How to Clean and Organize Your Facilities Data This Spring

Facilities data directly impacts your operational efficiency, as well as cost control and strategic decision-making. Facilities managers who oversee multiple locations are responsible for numerous assets, vendors, and maintenance activities. Keeping your facilities management data clean and organized is a requirement! 

This year, think about a facilities management data clean-up as an essential spring cleaning task. 

Messy, out-of-control data means more opportunity for confusion, which in turn leads to maintenance failures, redundant vendor calls, and increased operational downtime. Streamlined data, on the other hand? That’s the secret to peak operational efficiency. 

A modern, flexible CMMS helps you keep track of the right things, especially when you’re making improvements to your data management protocols. Let’s take a look at how to do a “deep clean” of your facilities data this spring. 

While you’re here, learn more about the ROI of facilities data management in our free guide. 

Why is data cleanup important in facilities management?

Facilities management generates enormous amounts of data every day, from work orders and asset maintenance records to vendor performance metrics and compliance documentation. Keeping that data cleaned up is important because disorganized, inaccurate, and incomplete data and analytics impact your bottom line. 

Clutter that builds up in a home or an office creates problems, just like cluttered data creates problems in a retail or warehousing facility. Bad data management means inefficient performance and weakened decision-making. 

Importantly, managing your data and analytics is about more than just avoiding operational inefficiencies. That’s because poorly stored data hides years of valuable insights from the people who could use that information to make data-informed decisions. What good is it to have data about asset life cycles, vendor relationships, and performance history if you can’t actually access that information? 

You have to be able to access the data and analytics if you want to leverage them!

Clean data ensures that facilities management teams can:

• Make informed decisions based on accurate information
• Reduce operational costs through improved efficiency
• Extend asset life cycles with proper maintenance tracking
• Maintain regulatory compliance with complete documentation
• Optimize vendor relationships with performance tracking
• Improve budget accuracy with reliable historical data

What types of facilities data should you focus on organizing first?

If you’re asking this question, you’re on the right track! Spring is coming soon, and you’re going to have to figure out where to start. 

If you’re launching a data and analytics cleanup initiative, you’ll have to prioritize which types of facilities to focus on first. Our recommendation is to figure out which type of facilities data can provide the fastest and most significant impact on operations, then start there. 

Let’s take a look at 5 types of data that have the potential to be your first step toward getting your facilities data under control. 

1. Asset Data

Asset information forms the foundation of effective facilities management. This includes:

• Equipment documentation and manuals
• Warranty information
• Complete maintenance history
• Repair costs over time
• Photos and visual documentation
• Performance metrics and trends

2. Work Order Data

Work order information provides useful insights into operational efficiency and maintenance effectiveness. Focus on organizing:

• Historical work orders by type, priority, and location
• Resolution times and completion rates
• First-time fix rates and repeat service calls
• Vendor assignments and performance
• Cost data associated with each work order 

3. Vendor and Contractor Data

Properly organized vendor data and analytics help optimize your service provider network:

• Contact information and service areas
• Insurance certificates and compliance documentation
• Rate tables and negotiated terms
• Performance metrics and scorecards
• Service level agreements (SLAs) 

4. Compliance and Regulatory Data

Organized compliance data prevents costly violations and facilities reporting penalties:

• Refrigerant tracking and management records
• Safety inspection documentation
• Environmental compliance reports
• Permit and license information
• Audit histories and findings 

5. Financial and Budget Data

Clean financial data enables better facilities management cost control and budget planning:

• Maintenance costs by location, asset, and service type
• Capital expenditure records
• Operational budget allocations
• Warranty claims and recoveries
• Cost savings initiatives and results

How can a CMMS help streamline and automate your data cleanup process?

A modern Computerized Maintenance Management System (CMMS) is a powerful tool at your disposal. Your CMMS can streamline and automate data cleanup processes almost instantaneously. 

Whether you need your first-ever CMMS or just need to switch to one that is more effective, this essential facilities management software can put a stop to you having to manually sort through spreadsheets and paper records. No more disparate, disconnected systems and duplicate data entry. Your CMMS is the framework that structures the organization of your data, making clean data and analytics a breeze. 

Here are some of the ways that happens. 

Centralized Data Repository

A CMMS creates a single source of truth for all facilities management data. When you can go to one single source for your data, you save hours upon hours of work time. You’re no longer searching multiple databases, platforms, and APIs, because everything is housed in one place: your CMMS. 

It’s also far easier to read and interpret data when it is standardized across all facilities and departments. Imagine how great it would be if everyone was looking at the same data and analytics, throughout your organization.

This centralization of data makes it far easier to identify gaps and inconsistencies. Thanks to this feature, facilities managers can address data quality issues systematically, instead of individually.  Facilities reporting is a lot easier when your data is stored correctly. 

Standardized Data Collection

Your CMMS doesn’t just give you access to systematic facilities management data and analytics. It also collects data consistently across all facilities. You can set up specific rules for data collection, which creates a standardized process for inputting data. 

