Building Management and Maintenance Systems

Facility managers that adopt an analytical mindset to complement their technical skills can improve their operations by leveraging the smart-building data they collect. That’s one of the take-aways from the International Facility Management Association’s World Workplace 2025 conference held in Minneapolis earlier this month.

IFMA’s 30th annual flagship event drew more than 4,000 facilities management professionals, 350 exhibitors and dozens of speakers, many of whom challenged attendees to make their facilities — and approach to facilities management — more efficient and responsive to data.

In an interview, IFMA Director of Research Matt Tucker detailed the idea of an “FM analyst” mindset that facilities managers are encouraged to adopt to make sense of the influx of data they’re getting from all of their digital tools.

The “FM analyst” position is less a formal job title or credential than a “mindset” driven by the proliferation of data and the rise of AI against a backdrop of sophisticated cybersecurity threats, Tucker said.

Facilities managers almost have more data than they know what to do with, with much of it disorganized or siloed by location or department, Tucker said. This new normal demands a new approach that he described broadly as ”developing an analytical brain” — layering information synthesis and effective communication on top of existing FM expertise.

“Traditionally, FMs are amazing at technical tasks, but do we have the same skill set from an analytical perspective?” he said.

Answering that question is urgent amid generational change in the facilities management profession, Tucker said. He expects the majority of the facilities management workforce to turn over within the next 15 years. 

He called out two skills that FM analysts need in abundance: storytelling and the ability to collaborate.

Storytelling is vital for FMs to knit patterns and trends out of the data their systems are generating and then translate what they see for the C-suite. When advocating for a digital transformation project, for example, FMs need to speak in a language their chief technology officer understands without getting too deep into the facility's weeds — even if they think their audience can follow along.

Facility managers should ask themselves “‘Am I being convincing at the C-suite level?’” Tucker said. Executives “don’t want to be bombarded with spreadsheets, so the presentation has to be to the point.” 

Given the importance of data, which crosses function areas, facilities managers must become comfortable collaborating with colleagues in other departments like finance, human resources and information technology. 

“I don’t think we can be successful anymore just working on FM,” he said.

The importance of a data-driven, multidisciplinary approach to facilities management was on full display at the conference. Dozens of companies — including some of the biggest names in built environment technology — demonstrated solutions for more streamlined, efficient facilities.

The Johnson Control product OpenBlue, for example, uses AI to make sense of cross-functional data to help facilities managers improve space usage, reduce energy consumption and cut building maintenance workloads by up to two-thirds.  

“The siloes are long gone,” said Vineet Sinha, vice president of product management that leads development of OpenBlue enterprise solutions at Johnson Controls.

Sinha said modular tools like OpenBlue can do a lot of the heavy lifting for facilities managers overseeing complex footprints, regardless of the parent organization’s digital maturity, and even help FMs drive more digital investment. 

“Our advantage is meeting them where they're at in terms of digital maturity and then ramping from there,” said Sinha.

It wasn’t Danny Clemens’ idea to adopt a workflow management tool to help him manage the 29 buildings he oversees as director of facilities for the Bullitt County School District in Kentucky. The idea was the district’s technology chief’s to make procurement easier. But by adding facilities operations to the tool, Clemens has been able to tweak when and where his technicians focus their attention to keep older equipment maintained without disrupting classroom instruction.   

“The classroom is the center of our universe, so we want to disrupt it the least amount possible,” Clemens said in an interview.

The district’s tech director reached out to Clemens about 14 months ago about having facilities piggy back on the tool, from incident IQ.  

“We were using a platform that was digital but it wasn’t very good,” said Clemens, a former teacher and school principal who took over as facilities chief for the district in 2023. 

Incident IQ specializes in the K-12 space but other companies make workflow management software available to facilities managers, including UpKeep, MaintainX, Corrigo and Limble, among others.  

The big change for his operations is the visibility the tool gives him and his technicians into the status of the equipment they have to keep running.  

“I have only 15 maintenance techs and only two of them are preventive maintenance, so I have to be very efficient with our time,” he said. “This allows us to frontload the work instead of working from the backside.”

Work that requires a steady cadence, like keeping HVAC filters clean, gets inputted in the software so the maintenance techs get automated work orders.  

“It designates to them, ‘I should be at this school, on this floor, changing filters in the HVAC units on this day,’” he said. “It doesn’t rely on me going into the system remembering, ‘Oh, yeah, we need to put those in.’ It’s already built into the mechanism.” 

As things come up, he and other school officials send out work orders that everyone sees in real-time. 

“Whether it’s a school sending in a work order or we’re assigning a work order to a technician … the agent is on site or in the field acknowledging it and everybody stays within the loop, which is half the challenge,” he said.

