What are the benefits of implementing Facilities Management Software and CAFM Software?

Facilities management and CAFM software are often discussed as essential tools for any business that needs to maintain a building. Whether it's maintaining warehouses, factories, or multiple buildings across multiple sites, FM software and CAFM software offer a range of benefits that can have a massive impact on how an organisation is run and its facilities are maintained.

To begin with, we need to understand the differences between these two hyped-up software solutions.

What is the difference between Facilities Management Software and CAFM Software?

At their core, CAFM software (Computer-Aided Facility Management software) and facility management software are very similar in maintenance management. Both software types focus on maintaining physical workspaces (aka facilities). Still, while facility management software concentrates on managing day-to-day operations, many facilities management software don't provide as much depth and detail for maintenance activities as CAFM software. This can come in multiple forms, including more limited reporting functions, needing more workflow automation technology and making it harder for you to meet industry and regulatory requirements.

Are CAFM and facility management software the same thing as CMMS software?

CMMS Software is another term that comes up when talking about FM and CAFM software. This type of software can be confusing with facility management and CAFM software. CMMS software is different, though. CMMS stands for computerised maintenance management systems, which, as the words suggest, means that CMMS software is focused solely on the day-to-day job management of the

To learn more about CMMS software and how it differs from CAFM, read our guide on the topic.

What maintenance features are often found in Facility management software and CAFM software?

The most common features that FM and CAFM software utilise include:

• Job management tracking systems
• Purchase order management modules
• Stock and inventory control modules
• Data and reporting dashboards
• Planned maintenance schedules
• Customer portals

What are the benefits of Facility management and CAFM software?

The benefits of CAFM and Facility management software are expansive and can be revolutionary for an organisation. Most organisations that bring in facility management systems, though, find that the core benefits the systems bring are improved efficiency, productivity and cost savings. Automating manual tasks allows resources to be more efficiently allocated, tasks scheduled, and jobs managed, allowing for better management of the facility and improved maintenance. This then transforms into cost savings for the business in the long term.

What drives these core benefits?

Behind these core benefits lie a range of minor but significant improvements that drive the broader benefits of improved efficiency and lower costs. These include:

Centralised data management

Using software, you can store and manage your data in one system. This means data for your facilities, equipment, assets, schedules, job requests, and more are in the same system, making it easier to access data, reduce duplication of work and improve the accuracy of your data. This centralised data will also allow you to move towards making data-driven decisions, which will be based on the insights you gather from the data, helping you identify trends, make informed choices and allocate your resources more effectively to boost efficiency throughout the organisation.

Better maintenance management

With access to the features that Facility management and CAFM software provide, your maintenance team will be able to improve how they operate on a day-to-day basis. Through proper maintenance scheduling for preventative tasks to more effective reactive maintenance, they'll be able to enhance the efficiency of tasks, reduce asset downtime, and extend the lifespans of assets. This minimises future costs for repairs by catching issues before they become major ones and means less money needs to be spent replacing expensive assets.

Improved regulatory compliance

With features such as documentation storage, dashboards and analytics, combined with the capacity to import maintenance schedules like SFG20 that help you schedule your maintenance tasks to meet regulator and industry standards, you can manage your asset's regulatory compliance more efficiently and easily.

Improved communication and collaboration

FM and CAFM software will often include features such as customer portals that can be used to make requests or log jobs; they'll be accessible via mobile apps, allowing your team to get updates whilst out of the office. They can even connect to complete VOIP systems, always making everyone contactable. This means it's easier to reach every single team member in a way that they'll respond to, which leads to resolving issues quicker and more efficiently.

Scalability

The final benefit of using facilities management or CAFM software is that it can be heavily scalable. As your needs grow, scaling the software with your organisation is easy. By seamlessly adding users right the way to integrating outside systems to connect to the core setup, you can create a holistic, interconnected facility management ecosystem that will allow you to continue to handle every part of managing your facility regardless of the scale you're working at.

All these benefits form the basis for how CAFM software and FM software allow organisations to improve their efficiency and lower costs regardless of the scale they're working at, making either software type a vital tool for any organisation with facilities to manage.