Integrated facilities management is the practice of running every facilities service for a building, the plant, the cleaning, the security, the space and the people cleared to work on it, under one management rather than as separate contracts, and IFM integrated facilities management is the name of the outsourced contract that promises exactly that. What is integrated facilities management, for the workplace manager asking, is a question with two honest answers: as a contract it is a single provider for all of the services, and as a record it is one system in which the hard and soft services describe the same building. This guide is the term, the hard facilities management and soft facilities management split under it, and what the workplace team's own part of an integrated facility management system has to hold whoever holds the contract.
Hard facilities management and soft facilities management
Hard FM is the fabric and the plant: the building's structure, the mechanical and electrical services, the lifts, the fire systems and the maintenance that keeps them running. Soft FM is the services around the people: cleaning, security, reception, catering, mail, and the space and desks the people work at. The maintenance record for hard FM on this estate is the neighbouring hub at fmlane.com; the space, the desks and the contractors cleared to be on site are the soft side this hub keeps, and the name HardFM is the trade's own word for the discipline as a whole.
What is integrated facility management as a contract
An IFM contract puts every service under one provider with one account manager and one set of measures, so the client has one conversation instead of twelve. Whether that is the right buy is a procurement question about scale, control and cost that this hub does not answer, and it publishes no provider's figures. What it does say is that a contract does not replace the record: the client still needs to know what floor it has, what it is used at, and who is cleared to be on site, because those are the measures the contract is judged against.
What an integrated facility management system holds
As a record, integration means the maintenance side's asset list and the workplace side's space inventory describe the same building, and the contractor who is coming to fix the chiller is the same contractor the front desk checks for clearance. The workplace team's tables are the same four as anywhere: the inventory of floors and desks, the bookings and attendance, the allocation to teams, and the contractors cleared per building with their dates. 140 desks with 126 in on the busiest day is 90% utilization in an integrated system exactly as it is in a spreadsheet.
What HardFM keeps of it
The soft side's record: the space, the desks, the occupancy and the contractors cleared on site, free to work and $24 a month for the whole team to keep, exportable so it can sit beside the maintenance record or inside a provider's reporting. It is not an IFM contract, not a provider, and not the hard FM maintenance record; it is the workplace team's own part of the integrated whole, kept honestly.
Questions people ask about integrated facilities management
What is integrated facilities management?
Every facilities service for a building, hard and soft, run under one management or one contract, and as a record one system in which the plant, the space and the contractors describe the same building. HardFM keeps the soft side's record; fmlane.com keeps the hard side's.
What is the difference between hard facilities management and soft facilities management?
Hard FM is the fabric and plant and the maintenance that keeps them running; soft FM is the services around the people: cleaning, security, reception, and the space and desks. The name HardFM is the trade's word for the discipline; the hub itself keeps the space, desks and contractor side.
Is HardFM an IFM provider?
No. It is software that keeps the workplace record, the space, the desks, the occupancy and the cleared contractors, for $24 a month for the whole team. It publishes no provider's figures and does not choose one for you.