighting, roofing, finishes, or other elements
  • Reconfiguring spaces for new uses

    Maintenance professional monitoring a large asset using eMaint facility management software on a mobile tablet.

What are Facilities Work Orders?

Facilities work orders detail a specific maintenance activity that has been approved for completion. It provides information needed to complete the work, such as the tools and parts required. Work orders can be the result of customer or staff requests, regular maintenance or repairs, or necessary follow-ups after audits or inspections. A facilities management software such as eMaint can not only generate work orders, but track them to monitor completion rates, identify trends, and more.

eMaint makes work orders—the backbone of maintenance management—seamless in a way that paper-based work orders are not. Within eMaint, a work order shows:

  • The work that needs to be done
  • When and where the work should be completed
  • Who has requested the work
  • Who has authorized the work
  • Who will perform the work
  • The tools and parts needed to complete the task

OEM manuals, schematics, and other key documentation can be uploaded and attached to the work order using the document storage feature. By making such context and detail accessible anytime and anywhere, facilities maintenance software enables teams to improve their productivity, work completion rates, and compliance. Real-time updates on labor, tasks, and resources make planning and reporting easier.

Interactive plans in eMaint allow facilities management teams to overlay an image of anything they want—for example, a room, a plant floor, or a line of equipment—and add reference points to that image. These reference points can be assets or contacts.

For work requestors, the interactive plan allows them to reference a specific pinpoint location when filling out a work request form. This reduces identification and communication errors.

eMaint also offers a vendor portal function to help manage temporary users (for example, when hiring a plumber to come on site to fix a leak).

What Facility Management Features Does eMaint Offer?

  • Building management system data integration
  • Room/asset reservation
  • Work order management
  • Asset management
  • Preventive maintenance
  • Parts & inventory management
  • Reporting & analytics
  • Mobile CMMS app
  • Regulatory compliance
  • Integrations
  • Predictive maintenance
  • Multi-site capabilities

eMaint Facility Management Software: A Modern Solution for Modern Problems

Facility management software is not just a trend; it’s the future of efficient and effective facility management. The digital transformation wave is here, and organizations must harness the power of these tools to stay competitive and maintain operational excellence.

eMaint’s CMMS, with its array of features and an emphasis on user experience, is certainly leading the charge in this domain. It’s not just about managing facilities, but optimizing their potential and ensuring they serve the needs of business, both today and in the future.

When considering your next step in facility management, remember the importance of real-time monitoring, data analytics, integration capabilities, and mobile accessibility. With these in mind, you’ll be well on your way to selecting a facility management software system that truly fits the needs of your organization.

Don’t wait, get eMaint to keep your facilities operating at peak efficiency today.

Facility Management Software FAQs

1. What is the Best Facilities Management Software?

The shortest answer is that the best software is the one your team will use. Identify the features your team needs and establish a small pilot program to test it. Then, report your findings and experience—not just to your organization’s leadership, but to those who would be working in the software daily.

Finally, sufficient training can ensure that your team can make the most of the facilities management software you choose. Follow up with ongoing training at a regular cadence.

2. What Should You Look for in the Best Facility Management Software?

Several key features ensure that facilities management teams can get the most out of their software.

Work Order Management

Know precisely what repairs will cost and how long repairs will take with work order tracking. Labor, parts, and purchases are all associated with a work order.

Managers can schedule technicians and provide them with planned jobs, including procedures and parts needed. With eMaint’s automatic email alerts, facilities maintenance teams will never miss a planned PM or inspection.

Reports and Dashboards

Reporting tools in eMaint CMMS enable facilities managers to stay updated on all assets, plus track and analyze key performance indicators (KPIs) critical to operations. Crucial information is available at a glance, including the percentage of downtime compared to the goal, PM completion rates, overall equipment effectiveness (OEE), and more. A robust dashboard feature allows facilities maintenance managers to unlock eMaint’s power to make data meaningful—driving better decisions.

Mobile Facilities Management Software

How do you maintain facilities effectively? Identify priorities and use your time wisely. With eMaint’s mobile solution, teams can perform inspections, manage work requests, and schedule work orders using their mobile devices. Reduce time-consuming data entry for technicians by attaching barcodes to assets and parts within eMaint. Decrease your busywork so you can focus on the work that matters most.

3. What are the Benefits of Cloud-Based Facility Management Software?

For facilities managers, having a user-friendly and effective work request system is essential. Work orders in eMaint ensure that all users follow a standard operating procedure (SOP). This is just one of the ways a cloud-based facility management software can help standardize maintenance programs across multiple sites. Further, facilities maintenance managers can customize the workflow to best suit the needs of their organization.

With eMaint facilities maintenance management software, submitting service requests is as easy as sending an email or filling out a web form. Requestors can submit their service requests from anywhere, including pictures if they wish, using their mobile devices. The intuitive mobile experience means responding to work requests in a timely and efficient manner has never been easier. eMaint makes it possible to get more work done in less time.

4. Why is Implementing Facility Management Software Important?

A facility management software such as eMaint can track all of the work that has been done on each asset. Teams that identify, track, and analyze asset conditions can make more informed work prioritization and scheduling decisions and reduce maintenance costs.

Detailed tracking and increased visibility into maintenance activities allow managers to spot trends, potential roadblocks, or creeping work completion timelines. With these insights, teams can improve their processes and results.

An effective facility management software simplifies tasks and increases transparency and communication. Project completion, documentation of contractual requirements, and proactive management of properties, facilities, and assets can all be handled in one place. eMaint can also automatically generate detailed reports and dashboards and highlight key metrics for stakeholders about maintenance work completed.

5. What Types of Facility Management Software are Available?

Two of the main types of facility management software on the market today are computer-aided facility management (CAFM) software and computerized maintenance management system (CMMS) software.

CAFM software focuses on the administrative side, such as reporting, planning, and executing facilities management activities.

CMMS software generally has many features in common with CAFM software but offers additional support for maintenance functions. Centralized planning and scheduling, asset tracking, and more make implementing preventive maintenance simpler.

6. How Does eMaint Work with Building Management Systems?

An office building that has a mature facilities asset management program may be interested in having the BMS data they already collect integrated into eMaint. If, for example, a fire alarm goes off, a building management system will record that. There are workflows for anything that happens regarding a fire alarm. But some facilities management teams want to take it a step further.

When integrated with eMaint, automatic work orders can be created for that alarm. Anything that can create an alarm in a building management system can automatically create a work order in eMaint. Work orders can be assigned automatically to technicians who can get to problems right away.

eMaint goes further than building management systems by helping teams take action. Integrating an existing building management system into eMaint also saves time.

With only a building management system, teams have to identify where an alarm is coming from, create a work order, and determine available staffing. eMaint automates the creation and assignment of work orders.

The work order management and asset management offered by eMaint go beyond what a building management system can do. eMaint can track all actions related to assets and enable facilities management teams to make the most of their data.