Helping The University Of California Manage A Vast Network Of Facilities
Did you know that the University of California (UC) opened in 1869 with just 10 faculty members and 40 students? Today, the University has expanded to 10 campuses and five medical centers, consisting of nearly 6,000 buildings spread over 140 million square feet of facilities!
The Challenge
So how does UC manage and maintain their facilities and assets? Until 2011, UC used as many as 30 disparate management systems with no clear point of reference or standardization for reporting and asset tracking. The lack of transparency made it nearly impossible for the University to understand the condition and performance of its buildings, identify high-risk areas, and prioritize deferred maintenance and renewal needs.
The Solution
To address this challenge, the University of California turned to Parsons and IBM. As an industry leader in Facility Condition Assessments (FCA), our team utilizes our own software along with IBM’s TRIRIGA to assess and integrate deferred maintenance improvements into a cohesive, consistent, auditable capital financial plan across multiple facilities and regions. For UC, the resulting solution is ICAMP, a single integrated capital asset management program that combines our facility condition assessment services and the TRIRIGA platform to bring together the University’s asset data into the single system.
Since going “live” in 2017, ICAMP has modernized the University’s legacy enterprise asset management and has enabled “apples-to-apples” comparison of UC’s asset performance and risk assessment data.
Through a phased approach, ICAMP has systematically inventoried and assessed asset conditions to assign risk rankings, allowing UC to identify risk factors and prioritize maintenance needs. ICAMP also provides the data necessary to develop a sustainable funding strategy, create accurate cost projections for renewals and future maintenance, and optimize the total cost of ownership.
In support of ICAMP, our teams have performed inventories and condition assessments of the campus infrastructure via detailed walk-through surveys to evaluate and record deficiencies associated with all property systems, components, and equipment. The data collected by Parsons’ assessments is aggregated into a specialized mobile app and entered into the University’s integrated workplace management system from IBM’s TRIRIGA. Our efforts provide ICAMP with detailed asset-related information, including conditions, expected useful lifespan of assets, current replacement values, deferred maintenance and replacement costs, and risk management information. This data-driven approach to FCA has allowed UC to make better decisions about how to optimize capital deployments.
Our experts ensure that every aspect of the University’s facilities is considered, such as personnel input and historical data, to deliver thorough assessment reports. We coordinate with the ICAMP personnel, helping to:
- Schedule asset inventory and condition assessment activities
- Conduct interviews
- Obtain existing architectural and site development information, drawings, previous facilities condition assessment reports
Additionally, our team innovated an ICAMP users’ group, which facilitates the collaboration and communication between all UC campuses and supports the development of system training.
Results To Date
As a result of these closely coordinated efforts with the campuses, the State of California allocated $325 million to the university system in 2021 for prioritized deferred maintenance and energy projects, and an additional $500 million to $1 billion is expected to be allocated in 2022.