Archibus SaaS / Space

Develop and Maintain a Space Inventory

A space inventory is a listing with floor plans on the different types of space in a facility and how these areas are used. For example, a space inventory can report on each floor’s vertical penetration areas (stairways and elevator shafts), service areas (bathrooms, hallways, and closets), departmental boundaries, rooms, and the common areas used by multiple departments (cafeterias, libraries, and conference rooms).

In addition to answering the fundamental question of “What does my space look like?”, space inventories are prerequisites for cost analyses, area use analyses, tenant plans, chargeback analyses, employee occupancy plans, and space planning exercises. Additionally, if you wish to use facility drawings to graphically represent furniture, equipment, or maintenance work locations, you must start with a space inventory and represent each floor’s areas in a drawing.

Facility or space managers typically develop space inventories and then share this information with accountants, human resources managers, tenants, departmental managers, and space planners.

Additionally, sites may opt to implement the Archibus space mobile apps for users who need to access the space inventory from mobile devices when not connected to the Archibus network. See Archibus Space Book mobile app and Space & Occupancy Survey mobile app.

Typical Workflow

Follow this procedure to develop your space inventory:

1. Review the Space Concepts, as there are important decisions to make about the level of detail of your space inventory.
2. Develop background data about your facility, such as the building name and the divisions and departments, as well as the validating classification data.
3. For each floor, develop its gross area, vertical penetrations, and service areas, which provide important statistics. Next, add rooms to your space inventory .
   • Develop Sites, Buildings, Floors and Rooms
   • To develop the components of a space inventory (gross areas, vertical penetrations, service areas, and rooms), a CAD manager depicts these items in CAD or Revit.
   • See Connect CAD and BIM Plans to Archibus and related topics.
4. With a space inventory defined, you must maintain it as needs change and departments grow and contract.

• As departments reorganize and their space needs change, a space manager updates the allocation of space to departments using the Space Console .
• A space manager analyzes remaining area and other and other departmental analyses using:
  • the Space Console
  • the reports of the Archibus SaaS / Space / Space Manager process
  • the reports of the Archibus SaaS / Space / Space Inventory process
• If your site uses alternative space solutions such as team space, you can track space by teams using the Space Console. See Team Space overview.
• As your space contracts and expands over time, a CAD specialist will update the CAD floor plans and BIM models.

5. Periodically, you may wish to survey the space to be sure that it matches the electronic inventory. To aid in the survey process, Archibus offers mobile apps so that surveyors in the field can directly access the Archibus space inventory from their mobile devices and smart phones.
   • Space & Occupancy Survey mobile app
   • Space Book mobile app

   To decide which mobile app is best for your site, see:

   • Space Surveys and Mobile Apps (Concept)
   • Accessing and Updating the Space Inventory Data with the Archibus Mobile Apps