Practical guides on choosing, running and getting value from facility management software, written by the HITEK AI team.
Energy management software captures a building's consumption automatically and turns it into cost, carbon and performance answers: what each load costs at your tariff, where it spikes and what to fix first. In the UAE, where slab tariffs and Net Zero reporting both apply, platforms such as POWERTEK connect meter data to savings.
AI fault detection watches equipment sensor readings continuously. The moment a reading crosses its set limit, the system raises an alarm, creates a work order and assigns it to the right technician. Failures get caught while they are still cheap to fix, so fewer jobs arrive as emergency callouts and reactive spend shrinks.
The best CAFM software for UAE portfolios must handle UAE SLA structures, integrate BMS and IoT data, report energy and carbon KPIs, and use AI to predict failures rather than just log them. This guide lists the eight capabilities to evaluate and how CAFMTEK by HITEK AI meets them.
A WhatsApp chatbot for facility service requests lets building users report a problem in a chat instead of calling a helpdesk or logging into a portal. The message creates a job in your CAFM system, and the user gets status updates back in the same chat. It works well for simple, high-volume requests from people who do not have system logins. It does not replace a helpdesk for complex or urgent problems.
To set up a CAFM asset register, first decide what counts as an asset, then build your location hierarchy, agree an ID scheme, choose the fields you will record, survey the site, tag the equipment, check the data for errors and load it into the system. Get the location structure and the ID scheme right before you collect anything, because both are painful to change later.
TFM (total facilities management) means outsourcing all your facility services to one provider under a single contract. IFM (integrated facilities management) means bringing all facility functions under one management structure, whether the work is done in-house, outsourced, or both. TFM is a sourcing decision about who delivers the work. IFM is an operating model about how the whole function is managed.
Cloud CAFM software runs on the vendor's servers and you reach it through a browser or app. On-premise CAFM software runs on servers you own and control. Cloud suits most teams because it costs less to start and needs no in-house IT. On-premise suits organisations with strict data rules, poor internet, or an existing server setup they want to use.
Maintenance KPIs are the measures a facility team uses to judge how well maintenance is working. The most common are PPM completion rate, the planned vs reactive ratio, MTTR, MTBF, first-time fix rate and asset uptime. Pick a small set that answers real questions, calculate them the same way every month, and act on what they show.
An SLA sets the response and completion times a facility management provider must meet. To track performance, agree priority levels and clock rules, record the time each job is reported, attended and completed, then measure the share of jobs closed within target. Review the misses each month and fix the causes.
Planned maintenance is work scheduled in advance to keep equipment in good condition, such as routine servicing and inspections. Reactive maintenance is work done after something breaks or a fault is reported. Most buildings need both. The goal is to plan enough work that breakdowns become rare, while letting some low-risk assets run until they fail.
A planned preventive maintenance (PPM) schedule is a calendar of routine servicing tasks for every asset in a building. To build one, list your assets, rank them by how critical they are, define each task, set intervals, spread the work across the year and assign owners. Then track completion and adjust the intervals using real data.
This glossary explains 35 common facility management terms in plain English. It covers FM software (CAFM, CMMS, IWMS), maintenance types (PPM, reactive, predictive), performance measures (SLA, MTTR, first-time fix rate), asset data, work management, building technology and FM contract types. Each term has a one-line definition and a short example.
