IP 25/2011

Facilities management information RICS Practice Standards, UK

and data management
1st edition, information paper
Facilities management information
Facilities management organisations recognise the value that
management information can bring to the effectiveness of their
businesses.
and data management
Written for those operating at both the operational and strategic 1st edition, information paper
level of facilities management, this information paper aims to
provide an outline to help client side facilities management
organisations to generate, analyse, use and report on
management information to the benefit of the host
organisation.

rics.org/standards rics.org/standards
Facilities management information and data
management
RICS information paper
1st edition (IP 25/2011)
Published by the Royal Institution of Chartered Surveyors (RICS)
Surveyor Court
Westwood Business Park
Coventry CV4 8JE
UK
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No responsibility for loss or damage caused to any person acting or refraining from action as a result of the material included in this publication can
be accepted by the authors or RICS.
Produced by the Facilities Management Professional Group of the Royal Institution of Chartered Surveyors.
ISBN 978 1 84219 7660

 Royal Institution of Chartered Surveyors (RICS) December 2011. Copyright in all or part of this publication rests with RICS. No part of this work
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Contents

Acknowledgments iv
RICS information papers 1
1 Introduction 2
1.1 Scope 2
1.2 Background 2
1.3 Information age and facilities management 3
2 Developing a facilities MI strategy 4
3 Defining facilities data and information requirements 5
4 Collecting facilities data from various sources 8
4.1 Sources of information 9
5 Analysing facilities data and management information 10
6 Reporting on facilities management information and data 12
7 Continuous improvement and innovation 13
8 Conclusion and summary 14
Appendices
1 Relationship modelling for key facilities stakeholders 15
2 Alignment to industry standards for reporting purposes 16
3 Reporting on facilities management information and data 17

FACILITIES MANAGEMENT INFORMATION AND DATA MANAGEMENT | iii

Acknowledgments
RICS would like to express its thanks to the lead
author and RICS Facilities Management Executive
Board for their contributions to the content and
publication of this information paper.
Lead author
Sezgin Kaya, Managing Consultant, IBM Global
Business Services
RICS Facilities Management Executive Board
Iain Brodie MRICS, Mid Yorkshire NHS Trust
(Chairman)
Connel Bottom MRICS, PricewaterhouseCoopers
LLP
Paul Francis, Modus Services
Mike Packham MRICS, Bernard Williams
Associates
David Parkinson FRICS, Facilities Management
Consultant
Michael Pitt, University College London
Michael Ripper MRICS, Cortex International
Steve Surridge MRICS, Institute of Cancer
Research

iv | FACILITIES MANAGEMENT INFORMATION AND DATA MANAGEMENT

RICS information papers
This is an information paper. Information papers
are intended to provide information and
explanation to RICS members on specific topics
of relevance to the profession. The function of
this paper is not to recommend or advise on
professional procedure to be followed by
members.
It is, however, relevant to professional competence
to the extent that members should be up to date
and have knowledge of information papers within a
reasonable time of their coming into effect.
Members should note that when an allegation of
professional negligence is made against a surveyor,
a court or tribunal is likely to take account of any
relevant information papers published by RICS in
deciding whether or not the member has acted with
reasonable competence.

FACILITIES MANAGEMENT INFORMATION AND DATA MANAGEMENT |1

1 Introduction
1.1 Scope These discussions involve both operational and
strategic elements by which data and information
This RICS paper aims to support chartered facilities are captured, processed, shared, applied and
management practitioners by providing an outline reported to relevant stakeholders. Until recently, the
to help client side FM organisations to generate, use of MI was limited to the collection of
analyse, use and report on management maintenance records associated with routine or
information (MI) for the host organisation’s success. reactive tasks, or completion of compliance
activities. With the potential for facilities service
1.2 Background management models to become integrated into the
host organisation, and widespread enabling
‘Information’ is one of the key aspects of technologies, facilities management has become
management. Almost all workplace activities now more information-rich than ever before.
involve production, consolidation and conversion of However, this comes with its own challenges. To
information into recognised organisational formats. make the best use of the data and be credible
Using information, organisations can create enough to impact on business decision making, the
business rules, make robust decisions and learn data needs to be:
from the consequences of their actions.
1 accurate, complete and up to date
Facilities management (FM) organisations recognise
the value that management information could bring 2 easily obtainable and retrievable from storage;
to the effectiveness of their businesses. Over the and
last few years, many FM organisations have 3 relevant and aligned to the organisational
increasingly adopted MI in a wide range of processes.
business discussions, including:
+ performance management
+ business improvement
+ resource optimisation; and
+ statutory reporting.

