Understanding “Facility Condition Assessment”

This section is intended for those who are looking for a better understanding of what a “Facility Condition Assessment” program is all about.

The CAR image is intended to give you an example of a condition assessment program that most can relate to… your car. You drive your new car away from the dealership and head down the road… after a few car washes, oil changes, tire rotations, etc., you find it’s time for an alignment… next tires, then brakes, then a battery, then shocks/struts, a cracked windshield, exhaust system, and on and on. As your car ages more and more items begin to fail… at first you may keep up with them, but over time you find a few that you ignore… before long you have a list of things that need to be replaced or repaired. Soon you’re faced with a decision… do you make the needed repairs or do you replace the vehicle? If you’re really blessed, you have two or three cars, all varying ages, all with different needs and you’re faced with deciding what to fix on each one. That list of needs and your management of what gets fixed, what gets ignored, and when to replace your vehicle is “your FCA program”.

The next example is your HOUSE… similar to your CAR, it has components which over time that need to be repaired or replaced. Added to the mix of repairs and replacements a WISH LIST of items that you’d like to install, like adding a fireplace, or installing a swimming pool, or maybe a new porch or sun room, etc. Now you’re faced with not only deciding what to repair or replace, but also how to budget for your wish list items. For those that also have a summer cottage, the program gets even more complicate.

Now you’re the UNIVERSITY OF MICHIGAN

You have over 400 major buildings, with over 27 million square feet, the average age is over 50 years, and you have hundreds of millions in needs? You need to decide what needs to be replaced first? What can wait? What can’t wait? And overlay all of that with "What do you want to do?" How do you know? You survey all of your buildings and develop a formal FCA program. That’s what we’ve done at the University of Michigan.

Our FCA program:

• The FCA database is our TOOL for managing: deferred maintenance, capital renewal and plant adaption needs for all buildings.
• Contains all General Fund buildings, as well as most Hospital, Housing, Athletics, Student Affairs and Auxiliary buildings.
• It contains about 8,000 projects, with detailed description of scope, budget, and other details
• We’ve developed ten in-house teams review all needs and provide prioritized list by category.
• Our mission is to get everyone aligned on what needs to be repaired or replaced on campus so our facilities can meet our academic needs.
• Our goal is to find the balance between investing in academic and research programs and our infrastructure needs. By targeting highest priority needs we can keep infrastructure expense at a minimum while keeping facility conditions at levels necessary for the units to meet their academic and research missions.

FCA Team Structure and Prioritization Process