Our industry relies on the expertise of consultants to a degree that might be uncommon in other fields. Being able to leverage the expertise of veteran facility management professionals is vital, though, for a number of reasons: They can explain key ideas to clients and employees, they can coordinate the efforts of suppliers and vendors, and they can instill a confidence in the value of high-quality facility management and building automation.
Below are 20 FM consultancies from across the globe that are doing great work. Of course, there are some big names that might be recognizable for people even outside of our industry, but we also wanted to use this opportunity to highlight the work of smaller firms and more niche consultancies.
ERS was founded in 2007 by Craig Sheehy, and in just seven years the company has become one of the country’s biggest LEED consultancies. It currently has 160 certified buildings with more than 60 million square feet under contract. Among the consultancy’s current projects is the 1.5-million-square-foot Northpark Town Center in Atlanta.
Arup is the engineering company that helped build the iconic Sydney Opera House. Since 1973, when the opera house opened, Arup has partnered with the facility maintenance team to ensure operations. In 2007, Arup helped create a new facilities management system for the opera house that also included a framework for future refurbishments.
Facilities Management Partners, LLC
FMP’s principal is Robert Cottrell, who in his 30-year career has been the facility manager at 4 World Trade Center and the American Stock Exchange in New York. He was also at the World Trade Center on 9/11 and helped evacuate the NYBOT building. He later represented the Board of Trade when it had to change facilities in 2003, when it built a new trading floor.
Facility Management Consultants
FMC acted as the project manager when Mayo Medical Laboratories renovated their new space then had to be relocated. In 12 months, they negotiated the lease, acquired the permits and completed the renovation, then relocated facilities for more than 100 technicians so that their new space would allow Mayo to grow. The relocation involved no down time.
Facilitate Consulting President Greg Donato is the 2005 winner of the Building Owners and Managers Association (BOMA) Pinnacle Award for Outstanding Corporate Headquarters. Scholastic President and CEO Richard Robinson has spoken highly of Donato, referring to when Donato was Corporate Director of Facilities and Real Estate.
“During his years with the company, Greg masterminded major relocation strategies across a 6.5 million square foot real estate portfolio,” Robinson said.
Facility Management World Wide, Ltd.
When Swiss healthcare company Hoffman-La Roche needed help developing a master maintenance plan for its new $93 million laboratory facility, FMWW joined up with Facilities Management Engineering to get the new facility technically and functionally up to date so research work would go unimpeded. Everything from yard services to HVAC to energy management to laundry was studied to make the new location as efficient as possible.
FM360’s principal and owner, John Rimer, is a 17-year industry veteran who consults for companies and trains facility managers, and he tries to offer macro-level perspectives about the industry.
“We [as FM professionals] have had our noses pressed so firmly against the grinding stone trying to solve the variety of problems thrown at us daily that we have not had the opportunity to pursue the betterment of our education or facility program,” he wrote in January 2014. “In short, we have been too busy firefighting. However, it is incumbent upon us for the sake of our own sanity and the benefit of our employers, colleagues, and industry that we must pull ourselves out of the mire to find and implement better ways of managing the built environment — this requires us to always be moving forward and, again, to always be learning.”
Gardiner & Theobald is a nearly 180-year-old company that got started in London but now operates globally, offering a range of consulting services in the property and construction industries. One current client is the city council of Edinburgh, Scotland, which seeks to cut its 44-million-pound annual expenditure on FM by 30%. G&T is taking on the role of technical advisor to “create specifications and KPI, advising on pricing strategies, attending dialogue and evaluating bidder proposals.”
Facilities Management Advisors, LLC
Denver consultancy FMA reports an average 2,000% ROI among its customers (i.e. $20 saved for every $1 spent with FMA). The company’s client list primarily includes Fortune 500 companies, corporate real estate firms, healthcare institutions and facility service contractors.
