Kirkwood Community College Relies on Brightly Software Products to Keep Facilities in Top Shape

Revisiting a Long-Term Relationship

Troy McQuillen, vice president of facilities and public safety at Kirkwood Community College, had several years of experience working with legacy Brightly products before a new maintenance director transitioned the institution to a different CMMS. “I was immediately turned off when we switched because it required decision after decision after decision about how to customize the product,” he says. “We don’t have time for that. Brightly has so much experience with other clients and the configuration team sets it up exactly the way that will work best for you.”

After the maintenance director moved on and McQuillen was left with the new CMMS, he answered a check-in call from his Brightly salesperson. “I asked them to tell me about Asset Essentials, and we signed a three-year contract to go back to Brightly,” McQuillen says. “Our employees who have come from other organizations and worked with other software products are so impressed by Asset Essentials and its simplicity. Our team has so many complicated things to figure out with lighting systems, heat pumps, and so on, we just don’t want the CMMS to be complicated.”

Prioritizing Deferred Maintenance

When Kirkwood switched to Asset Essentials, it also implemented Capital Forecast, “which has been a great initial tool for us to set up our deferred maintenance schedules for the next 10 years,” McQuillen says.

The college recently completed a $60 million construction bond issue and is now focusing on refurbishing and updating assets such as heat pumps across its built environment. Predictor and Asset Essentials have been instrumental in organizing and planning that effort. Kirkwood worked with an outside contractor to catalogue all equipment and assets across its portfolio into a large database. “We have dumped all those 5,000 assets into Asset Essentials with the import/export tool, and I’m very happy with how it transitioned over,” McQuillen says.

With that data loaded into the software, Kirkwood is developing a plan to replace $350,000 worth of mechanical assets this year, and an ongoing asset replacement cycle for coming years. The next step is to use Predictor to build an asset-specific plan moving forward, McQuillen says.

Our employees who have come from other organizations and worked with other software products are so
impressed by Asset Essentials and its simplicity. Our team has so many complicated things to figure out with lighting
systems, heat pumps, and so on, we just don’t want the CMMS to be complicated.

Troy McQuillen

Vice President of Facilities and Public Safety, Kirkwood Community College

Harnessing Analytics to Set and Track Goals

Every division at the college is required to develop key performance indicators (KPIs) that will determine their success. The facilities division uses Asset Essentials analytics to benchmark its progress compared to other institutions, McQuillen explains.

For example, Kirkwood currently completes about 11,000 work orders per year. Currently, 44% of those work orders are preventive maintenance projects, and 56% are reactive maintenance projects. The division’s goal is to increase the preventive maintenance ratio to 50% in 2024.

In addition to boosting the percentage of preventive maintenance work orders, Kirkwood also aims to increase the number of reactive maintenance work orders completed in seven days. Currently, 74% of reactive work orders are completed in a seven-day window, and the goal is to increase that to 80%. Based on Asset Essentials data, “getting to 80% will put us in the top 20% of our peer group,” McQuillen says. “The software is great for benchmarking ourselves and working to improve.”

The ability to easily track and manage current facilities maintenance projects is just one reason why McQuillen values Asset Essentials and Brightly products. Preserving all the institutional facilities data for the future is just as important to him.

“We owe it to our successors to pass down information so that the same mistakes won’t be made again, and we can provide people with efficiency moving forward,” McQuillen says. “When I’m no longer in this seat, I want all this information to be available at the fingertips of whoever comes next. And I think Brightly does that better than anyone.”

When I’m no longer in this seat, I want all this information to be available at the fingertips of whoever comes next. And I think Brightly does that better than anyone.

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