The start of a new calendar year is a good time for facility managers to think about ways to set themselves up for success with new strategies or practices. In many institutional and commercial facilities, an area that can benefit from a methodical tune-up is the capital planning program. And one tool managers might not be leveraging to its full potential — especially for capital planning — is their computerized maintenance management system (CMMS).
To answer the question managers are already asking, yes, there are entire capital planning software options available. They can be great, and in an ideal world all managers would have ready access to both applications and any other software their hearts desire. Managers sometimes have to be scrappy and get by with what they already have or what they can afford. This is where a CMMS can shine as an unsung utility player.
Most facilities already use a CMMS to manage their departments’ work orders and preventive maintenance tasks but, very few are fully leveraging the system they have, says John D’Angelo, assistant vice president of facilities operations at the University of Chicago.
Thinking about his peers in higher education, he says probably less than 10 percent are getting the most out of their CMMS.
“And of that, less than 10 percent use the system to help inform their capital programs,” he says. “To me, it’s common sense to use something you already have.”
What facility managers have with a CMMS is a database continuously collecting granular data on every asset in their portfolios. Even if the preventive maintenance program is not the world’s greatest, just with corrective maintenance tasks there is a treasure trove of touchpoints. At the University of Chicago, D’Angelo says his team racks up 70,000 corrective maintenance tasks per year. The preventive maintenance tasks tally up to a similar number of task hours.
“If you are able to use the data that you developed from just your day-to-day operations, it will tell you a lot of things,” D’Angelo says.
When John Rimer, president of FM360, is setting up a CMMS for a client, he makes sure to configure it so it gathers the data managers will later need for capital planning. This includes installation date, estimated replacement date and estimated replacement cost.
Beyond using the data captured by the CMMS to track manufacturer estimates of expected service life, managers can use the data over the year to build expected performance curves for each piece of equipment through the cumulative preventive maintenance and corrective maintenance tasks.
“Those two data points combined are a much better recapitalization predictive model than going off an industry standard,” D’Angelo says. For example, an air handler with an expected service life of 20 years might actually need to be replaced at 15 years because it costs more to operate and maintain than it should. Or it could last 30 years if it is running as designed. On average, the hundreds of air handlers in a large portfolio will have a 20-year service life, but doing a blanket replacement based on that average will misuse limited capital resources.
“Instead of a generic service life, each of those air handlers can be matched to its expected performance curve,” he says. “And you can then start to build your capital program.”
Tracking the history of asset conditions in the CMMS provides foundational information and data that can support overall prioritization and program planning, says Brian Martin, deputy program director of capital and facilities, private management office, with Jacobs, a facility management firm, on the Chicago Public Schools account.
“The real value there is obviously managing the work and the data, but it also really helps us track the history of those assets,” he says. “If you’re not tracking the history as it relates to the condition in all the repairs done to that particular asset, then you’re operating in a kind of silo.”
Naomi Millán is a former editor with Building Operating Management, now working in marketing and communications in the non-profit sector.
How to Leverage CMMS in Capital Planning
