Spotlight On Best Practices For Facilities Managers

Some argue that benchmarking and best practices are essentially two sides of the same coin. The search can result in companies in like industries swapping FM information, or one company ferreting out best practices through nose-to-the-grindstone research.

Many measures of success

After hashing out all the semantics and definitions, what, exactly, are some of the day-to-day functions facilities professionals should be measuring? The International Facility Management Association (IFMA) lists items that are typically benchmarked, such as square footage per occupant; building efficiency rates (the ratio of usable space to rentable space); workstation utilization rates; maintenance costs; janitorial costs; utility costs; environmental costs (the costs of providing satisfactory air and water quality, waste removal, and regulatory compliance); security costs; project costs (improvements to or reconfigurations of existing space); overall cost of operations; and occupancy cost. Other benchmarked items include equipment downtime; the percentage of preventive maintenance vs. repair maintenance; and overtime costs.

But benchmarking can extend to other more nebulous FM tasks such as "vendor contracting" and "planning process." Customer-driven benchmarks include response time, cycle time, satisfaction, and downtime. The customer has to be happy, and the culture in different companies is based on senior management's view. Consider what your customer thinks is important. You (the FM) may have an attendance problem in your department that is being benchmarked, but your customer may not know about it, or care.

Look in the mirror

Where should FMs look when collecting data? While gut instinct might tell an FM department to immediately look externally and measure itself against other companies, FMs may want to review their own practices first. For example, a manufacturer might compare the facility operations of its plant in Toledo to its plant in Seattle.

Another benefit of internally focused benchmarking is that companies can zero in on operations that are truly vital. You have to know what's important to your own business. You can't say one benchmark is critical to everyone. Take "equipment downtime," for example. This benchmark obviously would have a different level of importance depending on the company in question. In a company that strives for 24-hour equipment operation, downtime statistics are far more telling than they are for a facility where only some equipment is used some of the time.

Things get trickier when FMs start measuring their department's methods versus outside companies. If they become too numbers-obsessed, FMs can drive themselves to distraction just trying to keep up with the Joneses. Critical benchmark indicators can vary by industry or market sector and can even vary within an industry, based on local conditions, business culture, geographic location, and age of facilities. As a result, the major focus of benchmarking should be on the process not the numbers. If you know exactly what you do, then you can look at other companies' numbers and see how they got there.

Measuring only cost is a losing approach.The better approach is to compare practice. The payoff is not in the cost, it's in the process. The facilities profession is to hung up on square feet. The only people who should care about square feet are real estate people. The better measure for FMs and senior management is 'cost per head' or 'cost per seat'. When you move up the chain of complexity, that's where benchmarking data starts falling apart.

The best in class for facility operations is a difficult concept. For example, allocating the least amount of space for offices may be best in class in terms of efficient use of space, but it may have a detrimental effect on employee morale and productivity.

What's in it for me?

The original impetus for benchmarking was the Total Quality Management (TQM) movement, in which tangible measurements and hard data were often the yardsticks used. But now people are doing it for more experiential reasons. They are benchmarking for the same reason they go to conferences - to learn.

Furthermore, facilities professionals, who may not be particularly adept at corporate politics, can't be shy about trumpeting their benchmarking efforts. Today's facility management professional must be able to promote and market his contributions to the organization.

List of customer-oriented marketing initiatives that can be undertaken by facilities departments:

• Involve facilities departments in employee orientation;


• Publish FM department newsletters for clients and management;

• Offer facility tours and presentations;

• Use surveys, report cards, customer interviews, and focus groups to evaluate the facilities department's performance.

The good news is that senior management may be willing to invest in benchmarking and best practices. They're building it into their budgets. It's hard for senior management to say 'we don't want to compare ourselves to our competitors'.

Benchmarking is only half the job. After the best in class practices are identified, the organization must be ready to implement them. Too often novice FMs stop the process after comparing their performance with others and learning they are ahead.

Maybe not quite perfect, but benchmarking and the adoption of best practices can help facilities departments get a better handle on both operations and customer service.

Julian Arhire is a Manager with DtiCorp.com - DtiCorp.com carries more than 35,000 HVAC products, including industrial, commercial and residential parts and equipment from Honeywell, Johnson Contols, Robertshaw, Jandy, Grundfos, Armstrong and more.

Benchmarking Energy Use And Management Opportunities

Before managers can develop a program to cut energy use, they must determine their facility's potential energy savings. One method of assessing that potential is to benchmark energy requirements against those of similar facilities. Before undertaking benchmarking, however, they must determine the energy use levels in their facility.

