We take buildings, floors, rooms and desks into a single inventory, and run lease and subscription contract dates, planned building maintenance and the inspection schedule for fire and safety equipment in the same system. The cost of running the facility thus becomes visible by building and by area.
A factory's machines are on the record; its building usually is not. While production equipment has its serial number, maintenance plan and fault history held somewhere, the roof, the compressor room, the transformer, the fire cabinet, the lift, the air handling unit and the storage area appear in nobody's inventory. This equipment causes no trouble until it fails, and when it does it stops production harder than the machines do. In practice this ownerless area is left to the personal follow-up of the administration team or of the maintenance supervisor. When was the air conditioning filter last changed, has the fire extinguisher's refill date passed, when was the generator last run — in most facilities the answer sits in one person's memory or on a chart pinned to the wall.
The second problem is space itself. How many square metres each department occupies, which warehouse zone is assigned to which job, who sits where and how much space is free are usually unknown. If there is a leased building or warehouse, it becomes more tangled still: the lease renewal date, the escalation clause, the service charge, the cleaning and security service contracts and the electricity, water, gas and internet subscriptions sit in separate folders. What these contracts have in common is that when nobody remembers them they either renew themselves or the service is cut off when they expire. Both are expensive by the time they are noticed, and they are usually noticed late. Most of the documents also sit in one person's email inbox; when that person leaves, the trail disappears completely.
The software for this area goes by two names, and the two are not the same thing. CAFM (Computer-Aided Facility Management) is narrower and operational: building and space inventory, room and desk allocation, maintenance requests and the scheduling of planned building maintenance belong here. IWMS (Integrated Workplace Management System) adds to that the property portfolio, lease and service contracts, facility costs and space utilisation efficiency. A single-building production facility usually starts with the need on the CAFM side; businesses with several facilities, branches or leased warehouses need the contract and cost layer on the IWMS side.
Let us set the expectation properly from the start. This system does not run the building automatically; it is not the same thing as building automation (BMS). The hardware and control layer that runs the air conditioning, dims the lighting and opens the card readers stays where it is. We manage the data that layer produces and the administrative work of the facility: inventory, schedules, contracts, requests and cost. One further warning: space management is not necessary for every facility. In a single-storey factory with a fixed layout, room and desk allocation is almost never used; the real need there is planned maintenance and contract tracking. Narrowing the scope to the need is better than buying a module you will not use. And we do not take that decision without walking the site; that is why discovery is the first step.
Factories that, beyond production equipment, also have to manage building assets such as the roof, the transformer, the compressor, the boiler room and the fire system. When no maintenance schedule is kept for these assets, the failure that follows can produce a longer stoppage than a production machine breaking down. Building equipment is mostly tied to maintenance contracts with outside firms; tracking those contracts sits in the same place.
Companies with more than one facility, branch, office or leased warehouse. Bringing lease renewal dates, escalation clauses and service contracts together in a single calendar is often, on its own, the item that pays for the investment in these businesses. The information each site keeps in its own folder comes together in one list, and locations become comparable on cost.
Teams running cleaning, security, catering, transport and technical maintenance services. When incoming requests are scattered over the phone, what has been done cannot be measured; a request record and a work order flow make the work this team produces visible for the first time. Request volume, closure times and recurring issues become the only concrete data available in a budget conversation.
Operators managing common areas, subscriptions and periodic inspections. Items such as lifts, generators, fire systems and water tanks have to be inspected at set intervals, and that has to be provable afterwards; a paper chart does not carry that proof. Being reminded of inspection dates in advance is the cheapest way to catch an overdue inspection.
The hierarchy of site, block, floor, room and area is built in a single record; the square metres, the purpose of use and the responsible department are defined for each area. Floor plans can be linked visually. How much space each department uses and where the free space is thus becomes measurable for the first time. Space records are also the basis of cost allocation; if the square metres are not defined, costs cannot be spread by building.
On the office side, desk and room allocation, move plans and meeting room usage are managed. Who sits where and which area is assigned to which team stay on the record. This capability is not needed in every facility; in fixed-layout factories we usually recommend leaving it out of scope. If the need arises later, the module is added on top of the same inventory and the data is not rebuilt.
A maintenance and inspection schedule is set up for items such as air handling units, generators, compressors, lifts, fire systems and water tanks. Work that falls due turns automatically into a work order and lands with the person responsible; when it is done, the record, the measured values and any certificate are added in the same place. Inspections that were missed or are overdue are gathered in a separate list; that list is the backbone of preparation before an audit.
Employees raise building-related requests through a single channel: a faulty socket, a leaking roof, an air conditioner that will not run. The request is prioritised, assigned to a team and its closure recorded. Which requests recur in which building is reported; a recurring request is usually the sign of a problem that needs investment. Because the person who raised the request can see its status on their own screen, the traffic of calls to the office also falls.
Contracts such as leases, service charges, cleaning, security and lift maintenance, together with electricity, water, gas and internet subscriptions, are held with their dates. Renewal, notice of termination and escalation dates are flagged in advance. The aim is to stop a contract renewing or ending without anyone knowing. The contract text, its annexes and the payment history are attached to the same record; whoever is looking does not have to search through folders.
The equipment in the building is taken into inventory; make, model, installation date, warranty expiry and the firm that maintains it are recorded. Spare parts and service history are attached directly to the asset. A replacement decision is therefore made not on a guess but by looking at that asset's past maintenance cost. Calling out paid service on equipment still under warranty is also prevented, and the inventory produces data for the insurance side as well.
