Soft facilities management
[edit] Introduction
Facilities management is the ‘...integration of processes within an organisation to maintain and develop the agreed services which support and improve the effectiveness of its primary activities’. Ref EN15221-1: 2006 Facility Management – Part 1: Terms and definitions. It is concerned with the management of facilities at both a strategic and a day-to-day level to deliver operational objectives and to maintain a safe and efficient environment.
Facilities management is an interdisciplinary activity with a high concentration of maintenance tasks that can be broken down into two types:
- Hard facilities management (the fixed, physical fabric of the facility, which cannot be easily removed).
- Soft facilities management (the services that help the facility to function).
[edit] Soft facilities management services
Soft facilities management services typically make the workplace more comfortable, pleasant and easy to use for building occupants and users. They can also affect health and safety, security and so on.
Soft facilities management services services might include:
- Car parking.
- Catering and hospitality.
- Cleaning.
- Landscaping.
- Pest control.
- Post management.
- Security.
- Waste management.
- Window cleaning.
Soft facilities often involve some degree of human interaction from professionals who handle these tasks.
[edit] Related articles on Designing Buildings
- Business process outsourcing (BPO).
- Carbon neutral contract.
- Facilities management.
- Facilities management audit FMA.
- Hard facilities management.
- Insourcing.
- ISO/PAS 45005 Guidance for working safely during COVID-19.
- Institute of Workplace and Facilities Management IWFM.
- Maintenance.
- Maximising maintenance budgets after lockdown.
- Move management.
- Vested outsourcing.
Featured articles and news
Sustainable development concepts decade by decade.
The regenerative structural engineer
A call for design that will repair the natural world.
Buildings that mimic the restorative aspects found in nature.
CIAT publishes Principal Designer Competency Framework
For those considering applying for registration as a PD.
BSRIA Building Reg's guidance: The second staircase
An overview focusing on aspects which most affect the building services industry.
Design codes and pattern books
Harmonious proportions and golden sections.
Introducing or next Guest Editor Arun Baybars
Practising architect and design panel review member.
Quick summary by size, shape, test, material, use or bonding.
Types of rapidly renewable content
From forestry to agricultural crops and their by-products.
Terraced houses and the public realm
The discernible difference between the public realm of detached housing and of terraced housing.
Looking back at the influence of climate events
From a designer and writer: 'There are limits to growth but no limits to development'.
Terms, histories, theories and practice.
Biophilic design and natural light
Letting in the light and natural elements into spaces.
Comments
Facilities management service providers are playing an imperative role in the current economies by managing and sustaining various maintenance services effectively. There are many soft facilities management service providers who offer reliable services to us at affordable rates. Thank you for sharing this wonderful and detailed article on soft facilities management. It was very informative and I enjoyed reading it. Keep on writing and expecting more such relevant articles in the future.