What’s Holding Your Facility Back? Smarter Assessments Might Be the Answer

Day in and day out, the pressure is on for facility managers to keep operations running smoothly and efficiently. But it’s hard to get ahead when you’re stuck in reactive mode, tackling problems as they arise without a clear system in place. 

That’s where structured assessments come in. By providing a framework to measure performance, track progress, and identify areas for improvement, these assessments do more than just benchmark success — they create a roadmap for better outcomes.

Structured assessments create transparency by providing regularly shared scorecards, so every team member has access to regular progress updates and knows what is expected to be achieved. This alignment fosters a shared understanding of goals across all levels of the organization. And while every facility is different, structured assessments are flexible. The right framework can adapt to meet your team’s unique needs and challenges, making it a practical tool for driving meaningful progress. 

In this guide, we’ll break down how structured assessments work and why they’re the key to driving efficiency, reducing downtime, and delivering measurable results.

Why Facility Managers Need Structured Assessments

Facility managers deal with complex systems where even small inefficiencies can cascade into significant costs. While you likely already have processes to track performance, structured assessments elevate those efforts by providing a comprehensive and scalable approach.

Structured assessments take a two-pronged approach: They highlight gaps in performance and help you dig deeper to uncover the root causes of recurring issues. For example, is your frequent downtime really about equipment failure, or is it a sign of undertrained staff or overlooked maintenance schedules? An assessment can help bring clarity to process inefficiencies.

These assessments are particularly valuable in multi-site operations, where standardization can allow for meaningful comparisons across facilities. At the same time, the assessment framework adapts to individual site realities, striking a balance between consistency and flexibility.

But how do you know what to assess? And how can you focus your evaluations on what matters most? The next section provides a framework of practical metrics to guide your assessments

Key Criteria for Effective Assessments

While there is no one-size-fits-all formula for assessing a facility, here are practical suggestions for criteria and an explanation of how they help. Whether it’s improving safety, streamlining maintenance, or boosting operational efficiency, these can help you gauge what needs fixing at your facility.

1. Safety and Quality

• Safety metrics: Total recordable incident rate (TRIR) tracks the number of recordable injuries per employee hours worked. This metric gives an overall picture of safety performance, but the value comes from how it’s used. When incidents occur, how effectively are they investigated, and what preventive measures are implemented to avoid repeat events? Are your safety processes meeting corporate targets? Including TRIR in assessments can also help benchmark facilities, highlighting which sites may need additional training or resource allocation.

• Quality metrics: Defects per million opportunities (DPMO) provides a concrete way to track and improve product quality. Are defect trends being closely monitored at each stage of production? What measures are in place to identify recurring issues and address the underlying causes? Including regular quality reviews or cross-plant comparisons can further refine production standards and identify shared challenges.

• Staffing and maintenance skillsets: Assessments can uncover gaps in both staffing and skills, starting with maintenance job descriptions. Do these descriptions clearly outline the technical requirements of each role? Are they actively used during the hiring process? These are relatively easy points to track, as facilities can often provide objective evidence to show alignment between job roles and operational needs.

  Another area to evaluate is the skillsets of your maintenance team. Can technicians troubleshoot PLCs across multiple platforms, read schematics, or manage complex systems like AC/DC circuits?

  Staffing levels are equally important — if a facility is operating at only 50% maintenance capacity, how are preventive tasks and repairs being managed without compounding delays?

  Maintenance training and development also deserve attention. Are technicians receiving the ongoing training they need to handle evolving technologies and equipment requirements? Without regular training, teams risk falling behind, leading to slower repairs, increased downtime, and higher operational costs.

2. Operational Efficiency

• Gross margin percentage: Gross margin measures financial efficiency by tracking the relationship between material and labor costs and production output. How does your gross margin compare to divisional benchmarks? Are inefficiencies in material usage or labor dragging it down? Assessing gross margin also provides insight into whether your facility is meeting long-term financial goals, particularly as production scales.
  
  
• On-time in-full (OTIF) percentage: OTIF tracks delivery reliability, making it a valuable indicator of how well production and supply chain processes are aligned. Are products consistently delivered on time and up to specifications? What bottlenecks in production, packing, or shipping are impacting OTIF? Adding this metric to assessments can also help your team understand customer-facing challenges and improve collaboration between departments.

• Scrap percentage: Scrap rates highlight inefficiencies in production and material handling, offering an opportunity to identify hidden costs. Take a closer look at your operation’s causes of scrap, whether it’s process bottlenecks, equipment faults, or operator errors. Also keep track of the steps implemented to reduce waste and how impacts are measured. Facilities can also track how scrap varies across shifts, machines, or materials to pinpoint inconsistencies.

• Inventory loss: Inventory discrepancies often signal larger operational issues, from poor controls to mismanagement or damage. Check if inventory records are regularly reconciled with actual usage. What measures are in place to address any discrepancies? Including technology-driven tracking, like RFID or barcoding, can further enhance inventory accuracy and reduce losses.

3. Maintenance and Equipment Performance

• PM compliance: Preventive maintenance (PM) compliance tracks whether scheduled tasks are completed on time. Backlogs in PM tasks increase the risk of unplanned downtime, so assessments should consider whether overdue tasks are being prioritized effectively.
  
