Steinbeis experts develop maintenance cost forecasting and staffing tool
The maintenance of buildings and their technical equipment is one of a property owner’s most important tasks. But maintenance managers often have trouble convincing decision-makers who are not experts in this field of the need for a certain budget and staffing level. This is where the PABI method© can help by offering property owners a simple, evidence-based maintenance cost planning method. The procedure was developed by Professor Dr.-Ing. Carolin Bahr over several years of research at the Karlsruhe University of Applied Sciences. Bahr is head of the Steinbeis Transfer Center for Construction and Facility Management, where she is promoting the procedure’s practical application in partnership with two Computer Aided Facility Management (CAFM) software companies.
The German acronym PABI© stands for practical, adaptive budgeting of maintenance measures. The procedure is the product of almost 20 years’ research and has been tested in the field for almost 15 years. It is regularly validated and refined using real built asset data, most recently by the gefma [1] resource planning working group led by Carolin Bahr, using data from 633 assets with an effective floor area of over two million m2.
PABI©: simple, practical, forecasting
The team at the Steinbeis Transfer Center for Construction and Facility Management has developed an Excel tool and accompanying user and administration manuals that are now available to a wide user base thanks to a partnership with the software companies Loy & Hutz Solutions GmbH and the pit Group. Since 2020, the tool has also included personnel planning in accordance with gefma guideline 270-1 [2] on the maintenance and operation of real estate assets.
The PABI procedure© generates forecasts that enable maintenance budget planning for a period of up to 40 years. Unlike previous methods, the procedure facilitates transparent and robust maintenance budgeting by factoring in key building-specific characteristics such as the building’s age or the amount of technical equipment. It has the advantage of being simple and practical to use without detracting from its accuracy – regardless of whether the user opts for the PABI Excel Tool© or one of the two software tools.
The PABI Tools© automatically carry out all the calculations for maintenance cost forecasting and personnel planning in accordance with GEFMA270. The appropriate calculation option is selected for the available information. Both the Excel Tool and the CAFM software systems display a comparison of the required budget and actual expenditure. This highlights the build-up of maintenance backlogs and allows them to be documented over time.
Factoring in specific characteristics enables high level of accuracy
A percentage of the replacement value is used as the basis for the calculations. A distinction is drawn between ongoing building maintenance, which includes maintenance, inspections and minor repairs, and periodic renovation work involving major repairs and improvements. Both the PABI Excel Tool© and the two CAFM software systems help to determine the replacement value. Six different options are available depending on the building information provided, while characteristic values can also be used.
Building-specific characteristics that affect maintenance costs, such as the building’s age or the amount of technical equipment, are factored into the budget forecast using weighting factors. These are regularly refined, adjusted and augmented using real data from multiple projects with different asset classes.
While an initial rough estimate can be made using just the year of construction and the asset class, the provision of additional data is recommended in order to enable a more accurate forecast.
Minimum effort, maximum results
Only a small amount of data about the building is needed to forecast the maintenance costs. The maintenance manager usually has access to this basic data, which only needs to be input once. If the building data has already been entered in one of the CAFM systems, it can be used straight off in the software package without needing to be input a second time. In subsequent years, the cost forecasts can be generated without entering any further data. The administrator only has to update the construction price indices – and with the CAFM systems this is done automatically via an update.
Factoring in building-specific characteristics enables a high level of accuracy. This provides a reliable planning basis for maintenance managers and allows them to give a transparent explanation of why they need a particular maintenance budget at a given point in time. The annual target/actual cost comparison highlights maintenance backlogs so that measures can be taken to prevent them resulting in costly damage.
More information is available from www.pabi-verfahren.de
Contact
Prof. Dr.-Ing. Carolin Bahr (author)
Steinbeis Entrepreneur
Steinbeis Transfer Center for Construction and Facility Management (Karlsruhe)
References
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gefma: german facility management association, gefma.de
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Gefma 270-1: Ressourcenbemessung im FM – Teil 1 Grundlagen – Objektbetrieb, gefma Deutscher Verband für Facility Management e.V., Bonn, 02-2021