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1.3 Information age and facilities 1 developing a facilities MI strategy
management 2 defining facilities MI requirements
3 collecting facilities data from various sources
There is currently a great deal of internally and 4 analysis; and
externally generated information available through
5 reporting facilities outputs.
reports and bulletins. However, their suitability and
use depends upon the particular MI needs of the Often, the terms facilities data and information are
audience at operational or strategic levels of used interchangeably and are misunderstood. This
business. From the client’s perspective, it is paper refers to data as recordings of transactions
important to recognise that facilities MI is not only or events, which are meaningful in the context in
used for operating an effective and efficient which they are gathered. Basically, processed data
facilities portfolio, but also for demonstrating becomes information; information then becomes
operational results in relation to its host ‘knowledge’ for those who operate and use it, and
organisation’s success at strategic level. applied knowledge becomes intelligence to make
effective management decisions.
This paper focuses on the process which facilities
managers can follow in order to identify their MI
needs for the clients, articulate the data, and report
to their target audience in client organisations. The
process consists of the following five steps:
Figure 1: Framework for building up a facilities MI

FACILITIES MANAGEMENT INFORMATION AND DATA MANAGEMENT |3

2 Developing a facilities MI strategy
The success of an FM organisation depends on its That strategy enables the production of relevant
ability to manage the way in which operations business reports, accurate and complete build up
conform to the overall business strategy, and the of data hierarchies from operational and tactical
delivery of efficient and effective customer service. levels of organisation. They can be also providing
Information contained in FM organisations therefore guidance to integrate FM data into enterprise-wide
tends to either demonstrate how the FM information systems. With regard to the typical
organisational outputs are aligned to its host content of MI strategy, a number of areas are
organisation’s business, or capture facilities delivery considered (see Table 1 below).
with accurate operational records to make day-to-
Strategies usually require a mandate. This
day business decisions. Every activity that creates,
necessitates sign-off and ownership by an
modifies or retires a data element needs to support
accountable executive. Strategy also needs to be
a business activity contributing to the organisation’s
reviewed regularly to ensure its relevancy to
business objectives.
changing business conditions, report against
deliverables and ensure that the strategy remains
However, to align operational outputs to a business
suitable. Once the MI strategy is ready, with high
activity, the chartered facilities managers need an
level principles and terms of standard use in place,
in-depth understanding of the business needs and
facilities managers can define their specific data
objectives. The conversion of those needs to
and information requirements, and start capturing
generate relevant FM information is the key to a
data at its source.
successful MI strategy.

Table 1: Typical contents of a facilities MI strategy

Business drivers: refers to business demand by articulating the need; i.e. what information is needed to
achieve the business goals, e.g. customer service, safety, quality, growth, profit, environmental targets,
etc.
Scope and Targets: outlines scope that the deliverables are covered. Often MI strategies become
intrinsically linked to improvement projects. These may be to improve quality of services, enhance
facilities efficiency, competitiveness, accessibility to services based on user or stakeholder needs,
customer satisfaction, etc. as a few examples.
Governance and Information Handling Procedures: includes a defined and agreed set of principles for
the governance of the MI. For instance: security, ownership, accuracy, sanity, review, electronic
transmission rules, share of information guidance, and accessibility. For security of information, reference
and guidance from ISO 27001 Information Security Standards (BS7799-2 in the United Kingdom) can be
sought. Besides making information secure, procedures enable it to be readily accessible for those who
need it for operational or business purposes.
Technology: includes standard and type of technology that will be used – this often forms a
rationalisation to consolidate certain activity onto a standard technology toolset (e.g. a common
Computer Aided Facilities Management, data repositories, links with Enterprise Resource Systems, Space
Planning Tools and Software, etc).
People: covers people management, training standards and development
Costs: endeavours to set a cost for managing the information – this may often be in the form of a
business case or cost justification. The value gained by use of information should not exceed the cost of
its management, which may be measured in terms of cash or time.

