First, it is important to understand what resiliency means. According to Merriam-Webster, it is “an ability to recover from or adjust easily to misfortune or change” Since the facilities we manage provide space for the occupants to conduct their business, we must consider resiliency from their perspective, not just from a building perspective. This is…
I recently held a Program Advisory Committee (PAC) meeting for the Certificate in Facility Management at Ryerson University for which I am the Academic Coordinator. It is a continuing education program for people in the Facility Management industry to develop and upgrade their skills. The PAC was formed for a program review to identify changes…
Facility Managers can take a leadership role in reducing costs for their organizations by examining areas that may not have received much attention before. Here are key things you can do. A key responsibility of Facility Managers has been to provide the physical environment and related services that enables your corporation to be successful at…
Managing facilities often includes managing the physical assets. But getting into a system is often daunting, particularly for smaller portfolios. Unfortunately, without a way to manage the assets, you won’t have the information you need to make decisions about repair vs replace or information to justify your budget requirements. You are also much more likely…
In my Webinar on Information Based Decisions (see the link below), I spoke about getting and using information for your benefit. While you need an FM system and should work towards getting approval and implementing one, if you already have one, the question is whether you use it for information, not just process management. Whether…
I saw an Interesting comment about my FM Pie diagram recently. Someone from the United Kingdom made a comment that it didn’t really apply in the UK. Given that the FM Pie included the full range of responsibilities involved in managing a building of any kind, imagine my surprise that things might be so different…
I had the privilege of speaking at The Facilities Show in May. My seminar is based on a cover article I wrote for Building Operations Management Magazine called ‘Sparring Partners’ (email me for a copy of the article) and focused on the 3 ways we fail to develop a strong partnership with our service providers…
In the December 2010 issue of Canadian Facility Management & Design magazine, the magazine’s editor Pamela Young interviewed me about Facility Management and about my new book “Managing Facilities & Real Estate” Here’s how she began the article: “Managing Facilities & Real Estate, by FM consultant and Strategic Advisor principal Michel Theriault, is hot off…
I’ve been doing quite a few operational reviews and benchmarking exercises for facility clients recently. Something that keeps coming up is the optimal design of the facility management department’s organization structure. Through my career I’ve worked in functional, integrated and even matrix organizations. My facility clients are also a mix. In each approach, I saw…