Organizations across all industries have increased their awareness of the impact property assets have on the bottom-line, business continuity and the ability to achieve business or organizational objectives. Furthermore, heightened concerns about building security have made the integration of facility and security management a critical factor in multi-year planning and budget allocation. VFA has enhanced VFA.facility to provide an unsurpassed level of extensibility and flexibility in recognition of these issues. The Web-based software now includes utility infrastructure asset classes, such as steam distribution, electrical distribution, chilled water, roadways and sidewalks, to allow facility managers to model and plot specific, separate renewal schedules for increased accuracy of budgets. In addition, VFA.facility Version 6 supports and incorporates facilities security data within its centralized database, enabling facility and security managers to work together to implement a unified approach to risk management, lifecycle costing, project coordination and capital planning.

“Utilizing VFA.facility Version 6, organizations gain a comprehensive understanding of the condition and value of their capital asset portfolios, and are able to determine an optimal capital investment strategy that supports the mission of the organization,” said Jerry Kokos, president and CEO, VFA. “The broad functionality and versatility of VFA.facility's new features extend the software’s use far beyond traditional facility management programs, impacting all facility personnel from managers and capital planners to budget officers, and security professionals.”

“Using VFA.facility Version 6, we have a comprehensive, one-stop repository for facilities and infrastructure data that we can utilize across the university to support our capital maintenance and renewal planning,” said Bruce Anderson, facility audit program manager, University of California at Davis. “The software's improved reporting capability is helping us to develop best case scenarios with quick turn around for current building maintenance needs and strategic planning for overall system budgets. The ability to profile benchmarking data keeps us on target with the university's goals and mission of providing top-notch education and research facilities.”

With this latest release, VFA is delivering to its customers significant new enhancements designed to increase ease-of-use and configurability, streamline reporting processes, and support strategic project planning and management of property assets. Key features and highlights of VFA.facility Version 6 include:

• Increased ability to configure and customize user interfaces – Provides an unlimited number of user-defined fields that enables clients to tailor the software to better meet and serve the specific business needs of their organizations.
• Advanced reporting, data mining and ad-hoc query tools – Bolsters and streamlines existing reporting capabilities, enabling users to obtain and report on information faster and easier than ever before.
• Extensive benchmarking capabilities – Empowers users to gauge asset performance and configure specific benchmarks, such as asset condition or mission-adequacy, in order to optimize capital planning decisions.
• Expanded cost modeling capabilities – Offers increased flexibility to create and adjust building system lifecycle cost models to more accurately forecast capital asset renewal and replacement costs.

VFA’s Web-based software has been deployed to more than 200 marquee institutions worldwide, including the largest federal government property managers, Fortune 500 companies, financial institutions, colleges and universities and state and local government agencies. VFA.facility Version 6 is primarily deployed by means of VFA’s hosting service.