Survey highlights CAFM benefits

18 January 2012

Survey reveals that CAFM solutions save money, make the FM service more efficient and improve sustainability and auditability

Computer-Aided Facilities Management (CAFM) solutions deliver numerous significant benefits to organisations, according to the annual CAFM survey by Service Works Group conducted in association with the i-fm.net and the UK’s Facilities Management Association.

More than 80 per cent of facilities professionals who responded to the survey said their CAFM system had saved them money, with 91 per cent agreeing that it also made the FM service more efficient. Almost 80 per cent of respondents confirmed that CAFM allowed them to better identify staff workload while 90 per cent said it gave them better quality data and provided better auditability. More than 60 per cent said their CAFM tool had enabled them to improve their organisation’s sustainability credentials. Overall the survey gave CAFM the thumbs-up with 77 per cent saying that their CAFM solution gave them all the benefits they thought it would.

More than 450 facilities professionals across the private, public and not-for-profit sectors took part in the recent survey with the majority of respondents confirming that they use their CAFM tools for reactive maintenance (19 per cent), planned maintenance (18 per cent) and asset management (15 per cent). Health and safety, contract management, resource management, capital projects, room bookings, space management and mobile workforce management were also key uses.

The survey confirmed that the bigger the organisation, the more likely it is to have a CAFM solution, with more than 50 per cent of organisations with in excess of 5000 employees using a CAFM system compared with 14 per cent of organisations with less than 50 employees. Again the more sites an organisation works across, the more likely it is to use CAFM. Just under 30 per cent of businesses with less than five sites used CAFM while 62 per cent of those with between 101 and 499 sites used a CAFM tool. The survey also revealed a direct correlation between the square footage an organisation occupied, its FM budget and its use of CAFM – the higher the FM budget, and the larger the premises, the more likely the organisation is to have a CAFM system.

Around 30 per cent of respondents used more than one system to manage their FM function which resulted in some overlap within the results. Just over half (52 per cent) have an Excel spreadsheet, the same number use a professional CAFM system; while 11 per cent have developed a tool in-house, a further 11 per cent use nothing at all and 8 per cent are reviewing the market.

When asked which CAFM tool was used within their organisation, Service Works Group’s QFM solution was found to be the most popular with 21 per cent of respondents using QFM, followed by 20 per cent using Concept from FSI, and 16 per cent using Maximo from IBM.

When asked for their perceived top three CAFM providers from a list of 12, participants also identified the same three organisations. The full results of the annual CAFM survey will be published in a white paper in early February. To receive a complimentary copy, please email info@swg.com