Making Your Resources Go Further – How to Utilize AI in Facility Management
Welcome to the Future, It Started Yesterday
Whether you’re just starting out in your career as a facility manager or you’re a seasoned veteran with years of experience, you’ve likely noticed some growing challenges in our industry. I’ve experienced them, too: the increasing demand for better information, delivered faster. Clients want detailed data and insights—on inventory, assets, and maintenance optimization. And they want all of this while we work with smaller budgets and fewer staff.
It’s a big challenge, especially if we try to manage it the way we used to—with spreadsheets and legal pads. These tools can be messy, hard to maintain, and slow us down.
Over the years, I’ve tried many methods to keep up. Like many of you, I started with pen and paper, moved to Excel spreadsheets, and eventually transitioned to tools like Power BI and Microsoft Forms. But now, we’re stepping into an age where data isn’t just a record—it’s a resource for smarter decisions, thanks to tools like artificial intelligence.
Yes, AI might seem intimidating at first, but it’s really just another tool to help us work smarter and meet the growing demands of our industry. I’ve recently started using AI, specifically large language models, to tackle everyday FM challenges. In this blog, I’ll share how I’ve used these tools to save time, provide better insights, and make my job easier.
So, let’s dive in and explore how you can use AI to transform your facility management role while delivering the data and insights your clients need.
Using AI for Corrective Maintenance Optimization
Corrective maintenance has long been one of the most unpredictable and resource-intensive parts of facility management. We’re often racing against time to address emergencies or unexpected failures while trying to ensure our team performs efficiently. Beyond just tracking how many work orders are closed, we need deeper insights into how our resources are performing.
This is where AI tools come into play. By analyzing work order data, I’ve been able to uncover trends that highlight areas where my team might be struggling. AI doesn’t just provide raw data; it helps me understand the story behind the numbers.
Using AI for Resource Performance Management
- Identifying Overload: If one technician consistently has a higher volume of work orders compared to others, AI helps me flag this imbalance. Overloaded technicians may struggle to maintain quality, which can lead to missed deadlines or incomplete repairs.
- Example: AI showed me that one building had a disproportionate number of corrective HVAC work orders assigned to a single technician. I was able to redistribute the workload and prevent burnout.
- Spotting Skill Gaps: By analyzing work orders by type and completion time, AI can highlight areas where technicians might need additional training or support.
- Example: When AI revealed longer resolution times for electrical repairs across the team, I scheduled a focused training session on troubleshooting and safety protocols.
- Managing Volume of Work: AI helps me monitor whether the volume of incoming work is outpacing our capacity. This insight ensures I can step in early—whether by reallocating tasks, bringing in temporary help or adjusting priorities.
- Example: During a particularly busy season, AI identified a spike in corrective maintenance, allowing me to adjust our priorities and avoid bottlenecks.
Driving Team Growth and Success
By focusing on resource performance rather than just allocation, AI gives me the ability to provide my team with what they need to succeed. Whether it’s redistributing work, offering training, or adjusting workloads, these insights ensure that my team stays efficient, productive, and, most importantly, supported.
Space Planning for Occupancy and Operational Decisions
I recently had someone ask me, “What exactly is operations?” I summed it up simply: operations is the logistical workflow that helps us get things done. It’s about managing everything from space planning and materials to occupancy rates and even the logistics of moving technicians from one space to another. For facility managers, operations is how we keep everything running smoothly.
In higher education housing, we manage buildings with hundreds, even thousands, of beds. At any given time, these units can range from 80% to 100% occupancy. Understanding where people are living and how much of the building is utilized isn’t just helpful—it’s critical. It allows us to plan for staffing, materials, and logistics more effectively.
AI takes this to the next level. By tracking occupancy levels in real time, AI helps us cut down on utility costs, optimize maintenance schedules, and provide insights for renovations and repairs. It also allows us to respond quickly during emergencies, knowing exactly where we can relocate residents if a building needs to be evacuated. While spreadsheets and algorithms can accomplish this, they require significant time and manual effort. AI makes these decisions faster, more accurate, and far less labor-intensive.
A Real-World Example
Every May on my campus, we see about 1,000 students move out; and in August, another 1,000 move in. We have just eight weeks to get all those beds ready while accommodating summer camps and students staying for summer school. Using AI, my housing team can analyze move-out data, stayover data, and camp occupancy data to plan the most efficient way to turn our buildings around for fall.
AI helps us build optimized schedules for maintenance, custodial work, and even painting. It shows us how many rooms we need to prepare each day to stay on track and meet our goal. AI also provides valuable insights into material needs, such as identifying potential shortages early on. For instance, window blinds are always in high demand during summer turns—not just on our campus but nationwide. By using AI to forecast material needs, we can order supplies like blinds early in the spring, avoiding delays and ensuring we’re ready when the time comes.
AI in Inventory and Tool Management
Facility managers are responsible for far more than just keeping buildings operational. We also manage inventory and tools, which can be a huge task in environments like higher education housing, correctional institutions, or laboratories. These are places where accuracy in inventory and tool management is critical—not just to avoid financial loss, but to ensure safety. After all, in some facilities, a missing item might not just cost money—the consequences could be far worse.
This is where AI steps in, making inventory and tool management faster, easier, and safer. It’s not just about tracking what we have; it’s about creating better systems to ensure everything is accounted for, every time.
