Facility maintenance management is the part of facility management that decides whether the building keeps working, and it is three activities that only make sense together: knowing what the building contains and what state it is in, knowing what is due and when, and knowing what was actually done and what it cost. Software that holds one or two of those is common. Software that holds all three, against the same asset, is what makes the difference between a record and a filing habit.
Facility management and maintenance are not the same job
Facility management is the wider role: space, contracts, occupancy, compliance and the maintenance. Facility maintenance management is the maintenance half specifically, and for most single buildings it is where the money and the risk sit. Buying a wide platform to do a narrow job is the most common expensive mistake here, because breadth is priced and the maintenance depth is what you will actually use every week.
The three activities, and the join between them
The register holds what exists and its condition. The schedule derives what is due from the interval on each asset. The history records what happened and files it back against the asset. The join is the point: a schedule that does not move when a job closes late, or a history that files by month rather than by asset, breaks the chain and leaves you with three lists that disagree by the end of the first year.
What to measure once it is running
Two figures tell you whether the software is doing its job. The proportion of preventive work completed in its window, which says whether the plan is real, and the deferred backlog against replacement value, which says whether the building is getting better or worse. Both come out of the record if the record is honest, and neither can be produced from a system where jobs are closed in batches from memory.
Questions people ask about facility maintenance management software
Is this the same as a CMMS?
For one building, effectively yes. CMMS is the name for the maintenance side of it; facility maintenance management software is the same product sold to the building's manager rather than to a plant engineer.
How much history do we need before it is useful?
The register is useful immediately. Cost history needs about a year before comparisons mean anything, which is an argument for starting the record before you are certain you need it.
Where do contractor visits fit?
On the same schedule and against the same asset. A separate list for contracted work is how sites lose track of half their plant, and it makes the annual cost figure incomplete in a way nobody notices.