Practical Facilities Tips, News & Advice.
Industrial facilities depend on effective thermal management to keep people safe, equipment running reliably, and energy use under control. For decades, jacketed insulation systems have been the default solution for managing surface temperatures on hot and cold process equipment—particularly in food and beverage environments where consistency, sanitation, and employee safety are closely linked. But as […]
Automatic door safety has never been more critical, as automated entrances now play a central role in accessibility, code compliance, and overall customer experience. Modern standards increasingly position automated doors as essential infrastructure, but when these systems are not properly serviced or calibrated, they pose real risks, underscoring the need for consistent maintenance and professional […]
Facilities management often includes landscaping and other outdoor maintenance. If you’ll be working outside this season, beware: Ticks are making their return fast and furiously. During Tick Awareness Week (May 3-9), the National Pest Management Association (NPMA) is warning about the potential health threats ticks pose and the best ways to keep these parasitic pests away […]
Back to Basics is an article series that highlights important, but possibly overlooked, information facilities management professionals should know. Many workplaces are staffed by workers with different employers—a host company, contractors, and staffing agencies. If you own or operate a facility, you have complete responsibility for the health and safety of your own employees and a […]
If you’ve ever worked security at a stadium or festival, you know how those large-scale venues bring people together. The bad news, however, is that they also bring complex risks. The crowds are larger, so threats can appear faster. Our standby techniques, like gates and guards, can no longer get the job done on their […]
The Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) renewed the agency’s Outdoor and Indoor Heat-Related Hazards National Emphasis Program (NEP) on April 10. OSHA updated its 2022 NEP to protect workers from outdoor and indoor heat-related hazards, directing agency resources to where they can have the greatest impact by focusing inspections and outreach on industries and workplaces where […]
Nearly every modern facility relies on electrical systems, whether it’s a data center, manufacturing plant, school, hospital, or public infrastructure. In all cases, reliability, safety, and uptime are critical. That’s why NFPA 70B, which moved from a recommended practice to a mandatory standard in 2023, has become a focal point for facilities managers across industries. […]
A new report aims to help retail security and loss prevention leaders understand when risk peaks, which threats escalate fastest, and which intervention strategies may prove most effective. Released by Interface Systems, the 2026 Retail Loss Prevention Benchmark Report is based on 1.6 million remote monitoring events across 18,258 U.S. retail locations and 51 brands […]
April showers bring May flowers—and a whole lot of pests. Warm, wet weather in the spring creates perfect conditions for the season’s most common and problematic pests, and the board-certified entomologists at the National Pest Management Association (NPMA) are urging homeowners and businesses to take action before these pests take over. “Spring marks a major shift in pest behavior,” said Dr. Jim Fredericks, SVP […]
For decades, video surveillance in facilities management has been a passive, “looking back” technology. We used it to investigate what had already happened—a slip-and-fall, a security breach, or a workflow bottleneck. But just as large language models (LLMs) like ChatGPT redefined our interaction with text, a new generation of video language models (VLMs) is fundamentally […]