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The first International Facility Management Standards: An Overview

by | Aug 11, 2017 | International Facilities Management

2017-18 will go down as historic years for the global Facility Management (FM) sector!

Things kicked off on Friday 31st March ’17 when the ISO 267 Facility Management committee published its first two international facility management standards.  A third followed on July 12th.

These first three standards are:

  • ISO 41011 standardises an international vocabulary for FM.  The standard affords a clear common terminology for providers and customers.
  • ISO 41012 gives guidance on strategic sourcing and the development of agreements.  The standard helps define and regulate a better working relationship between providers and customers.
  • ISO 41013 outlines the scope, key concepts and benefits of FM, while also providing a context for the use and application of the terms already defined in ISO 41011.

 

Announcing the publications, Stan Mitchell, our CEO and acting Chair of the ISO 267 FM Technical Committee, said:

“Many thanks indeed to the forty two countries who have supported the committee.  Special thanks to Paul Stadlöder, Jay Drew and Olav Egil Sæbøe for their leadership who along with the hard working members of their respective committees have delivered. Well done to all and many thanks on behalf of Facilities Managers everywhere for getting us on the map!  There is more to come, make sure that your country is represented so that you can participate”

Well done too to Stan, who has been integral in the process leading to these groundbreaking publications, and those to come.  He inspired international support for the ISO FM Technical Committee, which he leads in the creation of these new FM standards.

 

Management Systems Standard ISO 41001: The real game changer!

Particularly, many are on tenterhooks regarding the upcoming ISO 41001, due for publication in Spring 2018.  ISO 41001 deals with the requirements and guidance for use of management systems.  It aims to improve awareness and support for effective facilities management regimes globally and across all sectors.

ISO 41001 will help facilitate appropriate FM structures and resourcing.  The standard is set to transform business management globally, providing markets with a model for developing a world class FM regime.  Additionally, it will provide a basis for professional training and certification, and supplier benchmarking for public and private sectors.

We’ll be posting on the themes of the new standards for the rest of August, with regular updates beyond.  (Next Friday: a video of a presentation by our CEO on their development and implications of ISO 41001!).

Want to know more about the standards, or keep abreast of their progress?  Then we welcome you to follow us on Facebook, Twitter or LinkedIn.

Equally, if you need support with ISO 41001 accreditation and your operational efficiency from those who led development of the new standards, do get in touch.

Bringing the Benefits of True FM to the Highland and Islands Region

by | Feb 1, 2017 | Adaptive, Key News

One of KEY’s 2017 objectives is the significantly expansion of our operations in the Highlands and Islands region.  Our aim is to bring the benefits of our home-grown True FM to local businesses and organisations.

“We’re the longest running FM company in the UK.  While we have a global arena of operations, bringing value to our Scottish homeland has always been of special importance to us,” KEY CEO, Stan Mitchell.

KEY’s flagship project in HIE is ‘Nucleus’, which opened February 2017.  Nucleus is a new 5,000 square metre archiving facility in Wick.  We supported Crimson UK Ltd and Restore Scan Ltd throughout the design and mobilisation process.  Now we provide ongoing services for them including M&E maintenance, energy management, cleaning and other FM aspects.

“KEY supported us through all the various phases of the archive project from tender through mobilisation and into operational. They have provided a professional and innovative service which enabled us to better support our own client.  We have built an excellent ‘one team’ working relationship over the last two years.  We look forward to this continuing for many years to come,” Edd Whiting, Contracts & Commercial Manager, Restore Scan Ltd.

A core responsibility for us at Nucleus is to maintain strict environmental conditions.  This is required to protect historic records for the UK nuclear industry, and also for Caithness County.  Some of the latter date back to the c16th century.

Says Stewart Lackie, a senior Key consultant, “Wick is a perfect example of Key’s True FM thinking and value in action.  We intend to repeat that success for other organisations across the Highlands and Islands in 2017 and beyond.”

True FM is KEY’s core differentiator: a broader aspirational vision of operations which interweaves people, place, proven method and smart technologies.  True FM revolves around the principle of optimal performance for each and every customer. It is underpinned by our unique capacity to understand your operations, needs and budget constraints.  In turn, this capacity enables us to tailor the right solution for you. Says Stewart:

“The era of the one size fits all approach to FM is over.  Relentless economic and regulatory pressures necessitate nuanced solutions tailored to the specific needs of each enterprise.  For these to deliver optimal value in each case, they need to leverage the best of what’s possible today, and be able to adapt and improve to changing circumstances,” Stewart Lackie, senior KEY consultant.

