Robert Hardie, Facilities Manager of City of Concord, CA, has worked in local government for 25 years and in his current role for two years. His team manages 500,000 square feet with a staff of nine individuals, including a graffiti removal crew, painter, electrician, plumber, HVAC tech, maintenance workers and a maintenance technician.
After using other work order systems in the past that were inefficient, they decided to make the switch to Brightly. They utilize MaintenanceEdge, Capital Forecast and Brightly's utility tracking software.
“The ability to filter and pull reports was a key benefit for me,” Robert said. “It just seemed cleaner and easier.” Some of the reports that he frequently pulls include:
- Total # of work orders
- Completed work orders
- Overdue work orders
- Work orders by staff
- Cost per facility, location and per fiscal year
As far as implementing the software, Robert said the provided training was especially good, walking his team through specific tasks like how to set up PMs and how to enter and complete work orders.
Better budgeting and planning
Robert also uses the data from the system to create more exact budgets and capital plans. “We were doing 10-year budgeting using Excel spreadsheets. We wanted to have something more specific rather than just guessing. We now have a list of all of the equipment and facilities. So, you can just go in and pull projected costs by year, or for 10 years. For budgeting purposes, you now have realistic costs of what you’re going to need.”
Easy access to this type of data has allowed Robert to justify why he needed additional funding added to his routine operations budget, and the creation of a new capital budget that is dedicated to facility repairs and replacement.
Now I have a tool that proves to the Council my need for more funding.
“It’s easy to tell [the Council]: This is what I have to do, and this is what it’s going to take,” he said. “They were enthusiastic that someone was coming in and wanting to get things done.”
Maximizing facility condition assessments
Robert says that the ability to more effectively conduct facility condition assessments is one of the best parts of the software and why he’s used it to complete several FCAs. He had done some condition assessments in the past that were good on paper, but no one was updating them. With Brightly, he can now do an FCA, look ahead and then decide if a project needs to be a part of a capital improvement plan or if it can be worked into this year’s budget.
“In this software, it’s tracking what you’re doing. Otherwise, you have to have someone going in and putting in all of that information to update it,” he said. “It’s readily accessible, and it’s not that hard to change either.”
Overall, he says the software is easy for the technicians to use. “It’s nice that the work orders go directly to their phones. They have figured out how to add work orders, costs, etc.” The system has also reduced their office staff’s workload significantly. “They were spending 20% of their time inputting the work, and now they’re doing minimal with that.”
Dedicating man-hours to specific preventive maintenance tasks and using data on this to increase resources is something that Robert hopes to do more of in the future.
Overall, Robert said he would recommend Brightly because the “customer service is fantastic,” and the software is easy to use and more intuitive than others.
