The costs for facilities are a major item in the budget of communities and dealing with investment and maintenance expense is a major undertaking for each commune. It is crucial to use the correct method in strategic planning and a professional facility management. Therefore, an association that support professionalism and cost efficiency is of great importance.

Unified work instruments, such as standards, guidelines and key indicators, the exchange of professional expertise and knowledge as well as the goal-oriented continuing education are essential for the competent and efficient facility management. To this day, there are no unified standards, guidelines and key indicators available in the area of public facility management. Key indicators for forecasting future expenses and required resources are difficult to determine. By developing a unified definition of services and procedures, the VLS documents and analyses them systematically and provides respective key indicator along with unified standards and guidelines. Specific occasions are used to meet the need for the exchange of opinions and continuing education.

Facility management becomes increasingly more complex and comprehensive. Growing demands in planning, realization and the maintenance of buildings as well as growing complexities in the legal and administrative requirements and finally, the increasing cost-saving pressure even inside the administration create a multilevel and complex field of tension, which the facility manager faces today. In addition to a vast professional knowledge, this requires networked thinking, sustainable strategies and an interdisciplinary work process. Often times, the facility manager is facing these demanding tasks alone. The VLS can offer him or her an important holistic support by providing the facility manager with unified work instruments (templates, standards and guidelines), with individual counselling services and by creating a common exchange platform.

The VLS offers comprehensive support for this complex and multi-facetted task of facility management. The Association wants to counteract the increasing demands from the political arena, the field of building technology, economics and ecology and the increasing cost-saving pressure through competence and an increase in efficiency in facility management, standardization and simplification of procedures and processes as well as the development of instruments of common interest. Support, consulting services and work instruments are comprehensive. They are clearly structured and contain the internal organization (including the services of portfolio management, property owner representation during construction/consultation, planning/construction, administration/management and operation/janitorial services) as well as the entire lifecycle (broken down into the phases of planning, realization and management).