4 | FACILITIES MANAGEMENT INFORMATION AND DATA MANAGEMENT

3 Defining facilities data and information
requirements
This section: (a) outlines a process by which An upstream flow puts data generated from FM
organisations can capture and define their data and operations and processes in the context of
information requirements; (b) explains construction business views in order to demonstrate an FM
of ‘data matrices’ in platforms/repositories, and (c) organisation’s success. This flow is necessary to
suggests alignment to industry standard data codes relate operational outputs to enterprise-wide MI and
and structures. the facilities MI produced for executives, other
business units, internal clients, shared service
To define facilities data and information
operations and, where appropriate, clients of the
requirements, it is helpful to understand the
host organisation are all typical examples of
sources and dynamics of an organisation’s data
upstream data flows.
flows, as follows:
A downstream data flow allows facilities It is important to achieve a balance between
managers to query supply chain information via downstream and upstream flow. While too many
contractual or business-to-business engagements activities on downstream flow can over-burden
in order to oversee portfolio or supply chain supply-chain and operations, too few upstream
outputs, i.e. information related to resource activities can isolate FM outputs from the rest of
deployment, service scheduling, labour and host organisation’s business.
material costs, customer feedback, quality of
delivery and service delivery outputs.
Figure 2: Typical FM data flow

FACILITIES MANAGEMENT INFORMATION AND DATA MANAGEMENT |5

Downstream data flow from supply chain Once hierarchies are set up, data can be filtered by
operations are critical for the success and a number of attributes for either customers
efficiency of an FM organisation, and are typically (business units or functions) or facility functions
associated with a variety of sources, (see section (e.g. office, warehouse). They are typically
4.1). associated with a service or asset’s cost, quality,
These sources of information are typically volume, budget, or utilisation, etc. (as shown in
generated or collected by facilities managers or Figure 3). Such information can help facilities
surveyors who manage and maintain the day-to- managers with decision making during evidence-
day operations. However, operational data may not based discussions with business unit managers
necessarily be aligned to organisational objectives, and executives.
and therefore needs to be built upon a series of
The more flexible the data matrices to filter up and
‘data matrices’ to structure and form the data into
down, the wider the content of MI reports can be.
meaningful formats to feed into upstream data flow.
This flexibility enables facilities managers to use MI
These matrices may consist of data hierarchies
for various purposes, including, benchmarking, and
based on physical assets and services. Depending
generation of executive and managerial level
on the detail required, drill-down functionality can
reports. It also enables easier integration to
be introduced so that global or regional level views
enterprise-wide information management systems
can also include asset, equipment, or consumable
and industry-recognised service structures, such as
level records.
BOMA, REEB, IPD, etc. (see Appendix 2).
In order to establish the level of data hierarchy, and
decide at which level to stop recording data, Although data matrices could be built up with the
facilities professionals need to know the detail functionality to filter up and down in the data
required to support MI at organisational level. This hierarchy, this process needs to be auditable. Loss
could be influenced by the criticality of the asset or of data trail can be a risk, and such cases could
the service to the host organisation’s businesses. become exposed to business controls. To avoid
To avoid unnecessary data collection, it is useful to this risk, and create an auditable data trail with
consider cost and resources deployed for collecting links to existing or legacy data structures, data
data against its value to the business. mapping exercises are undertaken.
Figure 3: Data hierarchies and typical attributes of facilities MI

6 | FACILITIES MANAGEMENT INFORMATION AND DATA MANAGEMENT

Data mapping is an auditable process, which aligns for the tendered services. This enables a like-for-
new data to the old data. In this way, chartered like comparison between existing (before) and
facilities managers can track and trace its origins future (after) scope and price. In addition, if an
and eliminate potential business controls exposure industry-recognised and standardised service
arising from non-auditable data entries. structure is used, the existing and future costs can
also be used in external benchmarking. This not
Data mapping can also make it more efficient to
only helps to evaluate and demonstrate the added
move data during a business change. In particular,
value of the business change, but also enables a
when tendering FM contracts, mapping the legacy
structured assessment of facilities outputs against
scope and cost into the future can help facilities
its peers.
managers to align scope, cost and expected price

Figure 4: A data mapping exercise – mapping existing facilities scope and definitions to industry-
standard scope

