Bill Managan is operations manager at Western Washington University's physical plant department, Bellingham, Washington. He can be reached at bill.managan@wwu.edu.

We have all heard it before: Audit, document, prioritize, and try to fund your deferred maintenance or backlog. In Washington State, each state agency is required to create a ten-year backlog reduction plan. Every two years during the funding request process, the plan must be prepared at the project specific level for the first six years, while indicating only project types for the remaining four years. This appears to be a typical approach: address a list of one-time needs that can be prioritized, inflated, massaged, and eliminated as funding allows. This backlog reduction mold is good, but incomplete.

To effectively address backlog reduction, we must not only constantly document and methodically complete prioritized backlog projects, but we must stop the backlog from increasing or reoccurring. We must address the root cause. Backlog items result from deferring operating maintenance, deferring preservation/renewal work, deferring problems from the design/construction process of new facilities to maintenance, deferring regulatory compliance projects (including safety and ADA), and failing to address the accumulative deterioration of backlogged projects. Facilities and infrastructure audits provide us a means to:

• document backlog items,
• determine impacts from the design and construction process on the backlog,
• determine when regulatory compliance projects apply to specific facilities, and
• document accumulated deterioration of deferred work.

Predicting and documenting future cyclic renewal needs provides us with a way to compare projected future needs with available funding to determine what might be left for backlog reduction. Only a small portion of regulatory compliance projects can be predicted before they are required, and we cannot predict future problems arising from design and construction. These backlog increase causes are a separate topic and not addressed in this article.

By identifying future planned cyclic renewal needs, we can provide the most accurate estimate of our future funding needs. Breaking the backlog reduction mold requires adding a future funding needs analysis to your backlog requirements. When properly documented, future cyclic renewal components, with no remaining life, become one of the largest contributors to backlog increases.

Western Washington University (WWU), in a joint venture with the University of Washington, has developed facilities management software (FacMan) to better document and understand backlogs, improvements, and future cyclic renewal needs. FacMan provides a unique blend of prioritized backlog documentation with future cyclic renewal needs to better understand current and future funding needs for your facilities and infrastructure.

This complex data is easily understood through interactive graphic filtering based on preset priorities, the use of the Construction Specifications Institute s (CSI) Uniformat Assembly breakdown on all entries, and a calculated Facilities Condition Index (FCI) on all facilities and infrastructure. Its ability to annualize or level cyclic renewal funding with inflation required to maintain your campus and an approach to strategically plan backlog reduction after meeting cyclic renewal needs makes FacMan a strong tool to justify funding required to effectively manage your facilities.

To accomplish this, FacMan was founded on some basic concepts. In FacMan, the backlog is typically viewed as the Problem, while the cyclic renewal and improvements portions are viewed as the Plan. The major components are:

The Problem = Backlog of Maintenance and Repair (BMAR)
The Plan = Integrated Facilities Component System (IFCS)
= Facilities Improvements (FACIMP)

The Problem: The Backlog of Maintenance and Repair (BMAR) is more than a deferred maintenance list. WWU s definition for backlog items is:

A listing of projects to safely maintain facilities and related infrastructure for the current use that should have been accomplished, but for a variety of reasons have been put on hold.

The reference to safely maintain is necessary because WWU s list includes safety-related projects that may not have resulted from deferred maintenance, but are known safety issues that have been deferred. These include safety projects with potential liabilities and those required to bring a facility into compliance with current code, even if the facility complied with the building code when it was constructed. This makes Western s backlog more than a deferred maintenance list. Some might say that this approach clouds the maintenance backlog with non-maintenance improvement or upgrades. FacMan allows each institution to make its own call as to whether a project is placed on the backlog or improvements list.

The Plan: To create an effective Backlog Reduction Plan, we acknowledge that in public higher education problems in the maintenance area are funded; plans to stop the problems from occurring are not. While this does not favor proper capital asset renewal, this approach is a reality in many public systems like Washington State. As a result, FacMan concentrates funding requests based on documented problems (backlog), not plans. In order to minimize or stop future backlog increases, FacMan provides input to the backlog from a plan of future maintenance cyclic renewal needs. FacMan s planned input is accomplished by understanding when a planned maintenance item becomes deferred or a problem. During facility audits, inspection of cyclic renewal items determines whether a project has any remaining life. If there is no remaining life, FacMan easily moves them to the backlog.

It turns out that funding cyclic renewal items becomes the driving force for backlog funding requests, not the backlog itself. Basically, only funds available beyond those needed for cyclic renewal can then be used to reduce the backlog. We must deal with future cyclic needs first or the backlog never goes away, and in fact grows at alarming rates. The amount of funding provided above future cyclic renewal needs simply determines the time frame in which the backlog can be eliminated. FacMan s strategic plan for backlog reduction shows it is cost effective to eliminate the backlog, not just reduce it.

Since future cyclic renewal needs should dominate funding requests, we must clearly understand the assumptions behind them. WWU s cyclic renewal definition is: A listing of facility and infrastructure components that have a definable life cycle, the end of which results in renewal or replacement of the component(s).

Example components include a roof, a mechanical system, carpet, steam utility piping, or asphalt paving, all of which have a definable life expectancy and a predictable replacement date. All facility and infrastructure components can be structured into this methodology to produce a comprehensive understanding of future renewal needs and costs. This listing is FacMan s Integrated Facilities Component Systems (IFCS).

Another part of the plan is improvements. Facilities managers have intimate knowledge of their facilities and can positively contribute on needed facility improvements. FacMan provides a location to document improvements totally separate from the backlog. The facilities improvements database matches the structure of the backlog. Means to easily move projects between the two databases is provided. Currently, only the backlog items are included in the facility condition analysis. Future upgrades will give the user a choice to include improvements or not.

The improvements module is FACIMP (Facilities Improvements). WWU s FACIMP definition is: A listing of facility improvement projects that are primarily program driven which intentionally modify systems and improve performance beyond the original design intent and/or capacity specifically to meet program needs.

Facilities Condition Index (FCI)

Of the numerous tools to filter, group, and rank projects in FacMan, one of the most important is the nationally recognized Facilities Condition Index (FCI). FacMan ranks the condition of facilities, infrastructure, and their respective Uniformat components. To accomplish this, FacMan has a module for recording all Current Replacement Values (CRV) for each facility, related infrastructure, and all Uniformat components.

FCI = Backlog of Maintenance & Repair (BMAR) / Current Replacement Value (CRV)

The recognized FCI ratings from this calculation are:

0 - 5% = Good Condition rating
5% - 10% = Fair Condition rating
> 10% = Poor Condition rating

FacMan Conclusions

FacMan is an effective facilities management tool to prepare and fully understand funding requests providing the necessary information to break the typical backlog reduction mold through the integration of:

• Backlog needs (BMAR)
• Future cyclic renewal needs (IFCS)
• Facility improvement needs (FACIMP)
• Current replacement value (CRV) of all facilities, infrastructure, and their Uniformat components
• The Facilities Condition Index (FCI) ranking of facilities, infrastructure, and their Uniformat components
• FacMan s strategic plan to cost effectively eliminate backlogs
• Numerous tools to prepare funding requests including a project specific ten-year backlog reduction plan.

For a full explanation of FacMan, check out our Web page at www.physicalplant.wwu.edu/facman. This contains a full on-line tutorial with a free downloadable demo.