Fundamentals of Facility Management

This article is intended for facility managers and property managers.

Definition of Facility Management

Facility Management (FM) involves the management and maintenance of all support services related to the use of buildings and properties. Whether it’s production facilities, office buildings, industrial sites, shopping centers, or residential spaces, facility management ensures that everything operates smoothly and efficiently.

What Does Facility Management Include?

• Technical Management: Covers all tasks related to building maintenance and technical systems. This includes regular inspections, repairs, and upkeep of HVAC systems, electrical installations, plumbing, and other infrastructure.
• Security: Ensures the safety of people and property through access control, fire protection systems, surveillance cameras, and security personnel.
• Cleaning Services: Regular cleaning of all areas, including indoor spaces and outdoor grounds maintenance.
• Energy Management: Focuses on optimizing energy consumption and implementing energy-saving measures to reduce costs and environmental impact.
• Facility Services: Encompasses additional services such as waste management, catering, groundskeeping, vehicle fleet management, and more.

Detailed information about each building and property

• All the information you need to see at a glance is kept in the details. It is a good idea to put in the details the information by which you will want to search in the buildings. It can be specified using tags, where you can specify whether the building is air-conditioned, has barrier-free access, and so on. Then there is nothing easier when a request comes to rent a space with certain requirements, use our filters and you immediately have what you need.

How Aptien Streamline Technical Building and Property Management

As a facility or property manager, overseeing the daily operations, maintenance, and security of your assets can be complex. Aptien simplifies facility management by providing powerful, easy-to-use tools to track and manage your buildings, equipment, and infrastructure—all in one centralized platform.

With Aptien, you can manage:

• Buildings, Rooms, Doors, and Access Systems: Keep detailed records of properties, rooms, keys, and access cards, with seamless connections between all components for better oversight.
• Custom Asset Organization: Whether you manage by floors, zones, or departments, Aptien’s flexible structure allows you to customize asset tracking to fit your specific operational needs—no coding or IT support required.
• Preventive and Planned Maintenance: Schedule recurring maintenance tasks to reduce downtime, extend equipment life, and ensure regulatory compliance.
• Real-Time Issue Reporting: Quickly report, track, and resolve maintenance issues directly from any device, improving response times and operational efficiency.
• Automated Inspection Management: Never miss a compliance deadline. Aptien tracks inspection schedules for safety systems, equipment, and facilities with automated reminders.
• Operational Logs: Maintain a digital logbook of maintenance activities, inspections, repairs, and service history for full accountability.
• Equipment Inventory Management: Simplify physical audits and track the status, location, and condition of all assets with ease.
• Seamless Asset Handover: Manage the assignment and transfer of rooms, equipment, and facilities efficiently, with digital records of every transaction.

Why Choose Aptien for Facility Management?

Aptien bridges the gap between spreadsheets and complex enterprise systems, offering an intuitive platform tailored for small to mid-sized businesses. Whether you’re managing office buildings, production facilities, or multi-site operations, Aptien helps you improve efficiency, ensure compliance, and gain full control over your property management processes.

Building Maintenance Log

The Building Maintenance Log is a centralized record where you document all maintenance activities and tasks performed on a property. It provides a comprehensive history of the building’s upkeep, including:

• Preventive Maintenance: Scheduled tasks to keep equipment and systems in optimal condition.
• Repairs: Documentation of corrective actions taken to fix issues or restore functionality.
• Renovations and Upgrades: Records of major improvements, reconstructions, or modifications.
• Inspections: Details of safety checks, compliance inspections, and routine assessments.
• Operational Activities: Notes on facility-related events, vendor visits, or service calls.

Maintaining a detailed log helps facility managers track the property’s condition over time, monitor recurring issues, ensure regulatory compliance, and make informed decisions about future maintenance needs. Whether it’s a specific building, floor, or room, the maintenance log keeps all critical information organized and easily accessible.

Documentation of buildings and property

For each inspection, the inspector issues a report, which you save in the Attachments tab. Here you will always have it to hand. You can also save other necessary documents for each building, such as various building plans, handover protocols, commissioning documents, etc.

Tracking inspections associated with the building

Building maintenance also includes meeting safety and legislative requirements. These are mainly reports and inspections of equipment. You will create an activity plan in the building records, which will monitor all periodic inspections and reports for you. We recommend keeping these plans for equipment that is permanently fitted to the building. For those that can be moved, we recommend using a separate "Other assets" Organizer.

For each item, the inspection technician will draw up a report for you after the inspection, which you can save in the attachments tab, where you will always have it to hand. You can also save other necessary documentation for each building, such as various building plans.

Reporting building or property defects

• The helpdesk for reporting defects on properties, buildings or parts of buildings is available to you
• Employees or customers can report defects here
• The request is automatically redirected to the person responsible for resolving it

Contracts

Various contracts are inherently linked to the care and operation of buildings and other property. It can be, for example, a contract for carrying out revisions, a rental contract, if you rent the property or part of it. Here you can use the option of linking to the Organizer of contracts. It is incredibly convenient to just select a property and have all contractual information at the click of a mouse.