Bild & Pinal

Organizations have considerable money invested in real estate and facilities assets. Yet facilities management is viewed by many as a cost center or just a maintenance function. With shrinking budgets, facility managers are repeatedly asked to streamline operations and reduce the expense of facilities maintenance.

The difficulty in any general cost-cutting initiative is identifying and eliminating the non-productive excessive costs that can be cut. The tendency is to search for quick-hit, big-ticket cost reductions that won’t adversely affect operations. In most facilities departments, these big-ticket items don’t exist. And, when they do, they will typically only provide a one-time cost savings that doesn’t really reduce your ongoing budgets.

To truly reduce budget needs, facility managers need to implement true and sustainable cost reduction strategies. This type of cost reduction involves identifying where excessive costs are leaking and closing the leaks. These slow cost “leaks” are your hidden costs. On your…