The foundation for this capability is a detailed knowledge of your facilities – in terms of current conditions and requirements as well as long-term needs. But maintaining accurate data about building conditions – particularly across a large or geographically dispersed portfolio of facilities – can be a challenge.

While many organizations have a wealth of knowledge about their portfolio inherent in their facility management group, often this information is not captured by a consistent means or held in a single place where it can be easily accessed or evaluated for informed decision making. Different regions, campuses or individual facility managers may use various approaches to collect and evaluate this information. And some organizations – particularly those in the public sector – have difficulty justifying the allocation of resources for regular assessments when faced with pressing renewal and repair needs that compete for limited dollars.

In fact, there are many ways organizations can gather the data necessary to inform the facility investment process. Each involves different levels of effort, and yields different levels of detail. Blending these approaches can often help an organization make the most of the investment they make in facility assessments.

Approaches to Facility Assessment

There are four main approaches organizations can take to the assessment process, each with its advantages and limitations. We’ll consider each from the most to the least detailed – each with a price tag reflective of the level of evaluation.

A detailed facility condition assessment provides a comprehensive evaluation of a building, documenting all current deficiencies, encompassing the structure, systems and components, and estimates the associated costs for repair, renewal and code compliance. In some cases, it may involve an evaluation of functional adequacy as well as condition. This approach provides your organization with the most detailed data about current liabilities and costs, and is generally performed by an outside assessment firm.

A systems lifecycle assessment focuses on the evaluation of major building systems such as HVAC, plumbing and electrical. Again, such assessments are generally undertaken by professional assessors or engineers who specialize in the systems to be evaluated. Assessors collect condition and cost data needed to determine required renewal investments, based on the observed condition and remaining useful life of each system.

Assessment surveys can be used to enable an organization to employ its own staff – often facility managers or other personnel with some familiarity with systems in a given facility – to inventory assets, collect information about systems condition, or conduct a more targeted evaluation, for example, of energy usage. By employing a common web-based survey which provides guidance and instructions to the user, such as that provided by VFA.auditor, organizations can promote the efficient collection of relevant data across a large portfolio.

Finally, organizations can model portfolio conditions and requirements based on a subset of data from relevant facilities. This approach allows you to estimate overall renewal costs for the purposes of anticipating future capital needs. While modeling can indicate overall investment requirements across the portfolio, it does not provide highly accurate data for individual buildings or systems.

Finding the Right Mix

Organizations can often maximize the dollars they spend in assessing facility requirements by blending these approaches to concentrate effort where it is most necessary. For example, an organization might conduct detailed condition assessments of its most strategic buildings while performing a lifecycle assessment on most other buildings. It might employ a modeling approach for assets such as shops and storage buildings. Alternatively, an organization might conduct a lifecycle or modeling assessment on the entire portfolio, and then use those results to target a subset of buildings for detailed facility condition assessments. A third strategy might be to gather detailed data on critical systems in each building – such as electrical, heating and cooling, and security systems – while capturing less detailed information on non-critical systems.

The approach your organization adopts ultimately depends on many factors. What is the size of your facility portfolio – do you need to evaluate five facilities or 500? What is their geographic distribution – do you have one campus in the northeast, or 50 worldwide? How reliable is your facility condition data today? How much does your organizational mission depend on a particular type of asset? Where are failures most likely to occur due to age, deterioration and use? How do you expect your functional requirements to change over time?

Finally, how frequently does your organization need to refresh its assessment data? A condition assessment is part of a continuous lifecycle planning and budgeting process. To ensure the organization maintains a current picture of its facilities over time, ongoing reassessments over a three to five year cycle ensures organizations have an accurate view of portfolio-wide conditions and liabilities. An organizaton may undertake, for example, a complete assessment of the entire portfolio every three years, assess 20 to 33 percent of the portfolio annually, or assess a select portion annually with the remainder less frequently.

By considering these and other questions related to your strategic goals, you can define the assessment approach that delivers the information you need to effectively plan for the future of your facilities.

Tom Bart is a Senior Consultant at VFA and can be reached at tbart@vfa.com.