A cry for help is heard

Responding to my NFMT Charge At the National Facilities Management and Technology Conference in Baltimore, MD this past March, I spoke on "Fighting the Maintenance Crisis." I gave each attendee a charge to go back and do one thing to help fight the maintenance crisis. The youngest person at the session has responded to my charge by sharing about the research she is doing:

Angela Lewis, a graduate student and researcher, at Penn State is developing a decision analysis tool to help Facility Managers assess, plan and implement energy performance and maintenance programs for commercial building mechanical equipment. The main goal of the tool is to quickly help Facility Managers assess their current maintenance and energy performance programs and provide one recommendation with three specific, actionable items that can be completed. As each item is completed, the tool can be used for continuous improvement to move from reactive to proactive maintenance.

Her work includes an web-based survey and testing of the decision analysis tool. The Current Practices, Needs & Challenges of the Energy & Maintenance Programs survey will come out on May 1st. The decision analysis tool is under development. Test case participants are being sought to complete the survey and participate in the decision analysis tool testing. Further information can be found at www.improvebuildingperformance.com or by contacting Angela at ama259@psu.edu