Practical Facilities Tips, News & Advice.
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 […]
Editor’s note: FM Perspectives are industry op-eds. The views expressed are the authors’ and do not necessarily reflect those of Facilities Management Advisor. I was on a call with an operations director at a big ag plant. She’d been running the place for years, knew her equipment inside and out. Her question was one I hear in […]
An incident unfolds in a parking garage. Someone is assaulted. A medical emergency occurs. The immediate response is to call 911, yet the call will not connect. This scenario is not hypothetical. Facilities managers and technology leaders regularly report persistent signal gaps in below-grade structures. One client described it as a recurring concern: not whether […]
Repeated safety incidents are driving the healthcare worker burnout epidemic and threatening patient care across America. That’s according to a new report from Canopy, a safety platform provider that surveyed over 1,000 healthcare leaders and staff nationwide. The report found that more than one in four healthcare workers face safety incidents daily or weekly—a crisis […]
The convergence of physical security and IT has been happening for years, spurred initially by the transition from analog to IP-based systems and, more recently, by the move to cloud-based solutions. This evolution has required close collaboration between IT, physical security, and facility teams. Findings from the 2026 Genetec State of Physical Security Report show that IT departments are playing a larger […]
The Security Industry Association (SIA) has announced the 2026 honorees for the SIA Women in Security Forum (WISF) Power 100. This initiative, presented by the SIA Women in Security Forum, honors 100 women in the security industry each year whose outstanding accomplishments and success stories are breaking barriers, redefining the faces of leadership, and showcasing the innovative contributions women […]
Renovations bring many changes that can affect a building’s security. Doors are often left unlocked so construction crews can move in and out, and traditional measures like cameras may go offline to accommodate rewiring or repainting. These shifts create opportunities for theft and unauthorized access. Facilities managers must adapt quickly to keep people and property […]
Workplace violence is often viewed as an HR, legal, or security issue. But long before a concern reaches those departments, the earliest signs frequently appear in the spaces facilities managers oversee every day. Because they move throughout the building, interact with staff and contractors, and understand the normal rhythms of a workplace, facilities teams are […]
School security remains a major concern for communities across the country, and New Hampshire has become one of the latest states to provide funding to help keep students and educators safe. Specifically, the state’s Public School Infrastructure Commission awarded a total of $8 million in fiscal years 2026 and 2027 appropriations to fund 259 school […]
A new report from HID reveals how organizations worldwide are fundamentally reshaping their approach to identity management, which plays a major role in access control and security in facilities. Based on insights from more than 1,500 security and IT professionals, end users, and industry partners, the 2026 State of Security and Identity Report shows that […]