The service data that’s collected over time helps on budgeting, too, by creating a history that can support capital requests, he said. 

“I was able to go into our last budgeting cycle and collect this data and tell our superintendent and finance chief, ‘This is where the work orders are coming from,’” he said. “That was a real conversation I had using this data to derive basically that we need $2 million of HVAC at this school, and I was able to support it because of the documentation I had.”

Clemens’ team has been inputting data on equipment as they work on it with the idea that the database will become more complete over time. The team has focused first on HVAC equipment to keep classroom temperatures comfortable and as part of a district-wide energy efficiency goal.  

“We pride ourselves on our energy use,” he said. “We’re a district that in 2000 still had a school burning coal outside of Louisville. Now we have a school that’s solar and all of our schools have geothermal. So for us, a lot of our work orders are for HVAC, because that’s the bulk of our energy savings.”

Sponsored content

By Johnson Controls

Building automation systems (BAS) are powerful. They connect HVAC, lighting, security, and other systems into one platform. They generate data, automate tasks, and help teams run buildings more efficiently.

But many organizations still struggle to get the full value from their BAS. Why? Because they manage these systems in pieces.

The problem with piecemeal upgrades

Many building systems evolve over time. A control upgrade here, a device replacement there. A quick fix to solve an urgent problem.

This piecemeal approach is common. But it limits progress.

When updates are made in isolation, teams miss opportunities to improve overall system performance. They also make systems harder to manage and scale.

A better way is to think about the entire lifecycle of the building. From design and installation to operation, service and upgrades.

The lifecycle approach: a continuous loop of value

A lifecycle approach treats BAS as a continuous process, not a one-time project. In this model, technology is regularly monitoring performance. Systems are updated over time, and data helps guide decisions at every stage.

An intelligent BAS makes this possible. It connects key building systems and provides real-time visibility. It also gives teams access to analytics that are used to improve efficiency, comfort, safety, and more.

Steps include:

1. Simplify with zero engineering

One of the biggest barriers in BAS today is complexity. Many systems require specialized skills to install and program. At the same time, the industry is facing a shortage of skilled labor.

To address this, the industry is shifting toward zero engineering. This approach focuses on plug-and-play technologies, factory-connected devices and standard control sequences.

The result is easier deployment, shorter set-up, and more time focused on delivering value.

2. Move to continuous commissioning

Commissioning ensures that systems work as designed to. Traditionally, this process relies on on-site specialists.

With connected systems, commissioning becomes continuous. Teams can use remote tools to monitor and adjust systems over time.

Local technicians can be supported remotely as needed, reducing errors and keeping projects on schedule.

3. Unlock value with autonomous operations

When a BAS is up and running, connected systems allow teams to monitor and manage assets remotely. When fully realized, BAS can help organizations save energy, improve reliability, increase efficiency, and enhance occupant comfort.

4. Build for the future

A future-ready BAS separates software from hardware, allowing a system to evolve over time, with new features and updates added without replacing physical devices. The result: a system that grows and adjusts with the facility.

Bringing it all together

These strategies work best as part of a continuous lifecycle. Together, they help organizations move from reactive management to proactive performance.

Take the next step

Many buildings already have a BAS in place. The opportunity is to maximize its abilities and performance.

Download the complete BAS Lifecycle Playbook to explore each strategy in detail and see how you can apply it across your facilities.

Schneider Electric has released a service called EcoCare for Building Management Systems to help facilities managers improve maintenance, operations and occupant comfort. 

Digital monitoring can improve energy savings 25%, reduce occupant complaints 60%, improve system operational efficiency 30% and reduce system downtime 45% compared to traditional operations, the company claims.  

EcoCare for BMS combines continuous monitoring, AI-driven analytics and technical support, both remote and on-site, to help facility teams address issues before they disrupt operations, the company says.

The launch of EcoCare is part of Schneider’s efforts to scale its building and power management systems and service models across a range of facilities types and sizes. The new service follows the launch of the company’s energy management and IOT automation platform EcoStruxure Building Activate in 2024 and its Edge AI enhanced room controllers in 2025. 

The digital tools stem from the company’s research into AI deployments and their impacts on building operations. 

“We’ve seen the significant impact of leveraging AI when it comes to delivering HVAC optimization and efficiency,” Sadiq Syed, senior vice president of building and power automation at Schneider Electric, told Facilities Dive. “By leveraging pattern recognition, occupancy levels and usage, and deploying AI models on it, we see significant improvements in energy efficiency and savings.

Syed said the efficiencies that facilities gain differ based on the building type and the age of the assets, but they’re nevertheless measurable — “ranging between a low of 5% to as high as upwards of 20%,” he said. “They’re variable factors, but [we’ve] seen AI helping customers drive efficiency, especially around HVAC.”