FACILITIES MANAGEMENT INFORMATION AND DATA MANAGEMENT |7

4 Collecting facilities data from various
sources
This section provides guidance on typical sources 2 Sampling data from registers. It is common to
of facilities data to be captured/used by the take a representative sample of data to verify
chartered facilities surveyors. It will also explain how accuracy and completeness. The sampling
to deal with situations where data is incomplete, might be repetitive depending on the results of
inaccurate or not up-to-date. the verification. In case the first sampling ends
up with data gaps, further sample checks could
There are specific facilities data points that virtually
be undertaken to identify the areas with poor
every organisation needs. Examples can include
quality information. This continues until a
metrics such as amount and type of space, number
satisfactory level of representative sample is
of employees and end-users, indoor air and
achieved.
temperature conditions, and square metres per
employee. This data can be used in several ways, 3 Simple data sensitivity analysis is usually used
including operational decision making, optimisation to determine how the variation of an input could
of resources, or internal and external benchmarks. impact on the overall baseline information. The
higher the impact of an input, the more data
The required facilities information may not always
audits or sampling can be undertaken to
be available from facilities operations or
increase its accuracy.
management functions. It could be found in
property and estates, IT, human resources, finance, Once data gaps are identified, it is important to
environment, or health and safety related functions, assess the impact of those gaps by asking a
and could be cumbersome to collect. To get the simple set of questions, as follows:
best value from management information, the data
+ What data is incomplete or inaccurate?
needs to be in the right format, accurate and
collected at the right time. However, not all facilities + What are the implications of data inaccuracy or
information may fit into these qualities, and data incompleteness?
can often be incomplete or inaccurate. Before any + What decisions cannot be made in the absence
corrective action is taken, it is important to identify of (quality) data?
the ‘data gaps’.
+ What is the minimum effort required to
A ‘data gap’ refers to any missing or poor quality complete the data to make those decisions?
data that impairs a facilities professional’s ability to
+ Does the effort needed to complete data
make decisions, carry out duties, or meet
exceed the value gained by its existence?
objectives. Listed below are a few methods that
can be used to identify data gaps: It may not always be necessary to re-collect data,
especially if the lack of data does not hinder the
1 Data audits ensure data held is complete and
decision-making process.
free from common problems such as:
Other challenges facing data quality are changing
+ a field is blank
business conditions, and shifting regulation
+ no field is blank, but format is incorrect; and requirements. Regular data reviews on relevancy,
+ data is complete in the right format, but topicality and accuracy of information could help to
inaccurate, out of date, or presented as keep the data in alignment with those changes.
default (e.g. job start date: 01/01/01)
Data audits can be undertaken by observing
data in its source, and conducting regular
reviews.

8 | FACILITIES MANAGEMENT INFORMATION AND DATA MANAGEMENT

4.1 Sources of FM Information + turnover and profit margins
+ number of employees operating in the contract
It may prove useful to recast information from + expertise; and
horizontal functions or systems, such as
+ rates of contract retention.
accounting, supply chain and procurement, HR,
environmental management, and facilities Human resources information:
operations, to provide a business process view. + number of employees
This is typically a challenging task. With horizontally + employee geographical location
integrated enterprise-wide technologies increasingly
+ average travel to work times
capable of providing multi-layered information from
various sources, information can turn into + special requirements and needs
management reports in an instant. However, it still + accessibility
remains for facilities managers to identify their own + mobility of workforce
requirements before starting to engage with other
+ recruitment trends and space needs; and
functions. Typical sources of facilities management
information can be found in the following places: + demographics.

Financial information: Environmental information:

+ rent and rates + utilities consumption

+ insurance + carbon footprint

+ service charges + waste produced

+ service spend + waste recycled and disposed of

+ total cost of ownership + waste disposal methods

+ supplier spend + environmental management systems and

compliance; and
+ asset value
+ future projection and targets against actual
+ residual asset value
energy and environmental measures.
+ total cost of forward maintenance
Estates information:
+ backlog maintenance costs
+ property value
+ cost of failures
+ portfolio size
+ routine and corrective maintenance costs
+ lease terms and conditions
+ utilities, waste and recycling costs
+ space and building utilisation; and
+ environmental management costs
+ occupancy profile and tenancy.
+ project spend
Maintenance operations:
+ budget; and
+ number of facilities staff
+ actual, year to date, and forecasts.
+ shifts and hours of operation
Supply chain and procurement information:
+ asset and service performance
+ service and geographical coverage
+ service and asset availability
+ contract performance scores
+ maintenance schedule
+ health and safety records
+ reactive, planned, preventative, predictive
+ compliance scores
maintenance
+ credit scores
+ manufacturer’s warranty; and
+ access to funds
+ customer service feedback and experience
+ liability and insurance cover score.