Rent, energy, maintenance and service costs are collected by building and by area, and a cost per square metre is produced. In businesses with several facilities this comparison becomes the first concrete data showing which location is more expensive than expected, and it moves the discussion from opinion to data. Leased space and owned property are read separately; at budget time, actual spend becomes the basis of the estimate.
We walk the site and decide together which buildings, areas and equipment fall within scope. Whether the need is in space management, in the maintenance schedule or in contract tracking becomes clear at this stage; setting up all three at once is rarely the right call. Discovery usually takes one to two weeks and the scope is fixed in writing at the end of it.
The building hierarchy is set up and equipment is labelled on site and taken into inventory. This step takes effort and is usually underestimated; but if the inventory is incomplete, the maintenance schedule and the reports will be incomplete too. We start with critical equipment and widen the scope in stages. Labelling is carried out together with staff who know the facility and, depending on the size of the site, can take several weeks.
For each item of equipment, the maintenance interval, the responsible team or outside firm and the checklist for the work are defined. Items with an interval set by regulation or by contract are marked separately, because a provable record has to be kept for them. Checklists are kept short so that they can be completed on a mobile device; a long form is a form that does not get filled in on site.
The employee request channel goes live, contract and subscription records are entered with their dates, and how cost items will be allocated to buildings is decided. Who the reminders go to and how far in advance they are issued is agreed in writing. Scanning contracts and entering them into the system is the step that takes the most time; we start with the ones coming up for renewal.
The team moves onto the system; maintenance compliance, open requests, upcoming contract dates and cost-by-area reports are opened up. Over the first months, unused areas are simplified away, the maintenance compliance rate is monitored together and, if it is low, the reason is discussed. Maintenance and support continue; the source code and all the data are delivered to you.
No, and we do not go into that area. Building automation is the hardware and control layer that actually runs the air conditioning, the lighting, the boiler and access control. The system we build does not manage that layer, it works alongside it: it holds the inventory, the maintenance schedule, the requests, the contracts and the cost. We can read data from your existing automation or metering system and report on it; but control actions such as opening a valve, setting a temperature or opening a door are outside our scope, and we put that distinction in writing in the contract.
Technically it is possible, but it is usually not the right design. Maintenance of production equipment depends on the production plan, the cost of downtime and the shift pattern; maintenance of building equipment depends on the calendar and on regulation. The two also have different owners. In practice it runs more cleanly to keep the building side in this system and the production machines on the maintenance and predictive maintenance side. The two systems can be connected so that they share a common asset record structure; if that is what you need, we discuss it at discovery.
In most production facilities, of limited use. In a single-storey factory with a fixed layout, desk allocation is almost never used; the real need there is the maintenance schedule and contract tracking. Space management mainly makes sense in places with multi-storey offices, teams that move often, or space that is let out. If there is no need, we recommend leaving this module out of scope; an unused screen reduces trust in the system as a whole.
A calendar reminds you but carries no context. In the system the contract is attached to the relevant building and asset; alongside it sit the contract text, the amount paid, the escalation clause, the notice period and the past terms. The reminder goes to a role, not to one person; when that person leaves, the follow-up is not lost. And because all contracts are visible in a single list, total commitments and upcoming renewals are read together. A personal calendar gives you none of this.
We can collect consumption by building and by area here and tie it to cost; what each building spends and the energy cost per square metre are within the scope of this page. But collecting meter and field data, allocating consumption by machine and by line down to the product, and preparing mandatory reporting are a separate job; that is described in the energy management module. We connect the two sides, but you should not expect the depth of the energy side from this module.
An inventory of buildings, floors, areas and building equipment; a planned maintenance and inspection schedule, with records proving the work was done; a request and work order flow raised by employees; leases, subscriptions and service contracts held in one list with their dates and flagged in advance; and cost reports by building and by area. The source code, the database and all the facility data that accumulates belong to you.
In a 30-minute discovery call we listen to what you need and tell you honestly whether custom development or an off-the-shelf product is the better answer.
We build a human resources layer that brings employee records, documents, leave and absence, the organisation chart and employee self-service together in a single record. It does not replace payroll; it prepares the data that goes to payroll accurately and traceably, and it connects to the timekeeping and PDKS (time and attendance) side through the same employee record.
Details →We build a system that runs the whole candidate process in a single flow, from drafting the job ad through to the offer and the handover to onboarding. Whichever channel applications arrive through, they collect in a searchable pool, assessments are written on a shared form, and retention periods and data destruction are put on record.
Details →We give every rack and bin in your warehouse an address and record every movement by barcode. From goods receipt to put-away, from pick routing to dispatch checks, the flow runs on handheld terminals; underneath the quantity figure in your ERP we add the physical location of the goods and who moved them, and when.
Details →We capture incoming, in-process and final inspection records on a tablet on the shop floor; when a non-conformance appears we quarantine the goods, start the corrective and preventive action (DÖF / CAPA) flow and follow it through to closure. Measurements, certificates and approvals accumulate by batch, so you go into an ISO 9001 audit with a file that is already prepared rather than one assembled retrospectively from binders.
Details →Working from your bill of materials (BOM), we calculate which material is needed, in what quantity and by when; then we deduct stock on hand, open orders and lead times to produce dated order proposals for purchasing. With the MRP II layer we also test the same plan against machine capacity and labour.
Details →We build the software a dealership, a showroom and an authorised service centre run their own business on: vehicle or product stock, the showroom sales process, service appointments and work orders, warranty claims and integration with manufacturer-side systems come together in one structure. Your existing accounting package stays where it is, and the source code is yours.
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