In its announcement about EcoCare, the company says the service is timely because complex facilities like those in the healthcare and higher education spaces are increasingly electrifying, becoming more energy-intensive and sensitive to downtime, so facility teams benefit from continuous digital monitoring.

"The old model of reactive maintenance just doesn't work anymore," Tyler Haak, vice president of services and digital buildings in the U.S for Schneider Electric, said in a statement. "Facility teams are expected to keep buildings running, manage issues as they arise and do more with fewer resources, [so] they need real-time visibility and predictive insights to stay ahead.”

By helping teams identify issues earlier, the monitoring helps them reduce downtime and keep the HVAC at a comfortable level, “delivering better experiences for the people who rely on those buildings,” Haak said.

Syed said the advantages of digital monitoring become clear to facilities managers once they’ve worked with it. 

“They have been in the weeds, working day in and day out,” he said. “But when they start embracing [data], they’ll soon realize the ability of viewing and [centrally] managing the entire portfolio, versus sending trucks or sending people. They are short of those people, [so] visibility to data and having connected assets is so powerful.”

Facility managers wanting to lower the chance of a Legionella or other outbreak in their water system are more likely to head off problems by integrating lab test results with their building maintenance and management system, says Noah Reding, vice president and general manager of real estate and facilities at software company Accruent. 

Using the BMMS to analyze test results over time can identify trends before bacteria levels reach a critical threshold, Reding said in an interview. 

“If you’re meeting a schedule you’ve had for years and you start to see something that’s abnormal, that’s perhaps a leading indicator that can help you see something [that could lead to an] outbreak,” said Reding. 

About half a dozen states and a number of localities require some facilities to test their water systems regularly, but manually spotting trends while they’re still nascent can be difficult.

That’s where BMMS can help.

“The tools are essentially creating a level of insight that lets you take action from a preventative maintenance perspective,” said Reding.

If analysis of the data in the BMMS shows bacteria levels ticking up, even though they remain below threshold levels, facility managers can have technicians conduct more detailed testing or take other action as part of regular work on the water system, Reding said. 

“You essentially augment your typical work orders and say, ‘Hey, while you’re out there, capture this data or take this measurement,’” he said. “We’ll send it to the lab and then make sure that new data goes into the system as well. Now you’re tracking not only typical work order status, but you’ve added this data to it as well.”

Early action can head off problems well before they reach a compliance threshold that would trigger intervention, he said. 

“It’s all about having a baseline, and if things differ from that baseline, what adjustments can you make?” he said. 

A BMMS can be as simple as tracking work orders or as complex as an integration involving data from multiple tools, like those that track indoor air quality along with space usage, so a typical system should be able to easily handle the addition of lab culture test results, he said. 

Integration of test results “is a good example of how BMMS tools are used for all kinds of maintenance management, whatever it may be,” he said.

MaintainX has launched an AI maintenance building solution that it says will help those without traditional business intelligence and query building skills to draw insights from asset and maintenance data. 

Report Builder AI enables users to ask questions about labor, inventory, asset performance, downtime and compliance to generate visual reports within the MaintainX platform, the company said in a release. The reports are generated from data on work orders, parts usage, purchase orders, maintenance schedules and asset history. 

“Today, all the knowledge lies in manuals, PDFs and people’s brains,” Sami Tas, MaintainX vice president of engineering and AI, said in an interview. “As those people retire, that information will be largely lost, unfortunately. Our goal is [to] capture that institutional knowledge [so] people can diagnose and fix issues faster and plan their operations better.” 

Reducing unplanned downtime and improving asset tracking are the main goals for MaintainX, Tas said. 

“You might have hundreds or thousands of assets, and you might need to actually look at the patterns and asset types,” Tas said. “With the report builder, Report Builder AI, you could type, ‘What are the asset types that gave me the most reliability issues?’ Or most downtime over the past six months? and Report Builder AI could build that report for you.” 

These reporting capabilities are intended to address growing customer demand for advanced, in-platform reporting as organizations standardize maintenance and operational practices, according to the company.

“How much money [have] I spent on different parts [or] different vendors over time?” Tas said. “Which assets give me the most trouble?”

Facilities managers and maintenance teams could generate reports based on failure types and use a root analysis module to classify them and analyze which types of failure result in the most downtime, he said. 

The data can also help teams improve labor use, according to Tas. “We know that 60% of the time is spent on researching and diagnosing the issues, and only 40% of the time is spent with the wrench,” he said. “So, how can we reduce the time spent on research and get you access to the information as fast as possible so that you can actually do more … work?”

Looking ahead, Tas said, the company is working to move AI tools from straightforward point solutions, designed to solve single problems, to more holistic uses that can help provide actionable insights and assist technicians’ judgment. 

