The work of promoting the theme of Facility Management in Colombia and Latin America by the Colombian Association of Facility Management was developed in recent months both within the country and outside it.
By Building Management
Training activities continue to be the central axis of the work of the Colombian Association of Facility Management, the most recent activity of this type to be carried out was a free admission conference at the Pontifical Bolivarian University of Medellín, under the title "Introduction to Facility Management".
The speaker in charge of this meeting was Erick Cerquera, Coordinator of the SAG Infrastructure Administration and Management System at universidad Nacional de Colombia, the association seeks to publicize the main elements of this discipline that is making its way in Colombia.
The speaker has experience in building management mainly in higher education institutions, where he has developed and applied strategies for the optimization of resources, formulation of processes and procedures for their management. He is an Architect from the National University of Colombia in Medellín, candidate for a Master in Real Estate and Facility Management from the Polytechnic University of Madrid.
The conference given by Cerquera focused on 4 main aspects, these were the definition of Facility Management, a brief tour of its history and evolution, what should be the competencies of the Facility Manager and their roles.
In the first point the speaker offered four of the most popular definitions of this discipline, the first offered by the International Facilities Management Association (IFMA) in 2001, states that FM is "the exercise that results from combining the physical space, the people and the work to be developed; incorporating principles of business management, architecture, behavior and engineering".
For its part, the British Institute of Facilities Management (BIFM) in 2003 said that "Facilities Management is the integration of various activities within the work environment and the management of the impact on it and the people who interact in it".
While Professor Keith Alexander, noted in 1996 that "it is a process by which an organization produces and
maintains support agreements within an appropriate work environment to maximize the value of resources and
achieve strategic objectives".
Similarly, the BIFM encompasses the roles of a Facility Manager in 6 groups. These include understanding the organization, managing people, managing real estate, managing services, managing the work environment and managing resources.
In addition to the above, it is worth noting that the Association participated on June 4 and 5 in TecnoEdificios, a specialized event for building managers / Facility Managers, held at the Hotel El Panama in Panama City.
