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Expanding Institutions Look for Capital Planning Tools Facility Condition Assessments Support Decisions at Laurier University
November, 2008
By Ray Robichaud and Michael Kwok
Universities and colleges often face difficult choices in deciding what building systems to repair or renew, which renovation projects to complete this year, and when to build new. The institutions' facility managers are responsible for preserving signature buildings and monuments, as well as ensuring all facilities - classrooms, dormitories, libraries, dining halls and student centres - are meeting occupants' needs. This means setting priorities for where limited capital funding will be spent, weighing the costs and benefits of competing projects and assessing the implications of deferring projects.
Wilfrid Laurier University is a mid-sized rapidly growing university spread out over three campuses in the southwestern Ontario cities of Waterloo, Kitchener and Brantford. The Laurier Physical Resources Department is responsible for the short and long-term management of more than 80 buildings encompassing more than 2 million square feet of facilities. Recently, the university undertook a $132 million extensive capital expansion project.
SYSTEM-WIDE CHALLENGES
Laurier is also one of 18 universities that comprise the Ontario University System - all of which are responding to projections for enrollment growth. Ensuring the accuracy and consistency of facility assessments system-wide has been something of a challenge since each university in the system initially had its own method for compiling data about facility conditions. Some conducted their own condition audits, others hired third-party firms and several used a combination of in-house staff and consultants.
Each university also had different techniques for prioritizing maintenance projects and estimating costs. Neither deferred maintenance nor renewal needs were planned on a system-wide basis. The disparate data from each school made it difficult for school officials to conduct long-term capital planning across the system.
In response, the Facility Condition Assessment Project (FCAP) was devised. It has two primary goals. The first is to provide consistent and comprehensive facilities data to the Ontario university presidents and the provincial government. The second is to deliver best practice facility management tools to the universities' physical plant departments.
In 2002, a facility condition assessment was completed at all universities, but Laurier fell among a number of universities that was unable to use and maintain the data due to limited resources. Over the years, the database became obsolete. As new campuses were built, data was not added to the system. As repairs were made and new requirements were discovered, the system remained dormant.
Maintenance and renewal requirements were responded to on an ad-hoc basis and long-term planning was not realistic with the data at hand. Projects were approved based on the "squeaky wheel" instead of from a calculated, strategic list.
CATCHING UP
In 2007, the Physical Resources Department commissioned an updated detailed facility condition assessment across all buildings on the three Laurier campuses, and adopted it as a new basis for planning. Capital planning software now serves as Laurier's central source for managing and analyzing facility information.
Special fields were created within the software to flag requirements related to accessibility and energy management to allow for easy reporting. Laurier is also able to use the software's built-in cost data from RSMeans to realistically estimate the cost of facility projects while "what-if" planning tools show how a particular investment will affect a facility's condition and additional funding requirements over time.
The university is now in the process of developing a strategic long-term capital plan that incorporates university goals and objectives. The goal is to optimize capital allocations based on business priorities and give all stakeholders visibility into established priorities, and the ability to understand how those priorities affect capital funding decisions.
There are many factors to consider from student demographics and enrollment trends to available funding sources, but accurate information about the current condition of facilities and their major systems - including the identification of repair, renovation or renewal needs and their associated costs - forms a strong foundation for developing a long-term capital plan.
Laurier is also planning to integrate the condition information in capital planning software with its work order management system. This integration will enable the creation of projects in the work order management system from requirements within capital planning software, and will automatically update those requirements to show as complete.
Ray Robichaud is the Manager for Customer Service and Business Operations in the Physical Resources Department at Wilfrid Laurier University. He can be reached at rrobichaud@wlu.ca. Mike Kwok is Vice President of Professional Services for Canada at VFA, Inc., the designers of VFA Facility, the software solution implemented at Wilfrid Laurier University. For more information, see the web site at www.vfa.com.
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