“Anybody can generate these reports,” Tas said.  “Even for complex reports, [Report Builder AI] actually provides a starting point…. Editing [a query] is much easier than starting from scratch.” 

A group of U.S. government agencies are offering advice for organizations on applying zero-trust principles to their operational technology environments.

Taking a zero-trust approach to these industrial systems requires careful consideration, the new government publication says, “because OT systems interact with the physical environment and are constrained by availability and safety requirements, as well as legacy technology with long lifespans.”

Operational technology refers to systems, like building management systems, that use network connectivity to help technicians manage physical hardware like HVAC systems. 

The document — co-authored by the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA), the FBI and the departments of Defense, Energy and State — describes the unique challenges that OT environments pose, the importance of clear governance frameworks and supply-chain oversight, and the steps that infrastructure operators should take to implement zero trust.

The government advice comes as hackers increasingly turn their attention to OT operators, many of which use insecure legacy technology, lack adequate cybersecurity budgets and cannot tolerate significant downtime.

“This guide moves owners and operators from reactive to proactive,” Brett Leatherman, the assistant director of the FBI’s Cyber Division, said in a statement. “Resilience in OT isn’t achieved through any single control; it requires layered defenses that raise the cost for adversaries at every stage.

Organizations should begin by establishing governance structures, the publication says, including “shared accountability” between stakeholders and the use of supply-chain risk management tools such as software bills of materials. Next, they must identify and analyze their assets, implement processes for tracking changes to those assets and evaluate the threats the assets face.

The document then recommends specific zero-trust security practices, such as network segmentation, identity management, secure remote access, vulnerability management and data encryption. But it warns that most of these practices will work differently in OT environments than in traditional IT environments.

In particular, ideal access controls may not be possible in OT environments due to operational needs, the document says, so organizations should stack a series of compensating controls on top of each other to make it harder for hackers to exploit access-control weaknesses. The document also contrasts how IT and OT environments can implement network segmentation, highlighting the difficulties that exist in the OT world.

The document also includes sections on threat detection, response and recovery, with guidance and recommendations about the OT-specific considerations for each of those activities. For example, it notes that endpoint detection and response (EDR) software is sometimes difficult to run on the embedded systems prevalent in OT environments, and it offers advice for how to deal with those challenges. It also suggests ways for incident responders to contain attacks on OT systems.

Shared organizational responsibility is a major theme of the publication, which warns that “tools and technologies alone are insufficient” to implement zero-trust principles.

“Strong collaboration between IT, OT, and cybersecurity teams is critical to achieving effective and sustainable implementation of technology and processes,” the publication says. “This collaboration requires breaking down organizational silos, fostering mutual understanding, and tailoring ZT principles to the unique characteristics and operational requirements of each OT environment.”

Carrier and IBM have each released AI-powered tools that aim to help building operators improve their maintenance operations. Both highlight the ongoing push by vendors to meet demand for data-driven insights and automation that can improve efficiency in the facilities management sector. 

Almost half of building operators believe that AI could have a significant impact on improving the efficiency of preventive maintenance and scheduling, according to a December report by JLL subsidiary Building Engines, which surveyed 370 commercial real estate professionals in collaboration with Building Owners and Managers Association International. 

On Wednesday, Carrier announced upgrades to its Abound Insights Assistant app that analyzes equipment performance across building portfolios and provides insights to building owners through the app, including recommendations for over 25 categories of equipment in commercial buildings, including HVAC, refrigeration and controls, the company says. 

The tool alerts users with detailed information about problems and warnings that can help to schedule a site visit for inspection and complete maintenance, the company said in a release. For example, when there is a suspected refrigerant leak in the chiller, the system can warn there may be a risk of potential compressor damage, allowing technicians to show up prepared, Carrier says. 

An equipment health dashboard within Carrier Abound also shares information on energy efficiency and potential failures that can be filtered by equipment categories, with users able to prioritize and allocate tasks based on the health of connected systems and skills required for each task. Located within the “To-Do List” feature, each task for equipment also includes AI-generated repair recommendations and service history, Carrier says. 

IBM on Wednesday released a new version of its Maximo application suite that the company says is designed to help clients deploy asset lifecycle management in the data and AI era. The software provides capital planning tools and a Generative AI assistant that can help users engage with asset data through natural conversation.

The upgrades are meant to enable the proactive maintenance of assets, IBM says. In order to help plan capital allocations for projects , Maximo can also generate and compare multiple scenarios for investment in assets based on business priorities; the Asset Investment Planning tool will provide weighted analysis and multi-objective optimization to balance cost, risk and performance, IBM says. 

The company also added space management features to help optimize workspace use, lease administration and accounting capabilities. Together, IBM says Maximo now provides a “comprehensive solution for real estate and facilities management.”