It Helps To Know The Score
When there is pressure on resources – money, time and physical facilities – it can be a major challenge to select and prioritize refurbishment, repair and re-build projects. The Schmidt Associates approach replaces speculation with highly precise information, so that the most pressing actions get taken in the most productive ways.
Assessment Eliminates Guesswork
Based on our own experience working with clients to create facility assessments and implementation plans, we have developed an assessment approach with three primary components. We call it the Conditional Assessment and it analyzes Site Conditions, Building Shell, Building Interior and Building Environmental Conditions. It’s a “total 360” for a built estate and we have developed it to yield the foundations for informed and rational decisions that can be defended in terms of provable facts. For each specific aspect of our assessment, we produce a detailed set of benchmarks, so that clients and the specialists within their teams have rapid visibility of the way things really are.
What Lies Beneath
Working with our own architects and engineers, we rate multiple conditions and factors in each analysis category across a consistent five-point scale. We use a rating factor and each facility receives a “suitability” rating out of a possible 100 points. This suitability is then translated into a projected total dollar amount to correct all of the identified conditions. We collate the information onto a score sheet and the facilities are ranked to reflect the relative condition, or suitability, of all the buildings concerned. In this way, clients quickly gain access to detailed management information that tells them literally what lies beneath the fabric of their built estate.
As a next step, and in an informed and rational way, they can discuss the implications of the assessment and decide how best to prioritize financial resources and which projects to initiate most urgently. The added strength of a Schmidt Associates’ assessment, beyond accurate criteria for scheduling, is enhanced productivity. We indicate the optimum sequence for approaching a series of tasks, so that resources are not wasted through unnecessary and avoidable reworking later down the line – such as ripping up brand new floors to replace worn pipes or gouging out fresh plaster to instal new cable runs. And perhaps the the most precious resource our assessment conserves is time: better scheduling reduces disruption and maximizes the undisturbed uptime of the facility.
“Working with Schmidt Associates has been an outstanding process. I think that the people involved have been able to capture the essence of the various wants and desires of the people in each building. The time spent with staff personnel in the buildings has been very thorough with a tremendous amount of input and dialogue both ways at the forefront of making this a worthwhile process for faculty and staff.”
Robert Troyer
Project Manager Coordinator, West Lafayette Community School Corporation