The IFMA Foundation has expanded the scope of the Eric Teicholz Sustainability Facility Professional® (SFP®) Scholarship Program to include corporate partners. The goal of the SFP Partner Program is to make additional scholarships available and provide an opportunity for organizations to support a sustainable future, creating a generation of facility management (FM) leaders committed to environmental best practices. Partner organizations can opt to introduce a scholarship program in a topic area of their choosing or join an existing program, such as the newly launched SFP Partner Supply Chain Program.
Established in 1990 as a non-profit 501(c)(3) corporation and a separate entity from the International Facility Management Association (IFMA), the IFMA Foundation works to promote leading research and educational opportunities for the advancement of facility management. The IFMA Foundation is supported by the generosity of the FM community including IFMA members, chapters, councils, corporate sponsors and private contributors.
The latest program created by the IFMA Foundation is related to the impact of supply chain on FM’s ability to maintain their facilities and critical assets. As the world emerges from the Covid-19 pandemic, FM organizations have a distinct opportunity to drive significant, sustainable operational improvements while reducing costs and waste systemically. Within this scope, it’s important for FM leaders to expand their focus to include supply chain value creation — focusing not only on purchase price for their critical spare parts and supplies, but also on optimizing the total cost of ownership of facilities including maximizing technician productivity, increasing asset uptime, and improving customer in-store experience.
With awards starting in 2022, the SFP Partner Supply Chain Program is the result of collaboration between IFMA Foundation and SDI, a supply chain solutions and services company that specializes in helping large, multi-site FM leaders reduce costs and risks while driving overall performance results and outcomes.
“Facilities managers, building owners, suppliers, technicians — all work in silos in the FM ecosystem, inadvertently creating millions of metric tons of greenhouse gases, ” said Jim Owens, Chief Growth Officer at SDI and Advisory Board member for Penn State’s Center for Supply Chain Research. “We’re excited to work with the IFMA Foundation to empower the FM leaders of the future to engage in climate action by aligning and improving supply chain processes and reimagining how supply chain can work for work for everyone.”
SDI’s service offering is enhanced by its ZEUS Digital Supply Chain Management platform. SDI’s digital supply chain control tower coordinates, aligns and optimizes with overall facilities management, enterprise risk management, and reliability strategies.
New Facility Management Registered Degree Program at UC, Irvine
Meanwhile, The University of California, Irvine Division of Continuing Education Facilities Management Certificate Program has been accredited by the Facility Management Accreditation Commission (FMAC) of the IFMA Foundation as a Facility Management Registered Degree Program (RDP). The IFMA Foundation accreditation assures that programs meet standards to produce graduates ready to enter the facility management (FM) field leading the way in innovation, emerging building technologies, and anticipating the safety, health and well-being of facility occupants.
Sought worldwide, the IFMA Foundation’s accreditation process adds critical value to academic programs in the FM discipline. Developed by technical professionals from IFMA, the FMAC criteria focus on what students experience and learn. FMAC accreditation reviews look at program curricula, faculty, facilities, and institutional support and are conducted by teams of highly skilled professionals from industry, academia, and government.
“The IFMA Foundation is dedicated to elevating the FM profession to a career of choice around the world through its Global Workforce Initiative,” said Bob Dills, IFMA Foundation Chair. “The RDP accreditation is important to academic institutions, enabling them to offer quality facility management education and prepare students for the FM jobs of today and the future. On behalf of the foundation, I’d like to commend the University of California, Irvine for their forward-thinking educational offerings and for meeting the global demand of skilled labor in the field.”
“UCI’s long-standing alliance with IFMA underscores our commitment to providing job-ready skills that help facility professionals move their career forward,” said Angela Jeantet, Senior Academic Director of Education, Business, Engineering and Life Sciences. “Our reputation for creating academic programs that align with industry needs means that students will be well trained and prepared to succeed in the workforce.”
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