December 1 Deadline: Facilities Performance Indicators Survey

There are 5 modules to the PFI survey, but if you complete just 1, 2, and 4, APPA will provide you all sorts of data access and discounts to survey data and reporting. But the deadline this year will not be extended. The current issue of APPA's Facilities Manager has a nice article (PDF) about how the FPI reports and results are being used at the University of North Carolina:

In the highly competitive world of education, capital assets are but one challenge. Decision makers are faced with a myriad of challenges amongst them being shrinking state support, greater student demands, greater competition for quality faculty, greater competition for a diminishing pool of contract and grants, and sky-rocketing utility costs. Can you really blame a campus that decides to realign a portion of its CRDM (capital renewal and deferred maintenance) money to address another emergency requirement? It is our responsibility to inform them of the cost of making such a decision.

Systemwide Use of APPA's Facilities Performance Indicators

The University of North Carolina system used APPA's Facilities Performance Indicators (FPI) systemwide, as part of a planning process described in Facilities Manager (PDF):

Jack Colby, assistant vice chancellor for facilities at North Carolina State University, saw yet another opportunity for FPI. His vision was to utilize the FPI to address the University of North Carolina System’s PACE initiative. The PACE initiative (President’s Advisory Committee for Efficiency and Effectiveness) was put in place to encourage universities within the UNC System to look for opportunities to benchmark their facilities organizations and continually improve their performance. Jack made his presentation to the System Board and got a commitment to support a systemwide initiative for the facilities managers at each of the system’s 17 campuses.

Perhaps the most important reason this initiative was so successful is that there was an agreement that each institution would go into this with the goal in mind of improving their own organization by reallocating resources within their operations. There would be no realignment of appropriations from one campus to another. This commitment by the System office helped institutions feel comfortable in participating without a fear of loss.