Practical Facilities Tips, News & Advice.
As a new academic year begins, the Biden administration has issued a back-to-school fact sheet highlighting guidance and resources available to help protect students and staff from COVID-19 spread and keep schools safely open all year long. The fact sheet calls for vaccination, testing, and improved indoor air quality. It also notes actions the administration […]
Design/construction and facilities management teams are always waiting for project closeouts. Most of the time, it takes months (if not years) to receive all the final documentation after project turnover. One would think that closeout packages would be compiled throughout the construction process, but often it isn’t even started until weeks before the project is […]
Back to Basics is an article series that highlights important, but possibly overlooked, information facilities management professionals should know. Facilities management professionals should ensure that their facilities are adequately prepared in the event of a power outage, which is usually a sudden loss of power. It is important for them to ensure that employees, vendors, […]
Several years ago, a restaurant worker died while performing one of his regular tasks—cleaning a restaurant’s kitchen floor. To clean the floor more effectively and efficiently, he decided to combine two incompatible cleaning agents: concentrated chlorine bleach and an acid-based cleaning solution. An example of an acid-based cleaning solution is ammonia; however, reports of the […]
Your job as a facilities manager of a healthcare facility or system is a complex one that includes balancing patient care and experience with that of employees combined with reducing risks, loss prevention, and streamlining the overall operations of the building. Real-time location services (RTLS) have shown to make the jobs of facilities managers easier […]
Despite a slow start to the hurricane season, “the next Ida or Sandy could still be lying in wait,” warned FEMA Administrator Deanne Criswell. Atmospheric and oceanic conditions still favor an above-normal 2022 Atlantic hurricane season, according to NOAA’s annual mid-season update recently issued by the Climate Prediction Center, a division of the National Weather Service. […]
For many, mobile phones are the center of their world. They have endless capabilities and functions, which has led to their use in many industries. Security is one of the many industries that has utilized the abilities of mobile technologies to their advantage. Many modern security technologies now come with mobile phone enablements. Mobile phones […]
Supported by a landmark commitment from Johns Hopkins University, a brand-new solar facility is now up and running, providing the university with two-thirds of its annual electricity use from clean power. With this agreement—one of the most substantial clean energy pledges by any higher education institution in the U.S.—Johns Hopkins achieved its goal to cut greenhouse gas […]
More than two years since the COVID-19 pandemic made Zoom calls a reality and daily commutes infrequent, employers are still juggling their return-to-work options among fully remote, fully in-person, hybrid, flex space, and shared space approaches. And now, it’s a dual effort on the part of both HR managers and facility managers to retain current […]
For a long time, facility management was a predominantly reactive practice. Major decisions, processes, and activities occurred after the fact. For instance, maintenance would happen reactively, or FMs would take action to remedy situations or improve processes only after they observed a problem in the facility. Doing things this way left too much room for inefficiencies. […]