Standardized data collection includes: 

• Forms for all vendor calls and maintenance requests
• Service reports from vendors at any facility, working on any system
• Easy-to-read invoices 
• Documents associated with SLAs
• Input fields for maintenance notes

When your data and analytics adhere to the same format, it becomes easier to interpret, respond to, and use for improvement. 

Continuous Data Maintenance

Beyond initial cleanup, a CMMS helps maintain data quality over time. A centralized hub for asset data gives facilities managers a way to store and manage comprehensive records for every single asset. 

As you add more assets and retire others, your CMMS maintains data---to the minute! Purchase data, maintenance history, and depreciation schedules are always current. 

Another benefit is setting up automated alerts for any data and analytics anomalies, such as: 

• Missing information about an asset
• Unusual energy usage
• Higher-than-normal maintenance costs for any asset
• Delays in work order completion 
• Noncompliant vendors or employees 

What are common data management mistakes facility managers should avoid?

It’s important to be aware of common mistakes that facilities managers make when it comes to data and analytics management, even if they have a great CMMS. When you know about these issues, you can avoid them or correct them.

1. Inconsistent data entry standards that create opportunities for confusion to build
2. Neglecting regular data audits to assess for quality and process issues 
3. Siloed data systems where information is difficult to access immediately
4. Over-reliance on manual processes, such as accounting, procurement, and vendor management 
5. Failing to capture critical contextual data that gives you the full picture of your operations 
6. Inadequate user training on data systems
7. Ignoring data security and privacy issues, creating security risks 

Here’s some good news: Your CMMS will solve a lot of these problems for you! A solid, flexible, and innovative CMMS will prevent you from flawed data entry procedures, siloed data structures, and that frustrating over-reliance on manual processes. A good CMMS will also give you the context you need to understand what your data means, not just what it says. 

How does clean, accurate data improve decision-making and operational efficiency?

Imagine a facility where the data is properly organized, validated, stored, and maintained. In that facility, data becomes a strategic asset. It guides the facilities manager’s decision-making, supports the finance team’s budget goals, and improves efficiency across the entire organization. 

Consider these decision-making and operational efficiency benefits. 

Data-Driven Maintenance Planning

Clean data enables more effective preventive maintenance strategies. With a strong system, you can analyze historical data and identify trends, risks, and outliers. If an asset is nearing failure or creating an operational liability, you’re going to know about it while there is still time to fix things! 

The sooner you know about these issues, the earlier you can make data-driven maintenance decisions, whether your goal is to extend the lifespan of the asset or plan for replacement costs. 

Once you have accurate historical data at your fingertips, you can create an effective preventive maintenance schedule that reduces the number of emergency repairs you deal with every year. 

Enhanced Vendor Management

Without a doubt, you need accurate, current data about your vendors. 

Vendor relationship management involves understanding how your vendors are contacted and what information they receive, as well as how effectively all parties communicate about the work and all relevant invoices/payouts. 

Clean vendor performance data enables facilities teams to make informed decisions about which service providers deliver the best value and results. 

Improved Budget Accuracy

Well-managed financial data leads to more precise budgeting and cost control, which of course, CFOs love. As a facilities manager, it’s an exciting day when you can walk into a meeting with numbers that demonstrate just how perfectly you have aligned with projected budgets. That’s the kind of facilities reporting that you want to do! 

Budget data includes: 

• Historical spending
• Year-to-date costs associated with asset operations
• Projected preventive maintenance and repair costs
• Anticipated replacement costs for small and large assets alike 

This data will help you develop a realistic and effective budget---with excellent forecasting of future expenses. 

Streamlined Regulatory Compliance

Organized compliance data simplifies regulatory facilities reporting and reduces risk of non-compliance. Simplified and streamlined data means that you can effectively identify assets that require regular inspections, leak detection systems, and any additional record-keeping. 

Having complete, accurate records readily available makes regulatory compliance more manageable and reduces the risk of penalties.

Accelerated Decision-Making

Let’s speed up the decision-making process. Delays cost money, and slow decision-making can be as bad as failing to make decisions until they are made for you by circumstance.

For example, if you fail to make a decision about whether to repair or replace a major asset, what happens when that asset fails on you? Not only are you likely to be forced into a decision, but the cost of that decision increases significantly. 

Your CMMS can help you make better decisions, faster. When you have access to great data, you can be more confident in your decision-making, which is now supported by data instead of a gut feeling. 

Learn What You Can Do with Fexa

At Fexa, we understand that the quality of your facilities data has a direct impact on your operations, budget, and bottom line. If you’re facing the pressure to do more with less, you’re not alone. So let’s talk about how you can get cleaned-up, accurate data with our CMMS. After all, well-controlled data is a competitive necessity---not a luxury! 

Fexa is the most flexible CMMS on the market. Legacy platforms can’t compete with the data-driven future we’re building at Fexa. Facilities managers who work with our CMMS are able to take control of their data and transform their operations.

Learn more in our “Essential Guide to Facilities Technology,” where we explore the ways that Fexa saves you both time and money. Your CMMS is your best tool for data management across all of your facilities!  Fexa can take you from chaotic, fragmented data to data that is organized, streamlined, and strategic.