A facility condition assessment is a survey of what you own and what state it is in, and it is commissioned far more often than it is used. The reason is usually that it is treated as a report rather than as an input: several hundred pages arrive, get read once, and sit in a drive while the register they were supposed to populate stays as it was. This page is about the output rather than the process: the one index the assessment exists to produce, how it is worked, what it decides, and how to make sure the survey you pay for lands in a record that stays true afterwards.
The index the assessment exists to produce
The facility condition index is the cost of the deficiencies found divided by the current replacement value of the building or the base. It is a ratio, so it compares buildings of different sizes and ages honestly, which is the whole reason it exists. A building with $300,000 of deficiencies against a $3m replacement value sits at 0.10. What the number does is rank: it tells you which of your buildings is furthest from where it should be per dollar of value, which is a different and more useful ordering than which one has the longest snag list.
What a facility condition assessment template has to capture
Each deficiency with a cost and a date it becomes urgent, and each asset with a condition on a fixed scale and a remaining life. Costs without dates give you a total and no plan. Conditions without a fixed scale cannot be added up. If you are commissioning an assessment, specify the output format before the surveyor starts, and specify that it arrives as data rather than as a PDF: the difference between a spreadsheet you can load and a report you can read is the difference between a register that improves and one that does not.
Turning the assessment into a plan
The index ranks; the replacement profile schedules. Take the replacement value, average life, average age and what you set aside, and the sheet on this site returns the annual sinking fund the base needs and the gap against what you save. On the worked example, $2.4m over a 15 year life needs $160,000 a year, $90,000 covers 56% of it, the base is nine years into fifteen so 60% of its life is consumed, and $800,000 falls due within five years. An assessment that does not end in numbers of that shape has not finished.
Facility condition assessment software, and keeping the survey from going stale
Condition changes continuously and assessments happen every few years, so the value of a survey decays from the day it lands unless routine work updates it. The practical fix is the same one that keeps any register true: the technician who closes a work order records the condition they found, on the same scale the assessment used, in the same system. Facility condition assessment software is worth what it costs only if it holds the register afterwards; if it produces a report and hands it over, you have bought a photograph.
Questions people ask about facility condition assessment
What is the facility condition index?
The cost of identified deficiencies divided by the current replacement value of the building or asset base. Because it is a ratio it lets you compare buildings of different sizes and ages: $300,000 of deficiencies against a $3m replacement value is 0.10. It is a ranking instrument rather than a target, and this site publishes no threshold for it.
What should a facility condition assessment deliver?
Data, not just a report. Each deficiency with a cost and a date it becomes urgent, and each asset with a condition on a fixed scale and a remaining life, in a format you can load into the register. Specify that before the surveyor starts, because a PDF of the same information is worth a fraction of it.
How often should an assessment be repeated?
Less often than most organizations do, if condition is being updated as part of routine work in between. A full reassessment every few years is what you pay for when nothing updates the register between surveys, and it is one of the more avoidable recurring costs on a small estate.
Can I do a facility condition assessment myself?
For a small estate, a first pass frequently yes: identity, location, condition on a fixed scale and remaining life for each significant asset is a walk round with a clipboard and a discipline about the scale. Where an external assessment earns its fee is on building fabric and services where the cost of a deficiency needs quantity surveying rather than judgement.
What should facility assessment software hold after the survey?
The register itself: each asset with a condition on the same fixed scale the assessment used and a remaining life, kept current by the technicians who close work orders. Software that produces a report and hands it over has sold you a photograph.