“I believe the same premise is applicable to all market segments, namely, to drive responsible innovations that yield sustained cost savings and added value and performance of your work,” writes President and CEO John Garrett.
WT Partnership is an independent international consultancy that, in addition to facility management, offers building consulting, health and safety consulting, and consulting on other matters related to property and construction. Head of FM Consultancy Services Dean Smith is a 25-year industry veteran who previously worked as the Projects and Estates Services Manager for Lloyds of London.
WT Partnership just opened a new office in Bali, its third in Indonesia, in August.
NEXT Facility Management Services, Inc.
NEXT is a relatively new consultancy, having been formed in 2008 in Canada to specifically target integrated townships; corporate offices; and academic, healthcare and non-profit organizations. CEO John Ringness has been an FM professional since 1981, having worked for such big names as Marriott and ARAMARK.
A portion of all of NEXT’s revenue goes to support Harbour House, a community project in Poona, India, that provides life skills to people who might not otherwise receive such training.
Thomson FM is an independent, UK-based consultancy that specializes in facility management and life-cycle cost consulting. Its client list in just 11 years of operation has included retailer Marks & Spencer and transportation organizations such as London Eastern Railway and National Express Group.
Neller Davies is an independent consultancy that works across the UK. In addition to facility management consulting, ts services include consulting in catering, procurement and contracts, and statutory compliance. Clients have included HSBC, National Health Services, and Fidelity Investments.
Principal Julian Fris started his firm in 2005 after eight years as the Head of Catering and Principal Facilities Manager at the BBC.
Southern Cross Property Consultants
San Diego firm SCPC works in a different market than most of the companies on this list. SCPC helps clients throughout Southern California maximize the value of their property investments — including homes — and decrease operating costs through FM best practices.
Projects have included the installation of nearly 300 solar panels on the roof of the First Unitarian Universalist Church of San Diego, a project that currently saves the church about $1850 per month in utilities costs.
FM Guru Consultancy and Training
FM Guru’s Senior FM Consultant and Founding Principal Martin Pickard is a facility management professional with more than 40 years of experience in the industry. Since founding his consultancy in 2003, Pickard and his colleagues have worked with clients such as Barclays Capital and global security company G4S.
Massachusetts-based PRP offers consulting for operational effectiveness, facility life-cycle performance and business practices. Managing Partner Mark L. Heroux brings his own personal experience in having saved a 120-million-square-foot facility 10% on its costs by evaluating its building system’s efficiencies and its operating conditions, among other achievements.
Cascade Facilities Management Consultants Ltd.
Cascade is a consultancy that works primarily in British Columbia, Canada. The company’s president, Bill Low, is a local professional planner and engineer. Cascade’s clients have included BC Hyrdo, multiple province-level ministries and multiple local school districts.
Agile OAK is one of the world’s largest FM consultancies, with four head offices in the United States plus overseas offices and affiliates in Paris, Shanghai, Frankfurt and Vienna.
One of Agile OAK’s recent projects included an evaluation of the outsourced facility services at “A New York-based college of an Ivy League University,” which found that while the services were cost-effective, there was room for improvement in customer services. Agile OAK, in the next phase of the project, then helped develop the technology and staff skills necessary to achieve those redefined goals.
When Britain’s Health and Safety Executive — the government’s workplace health and safety agency — needed a new headquarters and office space in Merseyside, just north of Liverpool, Opex coordinated the two FM companies implementing the infrastructure then helped relocate a staff of more than 3,000 people.
Opex got its start in 1999 and has since expanded its consultancy service around the UK and Europe, which includes 80 different projects to date.
Virginia-based consultancy MacKnight Associates was founded in 2003 but brings decades of cumulative hands-on experience in facility management. President and founder Diane H. MacKnight previously served as Senior Vice President of Facilities at Trammell Crow Company, Vice President of Facilities at Gannett /USA Today, and President of the International Facility Management Association (IFMA). She also teaches post-graduate courses in facility management at George Mason University.
images by:
