HOUSTON - The International Facility Management Association (IFMA) has announced the release of its 2011 report “Facility Management Forecast – Exploring the Current Trends and Future Outlook for Facility Management.”

To help prepare its members and the profession for the future, IFMA periodically conducts a trend forecasting workshop with a panel of industry experts to identify the emerging trends and issues that will influence facility management in the coming years. Broader industry research is also conducted throughout the year and, taken together, results from the workshop and research initiatives form the basis of this report.

The trends identified include:

• Sustainability continues to grow in importance and prominence worldwide. Organizations have begun to incorporate it into business goals and culture, and within the profession, it has moved from an emphasis primarily for new construction to influencing existing building operations.

• Complex building systems and controls increasingly offer opportunities and challenges for the profession. The industry can leverage new technologies to better manage facilities, but it also needs to ensure adequate training is in place to educate practitioners on new systems.

• Facility management faces problems stemming from the aging building stock professionals manage - difficulties compounded by the global recession. As facilities and mechanical systems reach and exceed their expected operating lives, significant issues of “repair or replace” must be addressed.

• There is a growing recognition that facility management contributes to the health and well-being of building occupants, thereby benefiting efficiency, productivity and profitability - key pillars of an organization’s bottom line.

• Changing work styles significantly affect both occupant behavior and the vacancy rate of buildings, which affects how buildings must operate. Facility management increasingly faces challenges posed by open work plan arrangements, differing hours of operation, and varying occupancy rates and densities - all of which impact power use and other considerations.

“The 2011 ‘Facility Management Forecast’ presents what we see as the critical issues facing the profession,” said IFMA President and CEO Tony Keane, CAE. “It not only serves a needed strategic planning purpose, but also highlights areas the industry needs to pay attention to. With advances in technology and the growing recognition of sustainable practices, being aware of the trends in this report is critical to the success of the FM professional of the future.”

The “Facility Management Forecast” report is available online at http://www.ifma.org/resources/reports/pages/fm-outlook-2011.htm.

Publication date: 05/16/2011