5 Facility Improvements for the Cost Conscious

Looking for facility management improvement ideas that won’t break the bank? Facilities must go through regular renovation cycles to improve the overall look and feel of your brand. While they may sound costly, these refinements will strengthen your brand in the long run.

Refreshing your facilities with small updates, lighting upgrades, regular sign maintenance, and experiential graphics can enhance your customers’ experience. But, facility improvement benefits don’t just aid consumers. Implementing these upgrades — along with building management systems — can improve employee morale and lower your energy costs.

Refreshes

Quick updates to your facility’s interior and exterior can dramatically enhance your customer’s experience with your brand. These improvements include painting, fixture swaps, new furniture, and other minor updates that don’t require more than a couple of days to complete per site.

Refreshes are intended to be quick to ensure updates do not affect your business’ bottom line. When we schedule refreshes, such as these contracts with a popular fast food chain and a national coffee chain, we work to reduce disruptions, usually by working after hours or through carefully planned open store work.

Lighting Updates

LED retrofits, while they have an up-front cost, can positively impact the consumer experience, enhance employee morale and productivity, and improve your business’ bottom line.

Consumers overwhelmingly prefer LED lighting to its fluorescent counterpart. In a recent study, researchers lit half a supermarket with LED lighting and the other half with traditional fluorescent lighting. The researchers found, after a 21-week period, the LED side sold 2 percent more products per customer. LED lights are bright, small, and illuminate targeted areas, which are important lighting traits you need for a retail store. Additionally, LED mimics natural lighting, making items look more natural and appealing to potential consumers, which can result in more sales.

Light is a major component in increasing employee productivity and well-being, as well. A study conducted by the International Journal of Industrial Ergonomics found LED lighting improved performance in visual and cognitive tasks when compared to fluorescent lighting. The same study found employees working under LED lighting enjoyed faster reaction times, reduced fatigue, and increased activity. Switching your business over to LED lighting could result in massive productivity boosts for your employees and larger profit margins for your business.

Speaking of bottom lines, LED lighting is today’s most energy-efficient option on the market. Quality LED lights last 15 times longer and use 90% less energy than other options. Lighting makes up 17% of all electricity consumed in U.S. commercial buildings, meaning switching to more energy-efficient LED bulbs could save you a lot of money in the long run. Our work with a national tire brand saved the company $62,000 in energy costs across 14 locations. Overall, LED lights produce significant savings and create more engaging, pleasant, and safer environments for customers and employees.

Experiential Graphics

Nothing connects your brand with your customers like taking a localized approach. With experiential graphics, you can create virtually any environment in your facility that features local details like skylines, local attractions, cultural images, messaging, and more.

You might commission experiential graphics as part of the aforementioned brand refresh. Perhaps your marketing team wants to showcase the company’s value proposition through graphics and messaging in a conference room or on a welcome center wall. You could even custom-design a timeline of your business’ history in the reception area. In times where 38 percent of consumers support local businesses to feel connected with the community, you’ll want to prominently showcase your business’ roots.

The above examples only touch on what’s possible with experiential graphics. Whatever you dream up, we can deliver. At Stratus, we can print on virtually any substrate and apply vinyl graphics and other elements seamlessly.

Signage Maintenance

Interior and exterior signage is one of your most important brand assets; ensuring it’s in good condition guarantees your brand continues to deliver a positive, memorable experience. Signage is also a major component in building an experiential branding experience for your customers. Regular preventative sign maintenance ensures small issues are taken care of before they become big problems, reducing the likelihood of an emergent and unforeseen sign-related expense.

Sign maintenance can be done on your chosen schedule, reducing disruptions to your regular business operations. We can schedule maintenance on any timeline to keep your crucial assets functioning properly. During maintenance, we’ll check for burnt-out letter sets, wear and tear, and other physical issues, both at night and during the day. Whether you have one location or thousands, we can support your sign maintenance needs.

Control Systems/IoT

Implementing building management systems and other control systems helps you make more effective use of your energy while saving on costs. Depending on the facility, you might use a control system to operate lighting, heating, and cooling mechanisms.

Control systems are intended to make your facility more intelligent and provide energy and electricity only when it’s needed. These systems can adjust daytime and nighttime heating and cooling, reduce air flow rates via variable-air volume boxes, or limit heating and cooling based on structure occupancy.

Using building control systems, the average commercial building was estimated to average energy savings of 29%. Other facilities, like middle schools and high schools, were estimated to see energy consumption cut by 49% and standalone retail stores and auto dealerships were estimated to see 41% energy reductions using building control systems. Though there is a cost associated with implementing a control system, in the end they will save you money.

We’ll Implement Your Facility Management Improvement Ideas

These facility improvements, if done correctly, will dramatically improve the bottom line of your business. A well-maintained facility is the baseline for attracting and retaining customers. If you’re looking to start work on any of the aforementioned facility management improvement ideas, we’d love to help.

Stratus is a leading partner for companies in multiple industries to carry out their facility improvements and brand implementation needs. We have decades of experience working with the biggest brands to refresh their facilities, upgrade lighting, provide experiential graphics, signage maintenance, control systems, and more.

Ready to start implementing your facility management improvement ideas? Get in touch with our team today.