*2.2. Current FM Guideline and FM Computerized Platform*

A published guideline supported by APPA, "Maintenance Staffing Guidelines for Educational Facilities", focuses on determining the adequate maintenance staff size in managing educational facilities [16]. The guide also established baseline attribute standards for each maintenance level, which is now widely accepted as an industry standard. Another published guideline, "Operational Guidelines for Educational Facilities—Maintenance, second edition", introduced maintenance operations that offer best management practices for effective performance in each maintenance department along with the tools of determining staff levels with several case studies and statistical methods [17]. The staffing resources were calculated for a wide variety of campus sizes using the 'Aggregate method' in each case study. The full-time equivalent (FTE) calculation was performed by gathering all building-related data, determining staffing factors, selecting adjustment factors (e.g., campus age, varied facilities, DeM levels, campus missions, etc.), and applying a simple formula to get the FTE value. The formula used five adjustments ranging between −10%

and +10%. Adjustments were made to recognize economies of scale, condition of buildings, facility age, and campus mission. The adjustments were summed and used to increase or decrease the initial *FTE* estimate based on variations from the norm. Equation (1) shows the formula for *FTE* estimate.

$$Adjusted\ FTE = (1 + \sum factors) \ast Baseline\ FTE \tag{1}$$

A combination of computed FTE can support a work management system and provide an efficient organizational structure. APPA also introduced the "Facilities Performance Indicators (FPI)" program, which is based on a survey distributed to hundreds of North American universities, includes questions associated with facility condition index (FCI), current replacement value (CRV), energy cost, and age of buildings. The FPI report has been published every year and contains key information about the current trend and status of educational facilities. FPI aims to constantly improve the facilities by developing new tools in the field. Moreover, it provides insights on preventive maintenance programs, including reduced overtime needs, large-scale repairs, and customer service practices for improved facilities.

Additionally, the U.S. Department of Education, National Center for Education Statistics (NCES), and National Forum on Education Statistics (NFES) published a guideline, "Planning Guide for Maintaining School Facilities" [18], to develop, implement, and evaluate a facilities maintenance plan at the school district level. The guideline offers budgets, planning of school facilities maintenance, and facility audits. It also provides effective management of staff and contractors and training guidelines of school facilities for the hired staff.

Lastly, Whitestone Research published a cost reference guideline for facility maintenance and repair costs for over 1700 components and their associated maintenance tasks [19]. The components and tasks listed in Whitestone cost reference follow Uniformat II classification. The cost reference consists of various tools and critical information of the life of specific asset components, trade labor hours, historical inflation rate of maintenance and repair costs, and total cost required to maintain a facility over its service lifetime. The reference is a huge asset to the facility managers as it provides the estimates of 50-year maintenance cost profiles for 74 different models, which offers an advantage while creating budgets and cost estimates.

There are many computerized platforms available in the current market for facilities management. The platforms/variations of functionality that are applicable to this study [20] are as follows:


For clarity and simplicity, all four platforms/variations are referred to as CMMS.

#### *2.3. Facility Management Classifications*

The advancement of equipment technologies and constantly evolving products in the facility domain have opened a new door towards the development of different classification systems; they categorize building elements and their related site work based on the functionality. The most widely used international classification systems in construction and facilities management include Uniformat II, OmniClassTM, MasterFormat®, UniformatTM, Uniclass, UNSPSC, etc. These classification systems follow international standards, and facility managers at the universities rely on them to maintain their database, which records varying day-to-day activities. Table 1 illustrates current FM classification systems based on their origin, updated year, classification structure, hierarchy levels, a grouping of elements, and component details.


**Table 1.** Comparison of the current classification systems [21,22].

As can be seen from Table 1, Uniformat II was developed by ASTM (American Society of Testing and Materials) International [23]. It has a hierarchical structure with three standard levels: major group elements (e.g., substructure, shell, etc.), group elements (systems), and individual elements (subsystems). However, due to limited sub-elements in this system, different organizations can highly customize it by adding elements according to their requirements [22]. MasterFormat®, a product of 'Construction Specifications Institute' (CSI) and 'Construction Specifications Canada' (CSC), is solely based on mounted elements and has a hierarchical structure with four levels: divisions, sections, elements, and sub-elements [24]. Similar to MasterFormat®, UniformatTM was developed by CSI & CSC, based on functional elements [21,25]. The structure of this classification system is hierarchical with five levels: categories, classes, two subclasses, and elements. Additionally, OmniClass Construction Classification System was developed by CSI & CSC [26]; this is similar to UK-based Uniclass [27] as both cover complete lifecycle classification of facilitybuilt environment. The structure of OmniClassTM is faceted with six levels, which consists of work results from MasterFormat® and elements from UniformatTM [21]. Another classification system used by the state of California, i.e., United Nations Standard Products and Services Code (UNSPSC) which is based on mounted elements and its structure is hierarchical with five levels [28]. The component details criteria, Detailed/Neutral/Less Details/Not Detailed, compared the specific details present based on component characteristics provided by Whitestone cost reference [19] such as units, trade, labor details, material costs, equipment type, task type, etc.

It was observed that the classification structure of four out of six systems were hierarchical and two were faceted or combinatory. A faceted structure is defined as the categorization of elements under a combination of facets [22]. All the aforementioned classification systems are used internationally, but most of them are specifically designed for the construction industry, not for facilities management. The available classification systems are either based on functionality or mounted elements with less or no details. Therefore, there is a critical need to develop a classification system that includes component details based on both mounted elements and functionality, which can be suitable for diverse building types. This study introduces Facility Management Unified Classification Database (FMUCD) based on functionality and conduct data driven analysis to provide guidelines the facility management to make an appropriate decision in an uncertain situation at higher education institutions.
