Data-Driven Analysis for Facility Management in Higher Education Institution

Abstract

Planned Preventive Maintenance (PPM) and Unplanned Maintenance (UPM) are the most common types of facility maintenance. This paper analyzes current trends and status of Facility Management (FM) practice at higher education institutions by proposing a systematic data-driven methodology using Natural Language Process (NLP) approaches, statistical analysis, risk-profile analysis, and outlier analysis. This study utilizes a descriptive database entitled “Facility Management Unified Classification Database (FMUCD)” to conduct the systematic data-driven analyses. The 5-year data from 2015 to 2019 was collected from eight universities in North America. A preprocessing step included but was not limited to identifying common data attributes, cleaning noisy data, and removing unnecessary data. The outcomes of this study can facilitate the decision-making process by providing an understanding of various aspects of educational facility management trends and risks. The methodology developed gives decision makers of higher education institutions, including facility managers and institution administrators, effective strategies to establish long-term budgetary goals, which will lead to the enhancement of the asset value of the institutions.

Planned maintenance vs Unplanned maintenance and facility costs

“…Pampana, etal [2] utilized Natural Language Processing (NLP) and statistical analysis to identify the frequency of planned preventive maintenance (PPM) and unplanned maintenance (UPM) activities. They evaluated data from several universities that provided work order data for analysis.…”

“…Pampana, etal [2] reviewed the work order data by individual entry to ensure each record was classified correctly as being PPM, UPM, or other (capital renewal, capital improvement, or nonmaintenance customer service). This was necessary because some systems do not ensure entries clearly specify whether the work is preventive or scheduled to avoid costs associated with unplanned tasks.…”

“…Unplanned Maintenance (UPM) is an alternate maintenance [2] method that responds to equipment failures which may occur on a random basis, at any time. The ability to plan for the efficient allocation of resources, assignment of technically qualified workers, and the availability of materials and equipment is greatly reduced with UPM work.…”