If you ask a person on the street the first thing that comes to mind when they think of schools, you’ll probably hear things like: “Desks, tests, classrooms, teachers, recess, and detention.”
What you’re not likely to hear is an in-depth understanding of all the behind-the-scenes work that keeps K-12 schools running efficiently—specifically, facilities management and asset management.
Typically, facilities and asset management tasks are managed separately. They’re assigned to different teams, require different software, and are siloed awkwardly from the rest of your school operations. However, combining your facilities management software and asset management software on one platform provides enormous benefits to K-12 districts from an operational standpoint.
Want to reduce work order times and streamline your asset management workflow? Here are a few more reasons you should handle your school facilities and asset management on one platform.
Facilities Management vs. Asset Management
First, let’s clearly define these two functions and their roles in school operations.
Facility Management
“A professional management discipline focused on supporting the regular maintenance and upkeep of K-12 school facilities, including school grounds, buildings, and real property.”
K-12 facility management is typically run by an experienced Facility Manager (FM). Work orders are completed by technicians hired either full-time by the school or on a contract basis. On top of completing work orders, facilities teams are also responsible for outlining and executing a district-wide maintenance plan for each school year.
A typical maintenance plan includes:
- Maintenance activities
- Maintenance schedules
- Employee and staff headcounts
- Materials and equipment needed
- Total budget and forecasted expenses
Once a maintenance plan has been prepared, it’s time to execute. Facility managers typically use CMMS (computerized maintenance management system) software to track, manage, and resolve incoming work orders. This software gives maintenance teams easy access to a suite of order management, analytics, and communication tools.
Asset Management
“A systematic process of purchasing, maintaining, upgrading, and disposing assets in K-12 schools.”
Asset management responsibilities are typically shared between IT and Facility Management departments. While IT teams manage hardware assets like student devices and school technology, facility teams are responsible for physical assets and equipment like light fixtures, water heaters, and HVAC systems.
Facility Managers play a crucial role in the asset management process—specifically, planning maintenance for school equipment, forecasting new orders, issuing replacements, and maintaining accurate inventory counts.
Facility Asset Management: how these processes work together
The glaring issue with a CMMS is that it doesn’t typically provide maintenance teams access to an updated inventory of your school district’s assets. This means technicians won’t have access to critical asset information such as manufacturing date, service history, or physical condition of an asset until they’re out in the field.
By consolidating your facilities and asset management software to one platform, school technicians can access up-to-date asset information in advance instead of wasting time troubleshooting asset maintenance issues on the job.
Benefits of Bundling Facilities & Asset Management Together
Your maintenance management activities can’t exist solely in a CMMS. To increase your asset lifecycle and improve strategic planning, you need to bundle your facilities and asset management tools together.
Here are a few benefits of combining your facility and asset management software.
1. Create Accurate Repair, Maintenance, and Asset Replacement Schedules
With accurate asset data on hand, facility managers can plan repairs throughout the school year and follow preventative maintenance schedule best practices. Similarly, technicians can prioritize maintenance for critical assets vital to your school operations instead of resolving incoming work orders at random.
2. Asset Value Tracking, Forecasting, and Inventory Management
Your school assets will depreciate over time—it’s inevitable. However, an integrated asset management dashboard allows facility managers to track the condition of school assets and create a plan to extend their asset lifecycle.
What happens when a device or piece of equipment eventually breaks down? Asset service and ownership histories allow facility teams to properly assess the condition of school equipment and forecast potential asset replacements for the upcoming school year.
3. 360° Lifecycle Management
From initial purchase to deprovisioning, facility teams can conduct maintenance proactively throughout the asset life cycle. Instead of dealing with equipment failures and last-minute repairs, facility managers can extend the lifespan of their district assets and save money that would’ve been wasted due to negligence.
4. Asset Visibility Across Dashboards
No more unanswered emails or playing guessing games with your asset data. In a combined platform, facility teams can get quick, up-to-date information on all the assets in their school districts. With total asset visibility, maintenance technicians will have the information required to improve job decision-making and resolve work orders faster.
5. Total Workflow Management Across School Departments
Within a combined platform, facility teams can manage all their tasks in one place. However, it also enables collaboration across departments. A support platform like Incident IQ eliminates the need for multiple platforms and software tools that result in an overgrown tech stack. Instead, your CMMS, asset management system, help desk, and HR workflow tools can all be managed on a single, unified platform.
Better collaboration + improved workflows = a manageable workload and fewer administrative headaches for everyone in your district.
Best Facilities & Asset Management Software
At Incident IQ, we’ve designed a platform to streamline facilities and asset management for busy maintenance teams—but we didn’t just stop there.
With combined asset management, help ticketing, facilities management, and HR tools, K-12 districts have everything they need to support their school operations. Schedule a demo with our team to see how Incident IQ helps maintenance teams transform their K-12 facility management workflows.
