FM BENCHMARKING QuickStart Guide
Get up and running in less than 1 hour!
This QuickStart Guide will help you get started with FM BENCHMARKING. This approach will allow you obtain FM BENCHMARKING's key output reports in minimal time.
This Guide applies to the FM BENCHMARKING Costs Survey. The Sustainability Survey is mostly a simple checking of whether a feature of your building exists or doesn't—it should not take you very long to complete the Sustainability Survey. The separate Getting Started Guide provides full information on the Sustainability Survey as well as other aspects of FM BENCHMARKING not included in this QuickStart Guide.
We are offering two levels of data entry. The Super QuickStart will allow you to get all the basics for essential benchmarking in less than one hour. The QuickStart will yield even more meaningful results in just a little more time.
Super QuickStart
By inputting these data fields you will be able to see how your performance compares with others on most of the Key Performance Indicator (KPI) charts in minimal time. Look for the
The majority your SuperQuick data will be input in the Demographics section. These will be needed for you to filter your data when generating output reports. You will probably have most of the Demographic information at your fingertips (e.g., number of floors in your building, etc.).
In the Utilities section, there are five suggested Super QuickStart data entry fields, two for the Maintenance section, and one each for the Custodial and Security sections. Here is the data you will need to have available:
- Annual cost of electricity
- Annual cost of water + sewer
- Annual cost of natural gas
- Annual cost of any other energy
- Annual consumption of electricity
- Total building annual maintenance cost for corrective and scheduled maintenance (not including exceptional costs, such as replacing a chiller or a roof)
- Total building annual custodial cost
- Area cleaned
- Total building annual security cost
You now will have completed Super QuickStart and will have enough data in the system to begin obtaining value from FM BENCHMARKING.
As you go, feel free to input any other data that you have handy. It will never hurt you to input more than just the Super QuickStart data—rather, it will make your benchmarking efforts that much more meaningful.
TIP! If you don't have all the data handy for Super QuickStart, skip over it for now. You always may input it later. The only ramification is that until you input those data, you will not be able to see how your building compares to others for that data field. This Tip applies to all parts of FM BENCHMARKING.
Before moving onto the next step, we recommend that you review the Analysis reports you have generated so far, and note any areas specific to your facility or company that you want to be sure to include in the next phase of data entry. Then come back and add those data entry fields in QuickStart below.
QuickStart
The QuickStart data fields will enable you to understand better which key performance indicators for your building are most different to those from other buildings. These fields are preceded by the
Besides some of the fields containing your building metrics, you will be inputting some of your best practices here as well. From the best practices, you will be able to identify not only where your building is performing better or worse than other comparable ones, but what can be done to improve its performance. This is where most participants really begin to see the value and payoff from FM BENCHMARKING. If you stop with the Super QuickStart, you will know where you stand compared to others in the FM BENCHMARKING database—but you'll still need the best practices to know how to improve your performance.
QuickStart contains a few full time equivalent (FTE) workforce questions that allow you make comparisons of the workforce productivity, and the best practices questions are answered in a Yes/No format that most FMs can go thru quickly. We estimate that the total time required to complete QuickStart will be 60-90 minutes after the Super QuickStart is completed.
You then will be ready to run the Tabular Analysis reports and see how your best practices compare to others in your performance quartile and the next better-performing quartile.
What to do after the QuickStart
Once you have completed the QuickStart, you will have all the basics you need to get much of the value out of FM BENCHMARKING. We highly recommend that you first complete the rest of the best practices data fields, which should take you no longer than an additional hour.
To maximize the value from FM BENCHMARKING, you should continue and input the additional data fields, as you have time. The more you input, the more you will get out of the system. For example, when inputting utilities, you have already input the amount spent for water + sewer. If you want to learn more about where the money is going, and how that compares to others in the FM BENCHMARKING database, you may want to break this out into separate totals for water and sewer. Similarly, you may want to break your maintenance cost data down by the individual trades (electrical, plumbing, carpentry, etc.).
You may do this at any time, and may go back and modify your numbers at any time as well. To get a complete understanding of these other data fields, please see the Getting Started Guide.