As we come to the end of Spring conference season, and I reflect on the many conversations that I have had, the hottest topic by far has been about organizations looking to better integrate their capital and maintenance programs.

Facility Condition Assessments (FCAs) are having a bit of a moment at many of the conferences that I have been attending. Multiple presentations at several conferences focused on how different organizations are using their FCA data. This tells me that as we look to the integration of capital and maintenance planning, the capital renewal side seems to be in pretty good shape.

So, for this next blog series, I am going to focus on the Maintenance side of the equation. In my opinion, any true integration of capital and maintenance activities requires that you are tracking work orders back to individual pieces of equipment. If you are not doing that, then the effort will fall short of expectations, and so will the potential synergies between the two programs.

The first step in tracking work orders to individual pieces of equipment is getting an accurate inventory of the specific equipment that you want to track, which is what we will explore in this post.

You Can’t Manage What You Can’t See

We often assess facilities where the building-level information is strong—plenty of capital planning reports, condition scores, and element-level tracking. But when we ask about a specific rooftop unit, chiller, or generator, the trail often goes cold. Most organizations that we encounter don’t track work orders at the equipment level – it is either at the building or element-level. This higher-level approach leaves decision-makers in the dark on three critical fronts:

• Which units are underperforming or failing repeatedly.
• Which assets are nearing end-of-life based on usage, not age.
• Where maintenance dollars are going—and whether they are getting maximum value.

If you don’t know this information, you’re not managing assets—you’re reacting to them.

Why It Should Matter to You and Your Executives

Whether you are an executive or you are trying to get buy-in from your executives, it is critical to understand the “50,000 foot” benefits of having this very granular dataset. You don’t need to be the one completing work orders, but you do need visibility into the story that they tell. When equipment-level history is tracked well, the benefits go far beyond the maintenance team:

• Capital planning becomes evidence-based.
• Maintenance budgeting reflects actual wear, usage, and need.
• Safety and compliance issues are easier to surface and resolve.
• Potential equipment failures that can disrupt programs can be minimized.

This isn’t about getting into the weeds, it’s about clearing the fog.

The Real Cost of Missing Data

If your team can’t tell you how often a piece of equipment has failed, how many times it’s been repaired, or what the typical lifecycle costs look like, you’re making decisions based on guesswork. And in today’s climate of constrained resources and rising expectations, that’s a risk most facility leaders can’t afford.

Up Next

In our next post, we’ll dig deeper into why tracking equipment-level work orders has not been done at many organizations and how to close the gap so you can start to integrate your capital and maintenance programs.

• Conduct annual reviews of your AM strategy.
• Measure progress using your KPIs.
• Adjust based on lessons learned and emerging needs.
• Seek feedback from users and frontline staff who interact with assets daily.