FACILITIES MANAGEMENT INFORMATION AND DATA MANAGEMENT |9

5 Analysing facilities data and management
information
This section elaborates on the exploitation of data Facilities management data flowing from operations
mentioned in previous sections and explains key can now be stored in data warehouses, with the
considerations, methods and technologies for option to analyse it at any time using analytical
analysis by giving examples where facilities models, such as data mining and interface models.
management information can improve business The outputs can be provided to corporate
performance. management enabling them to align the information
to corporate objectives.
The main purpose of data is to help businesses Examples of some of the most common facilities
make decisions on optimisation of resources and management information generated as a result of
act upon the information gathered about a product, data analysis are summarised in the table below:
condition or customer needs. With the increasing
technological advancements, businesses have
become more capable of effectively processing and
analysing data.

Table 2: Example of common facilities MI and analysis methods

Common facilities MI (not exhaustive) Analysis methods Method description

– Surveys (e.g. number of end users satisfied with Frequency Entries in a table contain frequency or
service). distributions. count of a value, event, or occurrences.
– Number of incidents over a period (e.g. number of
failures in a critical asset, security, health and safety
incidents).

– Average number of visits to a building over a month. Descriptive Means, standard deviations,
– Relation between building utilisation/NIA and service statistics. correlations demonstrating degree of
(e.g. cleaning) costs. relationship between two variables.
– Relation between closure of high priority jobs and
technician’s induction.
– Relation between customer experience and
satisfaction scores and changes in business/physical
environment.

– Predictive maintenance (possibility of asset failure Regression. Helps to understand how a dependent
under certain conditions). variable changes when any of the
– Maintenance cost of an asset over time (to make independent variables are changed.
replace or repair decisions).
– Explore impact of potential lower customer
satisfaction scores due to changes in service staff,
indoor air temperature, allocated space, lighting, etc.

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There are a number of other data analysis methods, By examining the maintenance, failure and repair
such as cluster analysis, latent class analysis, patterns of an asset over time, facilities managers
hierarchical linear modelling and differential item can identify an optimum balance between reactive
functioning. Facilities business analysts may and planned activities, determine frequency of
choose to use a combination of these analyses maintenance schedules, and make replace versus
depending on the following considerations: repair decisions for assets and building systems.
+ the purpose of the analysis or project An increasingly important aspect of analysis is the
power to predict recurring events by looking into
+ sample(s) under study
past patterns. Scenario modelling is one of the
+ instruments being used to collect data; and techniques by which analysts can predict the
+ data layouts and formats. likelihood of a risk before it is visible or obvious to
a usual practitioner, thus mitigating the risk before it
In a typical facilities business analysis, it is
happens.
essential to scrutinise and validate data; relate the
results to the business context, and build up The ability to collect vast amounts of information
realistic action plans to improve, change and from operational or tactical level activities is
optimise facilities processes and resources. For increasingly enabling facilities managers to optimise
instance, with the introduction of smart metering resource use, spot maintenance trends, prevent
systems to monitor energy consumption in management failures, combat health and safety
buildings, vast amounts of data can be collected issues and increase end-user comfort and
from operations for analysis. Facilities managers, experience in buildings.
assisted by business analysts, can now interpret Managed well, facilities information can unlock new
this information to make decisions related to energy value added services to businesses, provide fresh
improvement and efficiency. The results of this insights into making relevant business rules, and
analysis are usually used to monitor the hold an emerging credibility and accountability in
contribution to an organisation’s carbon reduction positioning chartered facilities management
targets. practice in their respective organisations.
Another typical example of facilities data analysis is
the set up of correlations between reactive and
planned works for asset life-cycle management and
optimisation programmes.

FACILITIES MANAGEMENT INFORMATION AND DATA MANAGEMENT | 11

6 Reporting on facilities management
information and data
This section explains the outcomes by describing 3 in-business reporting, where in-house facilities
and categorising typical FM reports where the data managers report on agreed business
and information flows into, and elaborates on, the performance targets or other achievements to
contribution of facilities MI to management decision business executives; or
making.
4 regular, or on-demand reporting, where reports
Reporting is the tangible output of facilities are generated to provide information for
management information and data. It is therefore business-as-usual activities. These might
the front-end face of credibility, relevancy and include monthly or quarterly reports on
accountability of information, its processing rigour budgets, actual and forecast, or a report
and results. The most common output of facilities including on request building specific utilisation.
management information is ‘performance reporting’. Facilities managers can be involved in reporting
It includes reporting on the information related to facilities MI at three levels. These are explained in
four aspects of businesses: more detail in Appendix 3:

