According to Statista, there are more than 3.8bn smartphone users in the world today. Nearly half (48%) of people have a smartphone today, and while this is not the majority, the smartphone industry is rapidly growing. As smartphones are so easily accessible, it is only a matter of time before mobile devices are leveraged by companies and their employees.
Building and facility maintenance management is a crucial part of the commercial real estate industry. After all, leaving a building or facility in a state of disrepair is the quickest route to failure. With maintenance management being so vital, we will look at how a mobile CMMS can benefit the building and facility management departments from a commercial real estate perspective.
If you are reading this, you will already be familiar with a Computerised Maintenance Management System (CMMS). CMMS are digital maintenance systems that manage the maintenance tasks within a company.
Benefits of a CMMS
Many employees have a smartphone, which can operate a mobile CMMS. Enabling employees to be more flexible and efficiently address complex maintenance tasks.
Maintenance work order assignments can be unnecessarily complicated to assign and monitor. For both the employer and maintenance employee. Mobile accessibility provides employees with more flexibility. With CMMS systems providing a single secure cloud-based platform, if a company needs to manage and maintain multiple facilities, they can be sure that work orders can be sent from several facilities to a single platform through a mobile device.
The maintenance can then be scheduled and assigned. This is made possible through a mobile CMMS as employees do not have to go back to their office to log the request. It can be done immediately. This ability to communicate efficiently and work from anywhere is provided by a mobile CMMS.
It can also be noted that mobile CMMS may have benefits over another CMMS that is only accessible through a computer. The accessibility and flexibility of a smartphone can allow employees to do the following:
Include pictures and videos within a maintenance request: With maintenance work order requests, the more context provided the easier it will be to repair. With a mobile CMMS, employees can attach pictures and videos with the maintenance request, which will assist the maintenance employee in attending to the work order.
Easily access maintenance and facility information: The flexibility provided by having a CMMS in an employee's pocket means that information on a facility, or several facilities, can be accessed immediately on a smartphone. Having the ability to access or store information is advantageous for real estate companies, as they often have many buildings they need to maintain. An added benefit of this feature is the reduction in the amount of paper being used, which is always a welcomed benefit.
Conduct inspections with ease: A key responsibility within commercial real estate is inspection. Simplifying this process so that the information can be uploaded as the inspection takes place streamlines the process. This is beneficial for employees who no longer have to write down information and then go back to their office to input the data.
With a deeper understanding of the benefits derived from a mobile CMMS, we can begin to understand why so many real estate companies are embracing it for building maintenance needs.
Digitisation was viewed as the next advancement with maintenance, for all industries and sectors. Mobile maintenance applications are on course to being the next notable advancement. By implementing a mobile CMMS within your commercial real estate company today, your company would provide you with an advantage over the late adopters and is the responsible decision to make.
