Computer aided facilities management
- Space utilization, percent of desks used
- 60
- Desks empty on an average day
- 72
- Annual cost per desk provided
- $2,333.33
Every figure on this page is computed from the inputs entered, by the method stated below it. Cafmlane publishes no benchmark cost per square foot, no target utilisation, no expected asset life and no building rule: the areas, the costs, the hours and the lives are yours, and the defaults are a worked example to replace with your own.
Computer aided facilities management is a category before it is a product, and the useful way to approach it is to work out what you would ask it first. For most small estates there are three such questions and they are all arithmetic. How much of the space is used: 180 desks with 108 occupied is 60% utilization, and $168,000 of a $420,000 running cost carried by desks nobody sits at. What a square foot costs once everything is counted: $260,000 of rent and rates, $68,000 of utilities, $54,000 of maintenance and $38,000 of services is $30 a square foot and $3,500 a person, of which 62% is rent that no operational decision moves before a renewal. And whether the maintenance backlog is being cleared: 340 work orders at 2.5 hours against three technicians is a backlog growing 22.5 hours a week. This page walks what to judge in CAFM before a demo, and the free sheets on this site work all three figures with no account. One published reference sits under the maintenance half of the question: the US Department of Energy's A Guide to Achieving Operational Efficiency, release 3, which is the federal handbook for the condition and schedule records a CAFM is bought to keep.
Open the Computer aided facility management Free to use. No account, no card, no sign-up.
Work the three figures before you shortlist
Utilization, cost per square foot and backlog growth. They take a few minutes each on the free sheets here, and they tell you which of the three problems you actually have. A demo is very good at making whatever the product does look like the thing you needed.
Split the cost into fixed and controllable
On the worked example 62% is rent and rates, fixed until a break or renewal, and $160,000 is outside it. A savings target set against the whole $420,000 sets up a failure; one set against the $160,000 sets up a plan, and it also tells you whether the answer is software or a lease conversation.
Judge the software on the record it keeps
Assets with location, condition and expected life; spaces with occupancy; work orders against the asset they belong to, with a status and a date. Those three are what every figure above is computed from, and a system that holds them loosely cannot be fixed by better reporting on top.
Will the Computer aided facilities management answer it, or does the estate need a record behind it?
Tell us what your estate needs and we will tell you straight whether Cafmlane Pro does it today, whether it is coming, or whether you need a full IWMS instead. A person reads these and replies.
Computer aided facilities management: what the person answering for the buildings asks first
What is the difference between CAFM and an IWMS?
Scope. CAFM covers space, assets and maintenance; an integrated workplace management system adds lease administration, capital projects and often building automation. For an estate of a few sites the second is usually more system than the problem needs.
Do I need CAFM or a CMMS?
If the pain is work orders and planned maintenance, a CMMS may be enough. If it is also space and assets against a budget, that is CAFM. Working the three figures above usually makes the answer obvious within an hour.
What should CAFM cost a small estate?
This site publishes no market survey. Cafmlane Pro is $39 a month flat for the whole estate; what matters more than the headline is whether the record holds the three things above, because everything else is derived from them.
Cafmlane Pro
From the four figures to the record they came out of
The sheets are free forever. Pro turns them into the record: every asset with its condition and expected life, every space with its occupancy, every work order against the asset it belongs to, your organization's name and logo on what you print, no watermark, and an export when the board or the auditor asks.
- Download as PDF
- No Cafmlane watermark
- Save every sheet and reopen it later
- Your organization's name and logo on the paperwork
- Export every sheet and every record in one go
- Send a sheet to a contractor or your finance team
- Connect Stripe
- Connect your books
$39per month, whole team
Start Cafmlane Pro Free for 14 days. No card needed. PricingThe first 14 days are free and no card is asked for. Add a card during the trial and the first charge is on the day it ends; do not, and your workspace becomes read-only with nothing deleted. Renews monthly at the price above until you cancel. We email you before any price change.