The use of facility management within a company is indispensable in the strong market competition of today, according to experts. This is underscored by László Bérczi, a member of the board of the Hungarian Real Estate Association (MAISZ), and the president of its property management committee, who told NAPI Real Estate that the conditions for maintaining and operating a given property - together with its advantages and costs -, have to be taken into account already during the planning stage, especially if the product will be in operation for decades.
Today, factors such as whether the sun shines into the office or not, how large energy consumption is, or how high other maintenance costs are, are at least as important as a favourable blueprint or investment conditions. This is why Bérczi also believes that facility management has a role to play at companies, as with its complex outlook, it places emphasis on the given property's entire life cycle, its use during the whole cycle, and the total costs of this lifespan.
So the question of to what extent a headquarters, office or other building bears the marks of modern facility management on it is decided already on the drawing board. The architect decides on how the building will be segmented, the ratios of the spaces, the travel corridors, etc.: these things influence not only whether the building can be furnished optimally, but also how many workers can be placed in given rooms, and how economic its operation will be. Also decided during the planning stage is how energy-efficient the building engineering and power systems will be later during operation, how durable the flooring - parquet, tile, carpet, etc. - will be and how easy it is to clean.
Therefore, István Hajnal, the CEO of Biggeorge's NV Zrt, believes that optimalisation calculations should be made, during which the lifespan, operating costs, and the cost of the project should all be taken into account. This is because it's important that the main aspects of facility management be at hand, such as cutting operating costs, increasing the lifespan of the building complex, its simple and cheap maintenance, assuring flexibility, and last but not least, the possibility of building in measurement and regulation possibilities. There are several solutions for the latter, but the primary goal is to be able to modify measurement and regulation points in a sensible way, in line with the changes in needs and area use throughout the years.
