To ensure a facility condition assessment delivers the intended benefits, managers need to take key steps to prepare. Their actions before the process starts can lay the foundation for a more effective assessment. One critical first step involves a task that many managers overlook: communicating the importance of the assessment that will target key equipment in the facility.
“One of the things we talk about in facilities is how to communicate need and risk — how to relate the risk of what happens to the productivity of the facility” if equipment fails, Gilmer says. “To keep the (FCA) report from sitting on the shelf, a big part of it is being able to articulate the importance of various pieces of equipment or issues that you’ve identified and relating that to your ability to meet the mission of your facility. That is what’s going to change the utility of the report.”
Managers also need to provide the inspector with essential information about systems and equipment being assessed.
“It is really helpful if they can gather information about the facility,” Gilmer says. “If they have past reports, that’s really helpful. Sometimes, drawings are helpful, not always. A maintenance history also is important. We’re looking for things like, where are the problems? How has the equipment been behaving? Are there things that are popping up with more frequency? Has there been a history of a particular piece of equipment failing?”
Keenan says managers also need to be certain that inspectors can get to all critical areas of the facility.
“Arrange for appropriate access,” he says. “It’s not always clear if you’re looking to do an assessment that all the areas that require assessment are easily accessible. There could be elevated conditions that never get looked at because there's no elevated access or there's no access to a roof or the roof is not accessible because of safety reasons. There are things that need to be arranged to do an appropriate assessment, and that needs to be part of the formalized assessment process.”
One final step in preparing for the facility condition assessment is spelling out expectations regarding the final report on the assessment.
“The report should prioritize all recommendations for the repair with a replacement timeline,” Keenan says. “The results of the assessment should be prioritized, and any relevant ancillary information should be included, as well, such as remaining warranty periods for materials. If you’re going to recommend that a roof be replaced within the next five years, it would be good to know that it’s either going to be within or outside of a warranty or the projected lifespan of those materials.”
Facility condition assessments present managers with a host of challenges related to preparation, performance and follow-up, so avoiding common mistakes is critical for ensuring their success.
For example, Gilmer says managers need to avoid misinterpreting the information an assessment report offers related to costs.
“Sometimes, people call it a cost estimate, but we have to be very careful,” she says. “We’re not identifying construction-level estimates for projects. The numbers we come up with are used for planning. Sometimes projects that are identified get packaged with other elements. At that point, when you’re planning and developing your project, that’s when you can get a more refined estimate.”
Keenan says managers also need to avoid procrastination — specifically, waiting until something has gone wrong to initiate an assessment.
“Assessments should be performed on a routine basis and thus would be considered proactive,” he says. “It’s quite often that an assessment will be performed when budget allows or response to some of that.
“If a hurricane comes through, now we are doing an assessment. That’s a reactive assessment. You’re looking for damage. You’re not really looking for the health of your facility or looking ahead to create a master plan for the facility. It should be routine. It shouldn’t be reactive.”
Finally, Gilmer says that at all costs, managers need to avoid the most critical mistake of all — not using the final report on the facility condition assessment.
“One of the mistakes is just not understanding what it’s there for,” she says. “It’s a really great tool for facilities managers to use. If you let it sit on the shelf, that’s some great information in there that is just fermenting away on the bookshelf.”
Dan Hounsell is senior editor for the facilities market. He is an award-winning journalist, has spoken at NFMT and other national conferences and has more than 30 years of experience discussing and writing about facilities management, maintenance and operations issues.
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