1 statutory reporting (statutory or legislative 1 relationship management level

requirements) such as health and safety 2 operational management level; or
incidents, security, hazardous waste
3 service management level.
2 contractual reporting, where supplier or in-
house facilities managers audit and
demonstrate performance achievements against
the agreed service levels
Figure 5: Facilities management reporting levels

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7 Continuous improvement and innovation
This section reinforces the need to revisit the status
of various information management practices and
demonstrates best practice and innovation as an
ongoing management process for chartered FM
surveyors.
Whether it is to meet the host organisation’s
expectations or to keep up with innovation in the IT
domain, FM organisations need to review their
facilities information management strategy at
regular intervals and make informed decisions
about relevancy, utilisation, and the efficiency of
their existing information.
Unanticipated needs and use of information will
arise for facility management information due to
business changes, new regulatory requirements and
a myriad of other conditions. The information
strategy, data collection process and analysis
methods and tools, as well as the level of reporting
required, needs to be reviewed and adapted
continuously for changing business conditions.
Information once critical to business can become
less important or even unnecessary over time.
Other information that once seemed insignificant
may become of prime importance. The key is to
remain flexible and sensitive to business needs and
to change the management information strategy
accordingly.

FACILITIES MANAGEMENT INFORMATION AND DATA MANAGEMENT | 13

8 Conclusion and summary
Traditionally, creation, processing and conversion of
management information were not the core
business of facilities organisations. This is changing
as the information is becoming seemingly rich and
available across all facilities functions, from
operations to management. Facilities management
organisations are being challenged by not making
the relevant information available for the
organisation; or conversely, having pushed their
resources into the unproductive administrative
activities involved in dealing with vast amounts of
information.
Chartered facilities managers are recognising the
need to put in place facilities MI strategies and
policies to collect the right information, at the right
time, for the right purposes with robust analysis to
relate it to the host organisation’s business
objectives. Now, more than ever, having quality
information to enable a facilities organisation to
deliver more effective, efficient and demonstrable
results to its value chain is the core part of its
organisational success.

14 | FACILITIES MANAGEMENT INFORMATION AND DATA MANAGEMENT

Appendix 1: Relationship modelling for key
facilities stakeholders
Relationship modelling helps to define key They consist of three dimensions: influence (x-axis),
stakeholders, their influence and interests in interest (y-axis) and involvement (size of bubble) of
facilities management outputs, and ensures there is each stakeholder.
an effective relationship in place to engage with
The first step is to define potential stakeholders
them, understand them, and manage their
inside (upwards and downwards in organisational
expectations. Stakeholders can be described as
hierarchy) and outside (e.g. suppliers, industry,
‘individuals or groups who have interest or some
public, government) of the organisation.
aspects of rights or ownership … to contribute in
the form of knowledge and support or can impact The second step is to assess stakeholders’ interest,
or be impacted by a specific event or action’. influence and involvement in facilities management
In facilities service environments, where outputs, and map these on the plot diagram. The
expectations change rapidly, effective reporting to last step would be to cluster the stakeholders to
key stakeholders becomes important. Stakeholder prioritise and identify a plan to communicate the
maps, as illustrated below, are one of the most key facilities MI in order to give consistent
influential relationship modelling tools to construct messages, and ensure their needs are understood
a communication strategy for reporting purposes. and managed.
Figure 6: Example of a stakeholder map

FACILITIES MANAGEMENT INFORMATION AND DATA MANAGEMENT | 15

Appendix 2: Alignment to industry standards
for reporting purposes
How can an organisation align facilities service level maintenance. A secondary SLA is a sub-set of this
information with industry standard codes and service, e.g. HVAC, or electrical maintenance.
structure as well as ERP (enterprise resource Defining SLAs in a hierarchical format enables
planning) systems? chartered facilities managers to break down the
The example framework below shows how cost of a broader service into its sub-categories
information from operations can be linked to both and so achieve more visibility on cost allocation
industry standards on service levels, benchmarking, and resource utilisation.
and ERP systems for an organisation’s financial
Secondary SLAs would be of sufficient detail to be
reporting purposes. The operational data such as
aligned to the industry benchmarks and ERP
occupancy costs, job completion rates, service
codes. Once these are done, each and every time a
costs, resource availability and environmental
report is needed, the information will be readily
information can be gathered using a pre-defined
available in the required format and granularity.
format incorporated into primary and secondary
service level agreements (SLAs).
A primary SLA represents a broader scope of
services such as mechanical and electrical
Figure 7: Example framework for aligning FM operational information and data with enterprise and
industry-wide data codes and structures.

