Facilities Management to Enter the Era of Smart Data

8/12/2024

Big Data had its moment in the sun a decade ago. It arrived amid great expectations in institutional and commercial facilities. Forward-thinking maintenance and engineering managers looking for more effective ways to maximize resources, increase technician productivity and improve building performance embraced Big Data — the process of analyzing large data sets to uncover patterns, trends, and associations — as the tool that would help them achieve these elusive goals. 

The results have been mixed, at best. While some organizations have been able to tap into the benefits of Big Data to enhance their departments’ performance and results, most have not for a variety of reasons. 

Now along comes artificial intelligence (AI), promising maintenance and engineering managers some of the same benefits as Big Data — most notably, the ability to analyze large amounts of data to expose trends, problems and opportunities. 

The similarities between the two data strategies struck me as I was talking with Craig Hodges, principal with FEA, a facilities management and engineering consulting firm. We were discussing the steps managers need to take before implementing predictive maintenance technology and processes in their departments. Hodges says the success of predictive maintenance will rely heavily on managers’ ability to prepare effectively to handle critical data. 

“You need a data management plan up front,” Hodges says. “You need to know what data you’re going to collect and what you expect it's going to tell you about before you actually go out and take a thousand measurements. The thousand measurements could give you a thousand different points of reference that you do have no idea what to do with unless you can pinpoint what you're looking for.” 

As with Big Data, AI might deliver benefits for some managers, but it’s only likely to do so if managers learn its benefits and drawbacks and understand the best ways to use it to achieve their goals. So maybe let’s call this the era of Smart Data. 

Dan Hounsell is senior editor of the facility market. He has more than 25 years of experience writing about facilities maintenance, engineering and management.