ey Takeaways: Building owners and project teams can make more informed sustainability decisions by collaborating early, scrutinizing environmental claims and evaluating materials for their lifecycle costs, performance and impacts on human and environmental health. Reusing and reconfiguring existing buildings, furniture and materials can reduce waste and project costs, making end-of-life planning and strategies for reuse, donation and recycling important parts of project planning. Integrating sustainability into everyday design, procurement and operational decisions helps facility leaders balance upfront budgets, occupant well-being and long-term performance while building momentum through achievable improvements. The word sustainability is more prevalent than ever, but making sustainable decisions still can feel daunting for those seeking to create meaningful change kin institutional and commercial facilities.
Read This » Building Enclosure Performance Starts With Proactive Planningey Takeaways: Engaging enclosure specialists early in the design process helps project teams identify risks, select appropriate systems and account for long-term operational and maintenance needs. Air and water testing, construction administration and on-site verification help identify enclosure deficiencies before assemblies are concealed and repairs become more costly. Long-term maintenance plans built around regular inspections, documented findings and scheduled interventions can reduce lifecycle costs and prevent building enclosure issues from disrupting facility operations. While investigative expertise is essential for existing buildings, its value extends even further when integrated early in the design process.
Read This » Preserving How Your Facilities Teams Actually Decideey Takeaways: Facilities leaders should document not only operational decisions but also the reasoning, alternatives considered and conditions behind them to preserve institutional knowledge and prevent past problems from recurring. Maintaining a shared decision log with review dates and criteria for reconsideration helps teams evaluate outcomes, adapt to changing conditions and continuously improve operational practices. Involving technicians and coordinators in explaining their decisions builds critical thinking and judgment, while documented reasoning helps preserve organizational knowledge during leadership transitions and staff turnover. In our field, reactivity tends to take over.
Read This » Finding Your Voice as a Woman in Facilities ManagementWhat does it take to build a successful career without truly letting the career define who you are as a person? In this episode of Facilities in Focus, Mackenna Moralez sits down with Tia Freiburger, director of facilities and operations at Under Armour and former Building Operating Management cover star, for a candid conversation about leadership, career growth and the evolving role of women in facilities management.
Read This » 5 Key Considerations for Designing Public Works Facilitiesey Takeaways: Long-term master planning helps municipalities anticipate growth, changing equipment needs and evolving service demands when designing public works facilities. Organizing buildings, fleet operations, storage and traffic patterns around daily workflows can improve operational efficiency, reduce bottlenecks and support employee safety. Involving public works employees early in the design process and prioritizing comfortable, functional support spaces can help municipalities address operational needs while improving employee satisfaction and retention. Public works facilities are essential to keeping communities running.
Read This » Count the Cycles: Budget Your Overhead Doors Before They Budget Youey Takeaways: Overhead-door springs should be budgeted by their cycle rating—not years—because high-use commercial bays can exhaust a standard 10,000-cycle spring in roughly one year, making regular cycle counts essential for proactive replacement planning.
Read This » How Discrete Event Simulation Improves Facility Design and Efficiencyey Takeaways: Discrete event simulation allows design teams to test workflows, compare scenarios and identify potential bottlenecks before committing to costly construction, equipment or infrastructure investments. DES helps optimize complex operations, including manufacturing automation, electric bus charging, warehouse logistics and loading dock activity, by modeling real-world conditions and resource demands. Simulating the movement of people, vehicles and equipment can help facility owners validate space requirements, reduce congestion and improve productivity before facilities become operational. Early in the design process, designers can bake in key decisions on flows, adjacencies, distances, material handling methods and other aspects of facility operations.
Read This » Cross Training is the Best Staffing Strategy Facility Managers Already Haveey Takeaways: Facilities leaders should assess whether staffing gaps stem from insufficient headcount or concentrated institutional knowledge before deciding to hire additional employees or outsource work. Strategic cross training prepares multiple employees to handle critical tasks such as preventive maintenance scheduling, vendor coordination and building systems troubleshooting, reducing disruptions when key staff members are unavailable. Mapping the team’s 10 most critical recurring tasks and identifying backup employees can help facility leaders prioritize training, identify genuine staffing needs and make more informed decisions about contractor support. Every facility leader eventually faces the same question: hire another person or bring in a contractor? Budgets rarely make that decision easy, and the answer usually depends on what you can see on paper.
Read This » Taking a Closer, Critical Look at IAQey Takeaways: Monitor indoor air quality to spot ventilation problems, mold and other hazards before they escalate. Prioritize maintenance, effective ventilation and filtration, and safer purchasing to reduce occupant exposure. Design and operate buildings around the needs of children and people with disabilities—healthier, more accessible spaces benefit everyone. “Our goal could not be clearer – to make healthy indoor air the norm, not the exception in every building everywhere.” – Rick Fedrizzi, Executive Chairman, International WELL Building Institute How many people, when they consider the biggest impacts on their health, would include the buildings they occupy on the list? Surely not many – yet the high-caliber experts presenting at the third Healthy Building Policy Summit held in late September in Washington, D.C., are seeking to change that. The interdisciplinary collection of speakers and attendees – from academia, industry, government and non-governmental organizations – made a compelling case for treating the condition and management of institutional and commercial buildings as a major factor in human health with research, investment and practice geared accordingly.
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