AI can be used to analyze labels of hazardous materials as well as generate an instant inventory.
Revolutionizing Chemical Inventory
Hazardous materials come with clearly labeled pictograms and safety information, and AI tools are now smart enough to analyze these labels in seconds. For example, I’ve used AI to take a photo of our chemical shelves and generate an instant inventory. The AI identifies each chemical, creates a list, and even provides links to the manufacturer’s Safety Data Sheets.. What used to take hours—manually counting bottles and cross-checking labels—now takes just a few minutes.
AI can also help us track what’s missing and how much of each chemical we’ve used. By comparing photos over time, we can monitor inventory levels, calculate usage rates, and even plan ahead for reordering. You can go a step further by linking this data to spreadsheets that track prices, suppliers, and reorder thresholds. It’s a game-changer for efficiency and compliance.
Improving Tool Management
If managing chemicals is critical, managing tools in high-stakes environments, like correctional facilities, laboratories, and educational facilities, is just as important—if not more. A missing tool isn’t just inconvenient; it can be a serious security risk. Many facilities use shadow boards or painted outlines in toolboxes to help staff quickly spot missing tools. AI takes this concept to another level.
With AI and computer vision, you can snap a picture of your tool wall or toolbox, and the system instantly checks for missing items. It’s not just faster than a manual audit—it’s more accurate. I’ve personally used this approach to audit technicians’ toolboxes, and it saves an incredible amount of time. The AI can even integrate with digital records to show who last checked out a tool and when.
For those using GPS, Bluetooth or near-field tracking on tools or materials, AI can make this data even more powerful. Imagine being able to locate a missing tool in real time or track how often a piece of equipment is being used. These technologies combined with AI help prevent theft, ensure tools are returned to their proper place, and provide an extra layer of accountability.
Inventory and tool management are more than just logistical tasks—they’re essential to keeping facilities safe, efficient, and compliant. By using AI, we can streamline these processes, reduce the risk of human error, and save countless hours of manual work. Whether it’s identifying chemicals, auditing tools or tracking materials in real time, AI gives facility managers the confidence that everything is exactly where it should be.
Accelerating Process Management with AI
Process management and creation are some of the most time-consuming aspects of a facility manager’s job. We spend countless hours drafting, rewriting, and tweaking plans—only to lose track of where we saved that file and have to start over. It’s frustrating and inefficient. But this is exactly where AI can be a game-changer. Not only does AI never lose a file, but it also provides incredible insights into industry best practices, giving facility managers a head start on creating professional, effective plans.
Take Emergency Management Plans, for example. When I recently took over a new site, I realized the Emergency Management Plan needed a complete update. Instead of starting from scratch, I turned to ChatGPT to generate a baseline Emergency Management Plan. The plan included standard protocols for fire evacuations, first aid response, severe weather, and active shooter scenarios—processes that are fairly consistent across most facilities. From there, my team customized the base plan to meet the specific needs of our site.
When I shared this with leadership, they were thrilled with the results. In fact, we scaled the baseline plan across the entire portfolio. Each facility manager then used the template to quickly and easily update their Emergency Management Plan by plugging in site-specific details like building names and contact information. What would have taken countless hours for every facility manager to draft their own plans was now streamlined into a single, concise process.
The benefits didn’t stop there. By using a consistent plan across the portfolio, employees moving between sites no longer have to relearn emergency procedures. The plans are largely the same, with only minor differences, making it easier to adapt to new locations. This level of consistency is invaluable when managing large portfolios and shared teams.
But Emergency Management Plans aren’t the only area where AI can help. Think of any document you need to create regularly: operational plans, financial overviews, meeting notes, agendas, reports or even outlines. AI can simplify these repetitive tasks, giving you back time to focus on higher-value priorities. Instead of reinventing the wheel every time you need a document, you can rely on AI to create, update, and store templates that are ready whenever you need them.
The Future of AI in Facility Management
In this blog post, we’ve explored just a glimpse of how AI, and specifically large language models, are revolutionizing facilities management. From saving time to creating efficiencies, delivering better results, and driving consistency across portfolios, the potential is enormous. Let’s revisit Emergency Management Plan creation as an example. Just three years ago, creating a plan for a new facility would take six to eight hours. Thanks to AI, the plan I created recently took less than two hours.
But we’re only scratching the surface of what AI is capable of in facilities management. As these tools continue to advance and as portfolios adopt more technology, like the Internet of Things and digital twins, we’ll gain the ability to monitor buildings in real time and receive predictive insights to prevent corrective work orders. The possibilities are endless. What we do know is this: the facilities management industry has evolved significantly since its early days, and those who adopt strong AI strategies now will be the leaders of tomorrow.
I encourage you to experiment with AI tools like ChatGPT, Gemini or Perplexity. Start small: ask it to create a document, analyze a photo of your inventory or generate a template for a report. Just remember to keep safety in mind—remove any personally identifiable information and focus on using the tool as a means to enhance your workflow.
At the end of the day, AI tools are no different from the wrenches and augers in your toolbox. Their value lies in how you use them. The key to success is understanding how these tools work and making them a seamless part of your routine. AI isn’t here to replace what you know—it’s here to enhance it. So take that first step, explore its potential, and let AI help you become even better at what you do.
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