What You Need To Know About Facility Management Automation

By Landport Systems, Inc. | May 20, 2019 |

Automation has become a boogeyman of sorts in many industries. There is a fear that it will destroy jobs or that managers will become too reliant on easy fixes. Most of this is untrue. Today we will discuss facility management automation and how it can help your business do the exact opposite of these fears. Interested in learning more? Read on below.

The Future With Facility Management Automation

Automation is the idea of pre-managed machines and devices performing simple tasks so that they are consistent in their performance levels. Any business will always have things that a simple machine cannot automate. Most of these things are in management. So how does facility management automation even work?

There are a lot of little tasks that management must do. These range from reading reports on facility updates, processing work orders, and making changes to work policy. All of these are little things that a management automating application can streamline and simplify.

Is Management Automation a Job Killer

In the end, management is one of many jobs that are immune to full automation. The reason for this is in replacing a human mind.

The fear of job loss comes from automation replacing menial tasks. A lack of menial tasks is more of a push towards better qualified and more educated positions. Faster and more efficient management could also be, in the long run, a job creator. It allows businesses to run at a faster and more efficient rate, giving them the increased workflow to demand more workers.

The Steps to Facility Automation

Acceptance of automation as the right strategy going forward is only the very first step. As well, investing in technology does nothing without the appropriate setup and changes made to accommodate this new shift.

Preparing for automation on any level requires a major overview as to how your business works. You need to know what you must do to get the most out of automation programs. These steps below will give you a potent insight as to how to make the most pinpoint of automation applications give you the best value.

1. Identify Objectives

When you want to fix a problem with your business, you must first identify what the business needs in the first place. Automation does not bring magical solutions to any situations, but if pointed at the right problem in the right way, it can be a valuable tool. These objectives can range from expanding your facilities to putting a tighter focus on management positions.

2. Needs Analysis

Once you know what your business wants, you need to understand how your business currently operates.

A needs analysis looks at the workflow, effort, and existing processes that go into your current facilities. This analysis needs to look at your business as a whole, doing its best to connect every process together into a singular system. From here, you can spot what parts of the system are underperforming. Is there a task that takes far too much effort to complete? Is there a group that has trouble completing their process?

Find these pieces, and determine a solution that would best fix them.

3. Acquire the System

Once you understand what needs to fix, you need a system that fixes everything you need. Do a large amount of research. There are many programs out there, so making sure you find the right one for you will save you a lot of headaches in the future.

4. Installation, Evaluation, and Adjustment

With a system chosen, you must learn it, integrate it into your business processes, and then test it until the results speak for themselves. A short trial period with the new system will help you align everything to the new process ideal.

What to Look For in Management Automation

Choosing the right system to carry out your management automation is an important step to the process. Knowing what you need will be vital, so what tools are most useful in an automation program?

1. Remote Management

The entire point of automating any process is to prevent the need of a manager from having to look over every step in every process. While many automation programs may have preset or programmable reactions to small tasks, any good automation program will have an ability to oversee all your tasks.

When you can view each factory or office and get reports on their progress and what objectives need completion, you gain a powerful grasp on how to react. You should be able to tweak and edit the program to your approval. Make sure the automation does the exact job it needs to. When you can do all of this from a simple mobile device, then you know you are working with an efficient program.

2. Keeping You Up-to-Date

When a problem arises, you cannot leave it to fester. There is no magical technology that can understand and react to any and all problems, so this must come from the human element.

Instant notifications are a simple, but important factor. They allow you to react to a situation that could be disastrous if left unchecked. The less time your business is enacting messy and inefficient acts, the better your business can keep running. Important changes have no time to wait.

3. All Materials in One Area

Automation is a design that can bring an entire structure together. To have any part of that structure separated can lead to miscommunication and mismanagement. A program that brings all pieces together, so that any update or change is clear, is priceless. Even the small amount of time checking between different apps can be frustrating and wasteful.

4. Easy to Use

A program that requires weeks and countless manhours learning and mastering will be more of a drain on your business than it is worth. Technology can and should be intuitive, so don’t waste time and resources messing with a program that is not easy to use across your organization.

Easy-to-use means -the program will have clear and well-labeled options, simplified settings or tools, and a simple but detailed tutorial or come with worldclass support. Without these elements the program may be too much of a headache to bother with.

The Right Management

Now that you are more clear on what facility management automation is and what it can do for you, it’s time to determine when and how to take that leap forward.