Determining energy use

Facilities use energy in a number of different forms. Managers should review energy use records and add them by fuel type for a one-year period. To determine total facility energy use, convert each annual fuel use total to its Btu equivalent, then add them up.

It is important to include all fuel - electricity, natural gas, propane and oil - in the calculations. Once the total energy use has been determined, managers should normalize it to allow for comparisons with use in other facilities.

Managers can use several techniques to compare facility energy use, but a widely accepted measure is the energy use index (EUI). The EUI, expressed in Btu per square foot per year, is the total energy use of a facility divided by its total occupied or conditioned square footage. Unconditioned spaces are generally excluded.

The EUI has drawbacks. It doesn't normalize energy use for climate changes. Also, the EUI doesn't account for variations in the use of similar facilities. For example, two office buildings may have different EUI values, due to different occupancy schedules. One may be occupied for 10 hours each day, while the other is occupied for 24 hours a day.

Benchmarking energy use

The key to successful benchmarking using the EUI is careful selection of facilities. There are two sources for benchmarking EUI data: published data and other maintenance managers.

There are a number of different sources for published EUI data, including government publications, trade association reports and energy management handbooks. One of the most comprehensive sources for such data is Commercial Buildings Energy Consumption and Expenditures from the U.S. the Department of Energy.

The publication lists average EUI values for a range of building types differentiated by such factors as age, size, climate, occupancy schedules, construction and energy source. By selecting the most appropriate building category from the data, maintenance managers can estimate their potential for energy savings in their facility.

Selecting conservation targets

Once a manager has determined a facility's energy savings potential, the next step is deciding on areas of focus. The key to successful reductions is concentrating efforts on areas that offer the greatest potential and highest rates of return on the investment. Once those measures are implemented, managers can look elsewhere. The greatest potential for greater energy efficiency in many facilities lies in the major energy-using systems: chillers, cooling towers, boilers and lights.

Lighting systems offer potential energy savings through changes in operations and maintenance. Before considering major lighting replacement or upgrade programs, though, make certain the existing system operates efficiently and effectively.

Tour the facility. In how many areas are lights left on when nobody is in the space? What controls are installed on lighting systems? If you find more than a few cases in which lights are operating in unoccupied spaces, consider installing automatic lighting controls, such as occupancy sensors. Energy savings achieved by automatic controls typically pay for their installation in one to two years.

Next, review fluorescent lighting system maintenance. In spite of the lower labor costs and higher efficiency associated with group relamping, many facilities continue to replace burnt out lamps on a spot basis. By group relamping when lamps reach 70-80 percent of rated life, labor costs are cut by 90 percent. Average lighting levels also improve, as lamps are replaced before light output has deteriorated.

Finally, consider the efficiency of light sources. Consider replacing incandescent bulbs with fluorescent or compact fluorescent lamps. Upgrade standard fluorescent lamps to lamps with high-efficiency electronic ballasts.

Managers continue the efforts by examining maintenance records for other primary energy-using systems:

• When were they installed?


• Have they experienced significant maintenance problems?

• Do boilers, cooling towers and chillers have an effective water treatment program?

• Are chillers opened every one-two years for inspection/cleaning?

• How often are cooling towers inspected and cleaned?

• Are boilers inspected and cleaned annually?

If maintenance has been deferred for even a few years, large potential energy savings lie in performing required maintenance. The systems may be operating, but not operating efficiently unless maintenance tasks are performed regularly.

Before looking into replacing units with higher-efficiency models or installing energy-efficient controls or variable frequency drives, make sure in-place systems operate efficiently. If existing systems are not properly maintained, the same can happen to new systems.

Replacements and upgrades

Additional savings can be found upgrading or replacing systems with new technology. Direct digital controls, variable-speed drives and automatic combustion controls all can be retrofit to provide additional energy savings, provided existing systems operate efficiently.

In some cases, to gain major energy efficiency improvements, systems must be replaced. If systems are approaching the end of performance life or if they cause major maintenance problems, it may be more cost-effective to replace them than to overhaul them.

Whatever systems are installed today to improve energy efficiency, however, must be properly maintained or efficiency improvements will rapidly disappear.

For managers to deliver energy efficiency gains, they need a program that identifies opportunities for improving performance through proper maintenance of energy-using systems, application of new technologies to existing systems and replacement of inefficient systems with new, high-efficiency ones. By following these steps, managers can make their facilities benchmarks for others.

Julian Arhire is a Manager with DtiCorp.com - DtiCorp.com carries more than 35,000 HVAC products, including industrial, commercial and residential parts and equipment from Honeywell, Johnson Contols, Robertshaw, Jandy, Grundfos, Armstrong and more.