How Site Intelligence Technologies Can Streamline Facility Management

Facility managers oversee a growing list of critical building functions—which include (but are not limited to) safety, security, compliance, maintenance, repairs, and more. It’s no wonder the profession is expected to see more than 5% employment growth (faster than average), with the facilities management market expected to nearly double to $2.2 trillion by 2032.

While a large majority of the job requires sight inside the building, there is growing demand for managers to maintain a holistic view of all activity, including the outside and perimeter of facilities. This trend can also be seen as facilities such as data centers surge in development and deploy more stringent holistic security measures, well beyond the four walls. For facilities managers, juggling all these demands and a roster of onsite, hybrid, and remote teams means that scheduling, coordination, and prioritization become challenging—not to mention stressful.

The shifting nature of the job is one of the primary reasons that jobsite intelligence solutions are proving a viable investment for facility managers and building owners. Jobsite intelligence solutions comprise of advanced cameras and intelligent software that extend visibility to the outside and perimeters of the building. They instill confidence by providing always-on viewability, generating visual data that can be used to improve site safety, security, and scheduling, regardless of location.

Improve Scheduling and Management with Visual Data

Many businesses deploy software specifically designed to support facility management. These platforms are effective for viewing workflows in one place, streamlining approaches to scheduling across multiple facility functions. Visual data capturing the outside of the building and its perimeter (including parking lots, driveways, and gated entries) is currently underutilized. It is an important tool in supporting facility managers in their day-to-day.

Industries like construction and industrial have been able to directly integrate visual data into project management platforms to improve search, speed validation, and view multiple areas of a site from one browser or integration. There is an opportunity for facility management software to evolve to do the same. Using visual data—whether embedded into a platform or viewed from a unique URL in a web browser—lets facility managers keep eyes on multiple places at once without having to physically visit every location.

Comparing visual data—say, when a maintenance vehicle turns up on site—with schedules speeds up validation. Similarly, by understanding traffic patterns in and out of the building and its perimeter, facility managers can make informed scheduling decisions with occupants in mind and effectively manage multiple workflows from a 30,000-foot view. These are just a couple of the many benefits facility managers can gain from monitoring activity from a single location, anywhere.

Speed Up Time to Action with Automated Deterrence and Alerts

It’s one thing for a facility manager to see everything—it’s another to find the time and mindshare to effectively act on everything (or contact the right folks to do so). Automation has arrived relatively quickly, with technology presenting ways to augment or scale certain tasks to improve outcomes for facility managers. In growth areas such as data centers and multitenant workspaces, security and surveillance requirements extend well beyond the four walls of a facility. Utilizing perimeter solutions with always-accessible surveillance and other automated systems offer a holistic approach to facility protection.

Jobsite intelligence solutions can have tremendous impact, supporting both site safety and security, and delivering peace of mind for facility managers and occupants. For example, outside of operating hours, cameras can detect and validate potential threats or bad actors. Using advanced camera technologies, including low light and IR illumination capture, detection accuracy is improved and the rate of false alarms decreased. This stops facility managers from being constantly disturbed or distracted without need.

Taking it one step further, jobsite intelligence solutions take security camera systems and add talk down deterrence capabilities so that action automatically takes place to further mitigate bad actors. And, if a bad actor has not been deterred, monitoring professionals can alert the proper authorities, speeding up time to action and delivering peace of mind for the facility manager. It’s all about feeling confident to perform the job in the best way possible. Jobsite intelligence solutions that secure, detect, and alert based on irregularities on the perimeter of a building go a long way in making that a reality.

Simplify Documentation and Maintain Compliance

The burgeoning jobsite intelligence space brings together visual data, security, deterrence, and more, all in one place—without the need for a complicated patchwork of disparate solutions. Streamlining siloed functions and taking a bigger picture view across facility manager operations opens the door to efficiencies that support growing roles and responsibilities. As a result, jobsite intelligence is also a powerful tool for documentation and compliance. By aggregating data, automating search, and sharing video and imagery, it simplifies the measurement of outcomes for all different groups of stakeholders whose job is to ensure successful builds, or renovations, or upgrades.

With added complexity in facilities, hybrid work models, and evolving security trends, running and protecting facilities (and a business’ physical footprint) means a lot to a brand. Not to mention that risk insurance policies are becoming increasingly complex and compliance requirements are evolving. Stakeholders across operations from human resources to information technology all have interest in the safety, security, and success of a facility. Giving them peace of mind with accurate, timely, and near-real time reporting accompanied by visual data accessible anytime, anywhere, instills confidence and gives people back time in their day.

Facility managers wear many hats. Centralizing all activity—including what takes place outside or on the perimeter of a facility—is challenging. Innovation in jobsite intelligence gives facility managers the means to simplify site management, augment time-consuming tasks, and speed up resolution of issues.

Facility managers—if you aren’t making the most of visual data, there’s opportunity aplenty with jobsite intelligence solutions.