Guide to Commonly Used Facilities Management Acronyms

The facilities management industry has a lot of acronyms that are used on a daily basis that can be hard to keep track of. Sometimes when reading or listening to someone speak about the industry it feels like you’re drowning in acronym soup. To help reduce confusion here is a list of some of the most common facilities management acronyms that are run into often:

ABW – Activity Based Workplace/Workspace

ADA – Americans with Disabilities Act

ADAAG – Americans with Disabilities Act Accessibility Guidelines

AFMS – Automated Facilities Management System

AI – Artificial Intelligence

AIA – American Institute of Architects

AWS – Alternative Workplace Strategy or Amazon Web Services

API – Application Programming Interface

APPA – Association of Physical Plant Administrators

ASHRAE – American Society of Heating Refrigeration and Air Conditioning Engineers

ASSP – Annual Software Subscription Program

ASTM – American Society for Testing and Materials

BAC – Building Automation and Controls

BACnet – Building Automation and Controls network

BAS – Building Automation System

BCA – Building Condition Assessment

BES – Building Environmental Systems

BEMS – Building Energy Management System

BIM – Building Information Modeling

BMS – Building Maintenance System or Building Management System

BOMA – Building Owners and Managers Association

CAD – Computer Aided Design

CAFM – Computer Aided Facilities Management

CAM – Common Area Maintenance

CAT – Computer Aided Testing

CBM – Condition Based Maintenance

CEM – Construction Engineering & Management

CFM – Computerized Facilities Management or Certified Facility Manager

CIFM – Computer Integrated Facility Management

CLM – Contract Lifecycle Management

CMS – Content Management System

CMMS – Computerized Maintenance Management System

CO- Change Order

COB – Close of Business

COOP – Continuity of Operations Plan

COAA – Construction Owners Association of America

CP – Capital Projects

CTA – Call to Action

DUNS – Data Universal Numbering System

EAM – Enterprise Asset Management

ECC – Estimated Construction Cost

EFS – Elastic File System

EHS – Environmental Health & Safety

ERP – Enterprise Resource Planning

ESRI – Environmental Systems Research Institute

FAS – Federal Acquisition Service

FASB – Financial Accounting Standards Board

FASBI – Financial Accounting Standards Board Interpretations

FM – Facilities Management

FMIS – Facilities Management Information System

FTE – Full-Time Employee or Full-Time Equivalent

GIS – Geographic Information System or Geospatial Information Systems

GSA – General Services Administration

HVAC – Heating, Ventilation, and Air Conditioning

IASB – International Accounting Standards Board

IFMA – International Facility Management Association

IFMS – Integrated Facilities Management System

IoT – Internet of things

IWMS – Integrated Workplace Management System

KPI – Key Performance Indicator

MAC – Move Add Change

MAS – Multiple Award Schedule

MMS – Maintenance Management System

MRO – Maintenance Repair & Operations

MTBF – Meant Time Between Failures

MTTF – Mean Time to Failure

MTTR – Mean Time to Repair

NOC – Network Operation Center

NPV – Net Present Value

O&M – Operations and Maintenance

OSCRE – Open Standards for Real Estate

PdM – Predictive Maintenance

PM – Preventive Maintenance or Project Manager

PPM – Portfolio Project Management

PWS – Performance Work Statement

RCM – Reliability Centered Maintenance

ROI – Return on Investment

RTD – Real Time Data

RTF – Run to Failure

SaaS – Software as a Service

SBS – Sick Building Syndrome

SCIM – System for Cross-Domain Identity Management

SLA – Service-level Agreement

SME- Subject Matter Expert

SMS – Sustainment Management System

SOR – System of Record

S3 – Simple Storage Service

TIFM – Total Infrastructure and Facilities Management

UAT – User Acceptance Testing or Training

UI – User Interface

UX – User Experience

WO – Work Order

WR – Work Request