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For the past few years, Building Operating Management has surveyed facility managers about changes in capital budgets and staffing levels. Step by small step, those numbers have improved. While the changes from year to year have not been dramatic, the cumulative shift is noteworthy. In 2012, the first year we asked about capital budgets, 30 percent of respondents reported increases in the previous year, and 30 percent...

As many facility managers know by now, the Energy Star scores for most buildings dropped when the program plugged in newly available national data on average facility energy performance. Although Energy Star is reviewing the mathematical models on which the 1 to 100 ratings are based, the underlying facility energy consumption numbers haven’t changed. And those numbers offer good news: The new national performance...

With retreat at the federal level, the role of facility managers in tackling the challenge of climate change has never been greater, as Greg Zimmerman’s cover story makes clear. Fortunately, the actions taken to reduce greenhouse gas emissions also bring other significant benefits that can help facility managers win funding for steps to reduce those emission. The most familiar benefit is also the most important...

The concept of just-in-time manufacturing — revolutionary when it began to spread across U.S. factories in the 1980s — sought to reduce inventory to a very low level. The idea was to save money and reduce waste by making inventory more timely. A just-in-time philosophy has now taken hold across the real estate and facilities industry. It was once taken for granted that corporations would hold enough inventory...

The disastrous series of major hurricanes that hit last year — Harvey, Irma, and Maria — gave facility managers good reason to revisit their emergency response plans, with a particular eye on preparations for floods. A recent study from the University of Bristol in England offers more reason for concern: The risk of serious flooding across the United States is significantly greater than generally realized...