  And remember, PM compliance isn’t just about sticking to a schedule — it’s about constantly refining the process. Therefore, this assessment metric could include whether your team is using insights from breakdowns and machine feedback to improve the quality of their PM tasks. For example, are parts that frequently fail being inspected or replaced more proactively? It will be helpful for continuous improvement to include this level of detail in PM reviews.

• Work order tracking: Work orders are an essential tool for tracking maintenance tasks, but they’re only as good as the details they capture. So, for this assessment metric, you can consider whether work orders are consistently closed with sufficient notes, including root cause analysis, to address recurring issues. Facilities might also assess whether maintenance teams are effectively communicating resolution timelines.
  
  This criterion can also include evaluating how effectively your computerized maintenance management system (CMMS) is utilized. For instance, are critical spare parts tracked and replaced accurately, avoiding downtime caused by shortages?

• Equipment uptime: Track how well predictive maintenance strategies help to anticipate and minimize downtime. What patterns in downtime events could guide process improvements? Your facility team can also consider how uptime goals vary between equipment types and, importantly, whether they’re realistic given operational constraints.

• Mean time to repair (MTTR): Mean time to repair assessments can uncover patterns in breakdowns that indicate systemic issues, like recurring failures in the same equipment or ineffective repair methods. Start by investigating how effectively repair times are tracked and analyzed to pinpoint bottlenecks. Are delays caused by diagnostic challenges, spare part availability, or workflow inefficiencies? Tracking MTTR can tie in with CMMS evaluation as well.

• Escalation charts: This might seem like an unusual metric to include, but an escalation chart is a game-changer for keeping operations on track. The key question is: do operators know the timeframes and steps for escalating issues? Are roles and responsibilities clearly outlined for critical events?
  
  Imagine an operator encounters a process issue, such as an asset that won’t run. An escalation chart might set a period of 15 minutes to escalate the problem to a lead, who then has another 30 minutes to resolve it before involving maintenance or supervisory support.
  
  The system is flexible enough to handle different types of problems. A first aid incident might need immediate escalation to safety teams, while a production bottleneck might follow a more tiered path. By including escalation charts in assessments, you can identify gaps in communication that may be slowing down responses.

• Autonomous maintenance: This practice puts the onus on machine operators to do basic repairs and upkeep on the machines they use every day. Reviewing autonomous maintenance protocol helps establish more oversight over whether technicians have the tools, training, and support needed to perform these responsibilities effectively and consistently.
  
  As a facility manager, you’ll want to document if operators have detailed checklists to guide their tasks during your assessment. Additionally, it’s important to track if each team member is actively participating in preventive maintenance activities. For example, when a line is shut down for a PM, are operators working alongside maintenance teams to complete tasks efficiently?
• Periodic audits of autonomous maintenance: Keep in mind that leadership plays a key role in making sure that autonomous maintenance processes are followed consistently. Periodic audits and evaluations can help highlight areas for improvement in these practices.
  
  Assessment checks also show operators that their efforts matter and that their maintenance responsibilities are taken seriously. But at its core, regular checks signal that autonomous maintenance is a shared responsibility and essential to the facility’s success.

• Root cause analysis (RCA): This metric identifies the hidden drivers of failure, paving the way for meaningful, lasting improvements. Ask yourself: when equipment fails, is the asset simply repaired, or do teams investigate why it happened in the first place? How often are breakdowns analyzed for their root causes?

You can take it a step further and investigate whether recurring breakdowns signal flaws in your maintenance protocols, and if PM schedules are being reviewed and updated based on this feedback to improve performance. Also look into part reliability — are certain components failing more often than expected, and do these failures indicate deeper issues in sourcing or application? Answers to questions like these will help identify systemic problems, refine purchasing decisions, and build more resilient processes. 

Maintenance diagnostics solutions like Azima can streamline this effort by identifying root causes through advanced condition monitoring and AI-powered predictive analytics. Similarly, solutions like eMaint CMMS embed root cause analysis directly into work orders. For instance, teams cannot close a work order until a root cause has been documented, ensuring no one skips this critical step.

Turning Insights into Action

Structured assessments do more than highlight gaps — they provide a roadmap for getting from where you are today to where you want to be. By the end of the process, teams should emerge with a clear, actionable plan that outlines the most important steps to improve performance.

The goal isn’t to overwhelm teams with everything that needs fixing. Instead, assessments help focus on the highest-priority goals that will make the biggest difference. For example, a plant struggling with downtime might realize that refining its predictive maintenance process or addressing spare parts management would yield the greatest improvements.

These targeted steps turn assessments into a forward-looking tool. By focusing on the critical actions that move the needle most, facility managers can align their teams and allocate resources where they make the biggest impact.

Conclusion

Facility managers operate in an environment where precision and consistency are the foundation for everything. Structured assessments provide the framework needed to cut through operational noise, address inefficiencies, and set meaningful goals. They are not optional extras; they are essential for driving measurable progress in complex systems.

The work doesn’t stop with diagnostics. To deliver lasting results, facility managers must connect data to strategy, empower their teams, and institutionalize change. Structured assessments offer a clear path forward — but the impact depends on how effectively they are used.

Remember, this is not about chasing perfection. It’s about making deliberate, informed choices that position your facility for continuous improvement. The question isn’t whether you should implement structured assessments; it’s how soon you can start.

This piece is based entirely on insights shared by Dennis Hughes, project manager, central business operations team at Pregis LLC during the Xcelerate 24 session, “Defining Plant of the Year – Benchmarking Plants Internally”