KEY’s Facilities Management Solutions embody the concept of a integrated, futureproof and cost-effective systems. Alongside conventional FM, these solutions can include maintenance management, smart sensor monitoring, and workplace optimisation.  All our designed for control, and easy implementation and scalability.

If you’re located in the Highlands and Islands region, and think you might benefit from help from the True FM experts, then talk to at sharedservices@key.fm or +44 (0) 1786 841603.

How IoT and the Cloud will Transform FM in 2017

by | Nov 4, 2016 | Uncategorized

The combination of smart technologies and proven methodology are pillars of KEY’s True FM philosophy, and underscore the future of FM.

Why is technology not central to every FM solution now?  Technologies with the potential to transform global FM have been around for some time.  They have failed to fulfil their potential because the raw technology is not the solution, but rather how it can deliver real value for the customer.

This is not straightforward.  On the one hand it requires a practical understanding of what technology can do.  On the other, however, it also needs the overarching management perspective on what they could do in the context of specific customer requirements.

Without the big picture, customers are left with onerous maintenance systems, or widgets and feature lists.  The onus is on them to shoehorn it into their operations and make it all work.

The c21st customer also needs to safeguard against increasing economic pressures and market uncertainties.  They need FM solutions which are easy to use, implement and scale, and evolve as they expand and differentiate.  Until recently, a toolkit suitable to these challenges has been largely impractical due to cost and inflexibility.

KEY, however, keeps a watchful vigilant eye on the technology horizon.  When we finally saw the emergence of disruptive technologies with genuine Facilities Management potential, we seized the opportunity.  There followed an 18 month programme of international pilot studies and in-house R&D.  This was driven by our commitment to ‘innovation’, one of the 5 principles of our True FM philosophy,

Why will IoT go mainstream in 2017?  The outcome of this programme is KEY’s next-generation and fully road-tested smart technologies offerings.  These range from smart diagnostics through to a fully functioning smart office or environment.   Integrated into an integrated operational solution, these represent the accumulation of our 25+ years of True FM experience.  They also provide a truly flexible, future-proof and cost-effective facilities management solution, equally suitable for one facility, or many spanning multiple territories.

While the full scope of our integrated operations offering will not be unveiled till next year, we preview here two of the many ways in which smarter technology will be integrated into the system to deliver optimal value for our customers.

Maintenance Management. The dual need for compliance and cost-effectiveness is a growing challenge. On the one hand, maintenance systems are expensive and over-complex, on the other, asset failure can seriously harm continuity and reputation.

Our two-module Cloud solution is simple-to-use.  It also easily scales or adapts to changing circumstances, and integrates seamlessly with existing systems.

The Portfolio module unifies all of your facilities, assets and inventories across locations, regions and geographies into a central Cloud location.

The Mobile Workforce organises ongoing service delivery, reactive works and planned preventative maintenance into an efficient workflow, sent to, and updated by, personnel in real-time via mobile. The combination of the two module enables unrivalled operational control and compliance, for unbeatable value.


Remote Monitoring. Designed for enterprises where significant expense, continuity or compliance hinges on critical assets, environmental conditions or effective energy management.

Our flexible, affordable, remote sensor solutions give you real time visibility over, and historical data on, the performance of all these aspects, alerting you instantly in the event of emergency.

Simple to set-up, use and adapt, this module can be used as a standalone for smart diagnostics or critical asset monitoring.

Alternatively, a comprehensive network of sensors is easily integrated into our maintenance system as a component of a total solution.

In short, affordable sensor monitoring is ushering in a new era.  Instead of managing our assets, buildings and cities, they’ll be talking to us and telling us what they need!

If you want to find out more about these modules, and how they can optimise your performance then contact us on info@key.fm or +44 (0) 1786 841603.

ISO Standard for Facilities Management

by | Oct 15, 2014 | Key News

Key Facilities Management CEO Stan Mitchell, and Chairman of ISO TC 267 Committee for Facilities Management has advised that he has received approval from ISO to start work on an international standard for Facilities Management. This move represents a significant step forward in the recognition of Facilities Management as a ‘business critical’ management discipline worldwide.

It is intended that the Management System Standard will operate in a similar manner as other internationally recognised ISO standards such as ISO 9001, ISO 14001 etc.

Stan Mitchell commented “whilst there is a lot of hard work to be done to ensure that a standard such as this is worthy of international recognition its potential in consolidating the discipline of Facilities Management as a structured and professional discipline is significant”.

The first meeting of the ISO TC 267 Committee to start work on this standard, ironically will take place alongside the European Facilities Management Conference in Glasgow, Stan Mitchell’s home town, first week in in June 2015.