myfacilitiesnet

For all the number crunching that goes on in a data center, one number is often conspicuous by its absence: PUE (power usage effectiveness). PUE is a metric that shows how much of the power supplied to the data center is being used by IT equipment. While PUE has its critics, it remains a good benchmark that can help improve the energy efficiency of the data center facility infrastructure. PUE was introduced in 2007...

Amid the disparate day-to-day challenges facing facility managers, the long term agenda increasingly revolves around the pressing need to transform buildings. Many forces are driving that transformation — developments in technology and behavior that are altering the way people use the built environment; efforts to improve human health, learning, and collaboration; the need for resilience, the subject of the cover...

Facility managers have argued for years that the physical environment can help employees be more productive. The rub is quantifying the financial impact of factors like indoor air quality, comfort, daylight, and so on. There are plenty of studies showing that various facility-related measures have produced benefits in other organizations, but those studies don’t make it possible to project gains from specific measures...

It was a small, hand-lettered sign on the grassy strip between the eastbound and westbound lanes of a boulevard: “Real estate investment trainee wanted. Earn $10,000/month.” I have no idea whether anyone called the phone number on the sign, but if anyone did, it was surely in the belief that big money can be made by selling buildings. That opinion has a solid basis in fact. Plenty of people do very well...

At a time when the federal government is debating a drastic shift in budget priorities — changes that would affect billions of dollars in appropriations and have a direct impact on the lives of millions of Americans — the fate of the Energy Star program might seem like a small issue. But Energy Star, one program that may be cut in the new budget, is a vital tool for making organizations more efficient by reducing...