Key Takeaways:
Facility managers are used to measuring the cost of a problem. A piece of equipment fails. There is a work order, a repair bill, perhaps a contractor invoice, overtime, replacement parts or lost operating time.
Energy use, maintenance costs and downtime can be measured. However, there is another cost that often gets overlooked: How much time did it take to understand what was happening?
I have spent my career working around manufacturing, OEM, construction, safety, education, public sector and energy-related environments. The equipment and operating environments may be different, but I have seen a similar challenge across industries.
Something is not working as expected, and someone notices it. Then the search begins.
Who knows the system? Who has the information? What changed? Is it the equipment, the schedule, the controls, the environment? Was something recently serviced? Has this happened before?
Before the problem is corrected, people can spend hours trying to understand it. I call that “Time to Understanding.”
Consider a relatively simple facility problem. A building is using more energy than expected overnight. The utility data shows the increase, but not necessarily why it is happening. A facility manager starts investigating the issue, then someone else checks the schedules. Another person looks at the building automation system for information; a technician checks equipment and a contractor may eventually become involved.
The actual correction might take 30 minutes. How many people were involved in getting to that 30-minute correction? Also, how many hours were spent getting from, “Something does not look right” to “We understand what is happening and why.”
That time is worth looking at. I am not suggesting Time to Understanding needs to become another complicated industry metric. I see it as a question facility leaders can begin asking: How long did it take us to understand the problem well enough to make a good decision?
Traditional reporting can make an operational problem look fairly simple:
But the people involved know there is usually much more to it.
There may be time spent reviewing information, walking around the facility, making phone calls, looking through historical records, communicating with occupants, contacting vendors, coordinating schedules and determining whether the repair solved the problem.
That is labor. It may be skilled labor, and it may be labor that is difficult to see on a budget report. This becomes even more important as facility systems become more connected, and the amount of information available to facility teams continues to grow.
The U.S. Department of Energy describes energy management information systems as combining facility data, analytics and operational processes. These capabilities can include automated fault detection and diagnostics, operations and maintenance optimization. Technology can help identify issues, but people still must interpret the information and decide what to do.
More information does not automatically mean better decisions. Someone still has to understand what the information is saying.
Facility teams have always relied on historical information, and for good reason. Historical data gives us a baseline. It helps us understand what normal looks like. But history only gives us one view.
Think about weather forecasting. Yesterday's weather is important information. It helps establish a historical record, but it doesn't tell us exactly what tomorrow will bring. Forecasting combines historical information with current conditions and models for possible outcomes.
Facility operations are moving in a similar direction. Historical data tells us what happened. Current information helps us understand what is happening. Modeling can help us consider what could happen next.
The goal is not perfect prediction. The goal is to give the people responsible for the operation better information earlier so they can make a better decision.
There is another part of this conversation that deserves attention. Facility teams do not all have the same level of technical experience. One employee may have decades of hands-on mechanical experience. Another may be comfortable working with digital systems and data.
Someone new to the organization may bring a completely different set of skills. That does not make one person more valuable than another. It means organizations have different types of knowledge sitting around the same table. Technology should help bring that knowledge together, not create another silo.
This is where I see an opportunity to borrow an idea from professional development in education.
Good professional development does not end when someone attends a training session. People learn, apply what they learned, encounter problems, ask questions, make adjustments and learn again. Facility technology deserves the same approach.
A new system shouldn't simply be installing new technology, training on it and then moving on with normal operations. It should become learning about the new technology, applying it to operations, observing how it performs, discussing what can be improved and then making improvements.
The problem itself can become part of the training.
Facility leaders do not need a major technology project to start thinking about this. Pick one recurring operational problem. Then ask:
The answers may be surprising.
A problem that appears small on an energy report may be consuming significant staff time. A recurring maintenance issue may turn out to be a training issue. An equipment problem may actually be a scheduling or controls issue.
Sometimes the biggest opportunity is not fixing the individual problem; it is learning why the organization keeps having to solve the same problem.
Facility management will always involve reactive work. Equipment will fail, occupants will have unexpected needs, the weather and operations will change.
The objective is not to eliminate every surprise. It is to reduce the amount of time the organization spends trying to understand something that could have been recognized earlier.
A manual, historical data and experience still have value — but none of them on their own tell the entire story.
The opportunity is to bring them together. The manual tells us what was known. Historical data tells us what happened. Current information tells us what is happening. Modeling helps us consider what could happen. Experience helps us understand why. Continuous learning helps the organization become better prepared the next time.
For me, that is the real opportunity. Not simply smarter buildings, but smarter teams that can understand what their facilities are telling them and act before a small problem becomes a much bigger one.
John Kosic is a business development professional based in the Midwest, with over 20 years' experience across manufacturing, OEM, construction, safety, education, public-sector and facility-related environments. His cross-industry experience has given him a practical perspective on the relationship between technology, operational data, workforce knowledge and decision-making.