16 | FACILITIES MANAGEMENT INFORMATION AND DATA MANAGEMENT

Appendix 3: Reporting on facilities
management information and data
(1) Relationship management level – This level of + risk or condition-based management –
reporting focuses on demonstrating the results of maintenance, compliance, criticality
facilities outputs to key customers, executive assessment, and service downtime reliability
stakeholders and businesses. The primary objective measures
of reporting at this level is to retain, improve and
+ efficiency and effectiveness of portfolio by
expand existing business relationships
external or internal benchmarks on cost, quality,
continuously, as well as contribute to the host
environment, space and occupancy; and
organisation’s productivity, reputation and image.
Management results of a balanced approach + asset and portfolio life-cycle value assessment
between operations, finance, customers and over the contract or asset life-span. This may
environment are typically demonstrated as strategic also include forward maintenance registers,
scorecards at this level of reporting. asset utilisation figures, life expectancy and
To best define these reports, ‘relationship future value of assets.
modelling’ tools can be used (see the example in
The collection of asset registers and asset
Appendix 1). These are helpful mechanisms to
condition surveys are part of the data that could be
define key stakeholders in an organisation, and
used to report at this level, primarily to demonstrate
assess their influence and involvement in decision-
an asset’s actual performance in relation to its
making processes. This not only helps to relate
condition, with its historic and projected
facilities outputs to the interests of each
maintenance spend. Operational reports are critical
stakeholder, but also to tailor the information to
for the efficiency and effectiveness of daily service
support their decision making.
provision, and adequate information to support
The strategic scorecards mainly comprise of a those reports is generated by business-as-usual
number of balanced measures, including: service transactions, as explained in the next
+ accounts (e.g. actual and forecast on the reporting level.
targets achieved)
(3) Service management level – This level of
+ customers, process maturity, growth reporting focuses on the transactional level of
+ corporate social responsibility and environment; services. The primary objective of FM service
and management is to offer quality services to provide
+ impact statement on shareholder/stakeholder positive customer experiences in a compliant, safe
value. and secure service setting. Service reports typically
include the results of daily service transactions
(2) Operational management level – This level of
between customers and services.
reporting focuses on effectiveness and efficiency of
maintaining a portfolio and managing it to an Approaches to service management have changed
agreed standard by adding value, mitigating risks significantly over the past few years. Facilities
and increasing the portfolio or asset quality. The managers previously tasked to report on service
primary objective of this level of reporting is to accomplishment against an agreement, or
demonstrate tangible benefits in all areas of scope contractual obligation, have now been pulled into
with increased business performance and reduced holistic service approaches, where the ultimate goal
risks. of a service setting is to enhance ‘customer
Information generated from operational processes experience’. These approaches require specific
can be incorporated at this level of reporting. customer surveying methodologies to gather data
Typical sources of the operational management from customers and understand the feedback on
information are: their interaction with services.

FACILITIES MANAGEMENT INFORMATION AND DATA MANAGEMENT | 17

In addition to customer feedback, information + customer feedback and experience
related to daily operational transactions such as
completion of jobs, scheduling tasks, call desk + delivery compliance to contract service levels
records, room bookings, cleaning audits, and
security alerts, etc. can be listed as further sources + daily financial transactions, invoice processing;
to build up service reports. The service reports and
typically include results from a combination of
categories of information, such as: + daily service alerts, logs and responses.

18 | FACILITIES MANAGEMENT INFORMATION AND DATA MANAGEMENT

 IP 25/2011

Facilities management information RICS Practice Standards, UK

and data management
1st edition, information paper
Facilities management information
Facilities management organisations recognise the value that
management information can bring to the effectiveness of their
businesses.
and data management
Written for those operating at both the operational and strategic 1st edition, information paper
level of facilities management, this information paper aims to
provide an outline to help client side facilities management
organisations to generate, analyse, use and report on
management information to the benefit of the host
organisation.

rics.org/standards rics.org/standards