Facilities Management skills and techniques should be focus on the area that contributes to the overall business management by relating accommodation and support infrastructure issues to business, financial and personal criteria. The issues of measuring facilities performance is a critical task to the facilities manager.
The need of measuring performance in order to guide management decision making is very important. As FM is a part of general management, performance measurement also applies to the management in FM context.
Measuring Facilities Service Performance with Benchmarking Tool
Benchmarking is the tool for gaining and maintaining competitive advantage. Benchmarking is essentially a cost reduction method. The principle of benchmarking is a product of quality management movement which allows managers to place their performance measurement in context.
Benchmarking is a performance measurement tool and is well established in facilities management. The application of benchmarking for the measurement of facilities management performance is common in large organizations. It is the ideal tool for setting corporate goals and transforming them into tangibles which are delivered to the end customer.
The desired standards of performance are set to optimize process performance in order to deliver total quality and 100% value to the end of customer.
In the context of facilities management, many people think that benchmarking is only about comparing cost levels. However, there are another numerous aspects of facilities management than it can be benchmarked. Several of the aspect revealed is as listed below.
I. Space use: Space use is a prime in benchmarking, as this drives all of the premises costs and the floor areas need to be known for the purpose of comparing costs of maintenance, cleaning, etc.
II. FM management: Cost of the facilities management operations on a strategic/tactical level and effectiveness of facilities management are bench-marked.
III. Computer aided facilities management systems: Cost and effectiveness of the help desk are bench marked.
Benchmarking is an effective tool for measuring the effectiveness of facility management.