One of the most useful automation tools in business, computer-aided facilities management (CAFM), reduces the need for humans to interact with electronic systems in a facility or complex. This saves employees time and creates a more efficient workplace.
CAFM, a type of facility management software, goes beyond management and maintenance systems. It works in conjunction with computerized maintenance management systems (CMMS), enterprise asset management software (EAM), as well as integrated workplace management systems (IWMS).
Are you swimming in an alphabet soup of acronyms now? Let’s try to simplify matters by defining what each of the computer systems named above does and then consider what a CAFM does and doesn’t do.
- CMMS: Lets you schedule and track asset maintenance.
- EAM: Lets you track and monitor asset conditions throughout the lifecycle. Used in long-term planning to determine profitability by the asset.
- IWMS: Lets you track and manage personnel and other human access to the facility.
- CAFM: Lets you manage the facility and its systems.
CAFM optimizes organizational facility functions by combining aspects of architecture, business administration, behavioral science, and engineering.
More About CAFM
CAFMs help you manage and automate most aspects of day-to-day operations. From the dashboard of a computer-aided facilities management software, you can schedule every activity an electronic system in the facility handles. If you’re unfamiliar with this type of software, think of the smart thermostat that many utility companies have begun installing or recommending that homeowners install. If you’ve used one of these thermostats, you know that you install an app on your smartphone that lets you create schedules to turn the thermostat on or off, or to increase or decrease the temperature. That’s one part of what CAFM does for a large facility like a hotel, spa, or resort.
Unlike the thermostat, though, the CAFM manages every aspect of the building’s operations. You can control the boiler temperatures, the hot water heater settings, the locking mechanisms on the main entries, program and monitor the room keys, manage the temperatures of the meeting rooms and ballroom, and much more.
Beyond Switches and Programming
The CAFM does more than automate lights and turn on the air conditioning when it hits 76F outside. It manages information on the facility. By leveraging computer-aided design (CAD) functions, your organization can manage building elements, visual information, as well as alphanumeric data processing.
It contains some of the same business intelligence tools found in other process management software packages. Using a CAFM lets you collect information automatically on your building’s day-to-day operations. Rather than having an employee check the ballroom temperature every hour, your CAFM can record the temperature at 15-minute intervals. Compiling and conducting analysis on this type of information lets you generate reports that help you make better data-driven decisions.
echo Helps You Organize Your Drawings, Schematics and Blueprints
Every hotel, spa, and resort uses drawings, schematics and blueprints. They use internal interior maps of room locations and maps of the grounds themselves.
The graphics they have to manage also include drawings and photos of the hotel or resort complex. They may need to store advertisements, frequently printed signage, menu designs, etc. Storing all of these items in printed formats takes up too much space.
Perhaps you scan each piece to digitize it. That works well to reduce the documents to a point that you can store them digitally. Storing them on DVD can make it tough to locate something when you need it. The file sizes may require so much space that you need a multitude of DVDs. Storing them to a single hard drive condenses your search, but still may not make it simple to find what you need.
You can integrate those scanned items into your CAFM using DCM’s echo: our engineering drawing management software. Not only can you store your digitized drawings and schematics, but you can use them in echo. For example, with CAD in the CAFM, you can host interactive floor plans that let your potential guests walk through the hotel, spa, or resort before they visit.
Benefits of a Modernized Drawing Library
Solutions like echo have been proven to boost productivity and morale. You do more than organize your drawings. You equip your employees with a secure, easy-to-use solution that makes their jobs easier.
DCM’s echo can be used on any device, so employees can pull up the schematic they need on an iPhone or iPad. You can set access protocols for categories or sets of drawings in a flash. This lets you share drawings and blueprints with a contractor quickly.
Digitizing and collecting your drawings in echo provides you with digital historical documentation of your complex. Your establishment will likely undergo more than one renovation over time. Creating a digital library provides you with an easily searchable database. You can provide a contractor with access to drawings of each renovation plus the original plans. This way, they can see the original design and how renovations altered it.
Going “Green”
Because you no longer need to print out drawings with echo, you’ll naturally save paper. Along with saving paper costs, this also allows your business to become more environmentally friendly.
Your employees can access the documents they need for every job on the fly on their phones and tablets. Your café and restaurants can access the room designs for various functions, quickly checking how many tables they need to set up and in what configuration. You’ll eliminate the need for them to ask a more experienced employee how to configure the ballroom for a wedding reception by providing direct access to the documents, so they’ll know the eight-up goes by the bandstand and the two-up line the perimeter of the back wall. They’ll know at a glance that they need an aisle of three feet between two rows of four-ups.
Many businesses still rely on mustard-stained paper copies of room layouts and conference schematics. You can modernize your hotel, resort, or spa office with the echo. You’ll also make finding the right drawing, graphic, or schematic as easy as making a Google search.
Instead of needing to have your experienced staff verbally pass along their knowledge to each individual employee, knowledge can be seamlessly passed along in echo. You can provide access to this knowledge when you onboard employees. This way, they’ll begin their job with the knowledge of experts. This also ensures you don’t lose expert knowledge when a person retires or moves to a new job.
Contact DCM For Your Drawing Management Strategy
With your drawings and your employee knowledge stored in the cloud and completely secure and searchable in seconds by your employees, your facility will operate more efficiently using CAFM. Contact us today to learn how you can implement echo in your facility.