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Five accelerators for stuck CBM programs
This article is part of our Building Owner Signal series. We're highlighting patterns we see across conversations with building owners. These short insights focus on operational risks, emerging priorities, and what owner teams should pay attention to now.
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Last Wednesday at NexusCast #2, we polled the live audience to grade their own condition-based maintenance (CBM) programs on a five-stage maturity scale.
51% said Level 1âreactive and calendar PM running the show. Another 17% said Level 2âTech deployed, maintenance behavior unchanged. Two out of three in the room are still in setup mode or haven't even started.
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Keep in mind: These are owners who signed up for a half-day CBM event on a Wednesday afternoon. The general owner population is almost certainly further behind.
Every person who took that poll knows why CBM matters. The drivers are well documented and felt intensely in every building they run:
- Shortened asset life
- Emergency repair costs
- Energy waste
- Occupant complaints
- Labor spent on healthy equipment
The key question for our 68% is how to move from Level 1 or 2 to Level 3 and beyond.
At Level 1, maintenance runs on calendars and complaints, with no condition signals in the workflow. At Level 2, FDD or sensors are deployed, but the faults either pile up untouched or flood the CMMS without being closed. Level 3 is where the signals, triage, and work-order execution connect into a loop that produces outcomes the team can reportâfewer emergencies, verified fixes. (My full presentation on the playbook goes into more detail)
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At NexusCast #2, we asked five experts how to move beyond Level 2 and change how the maintenance team operates for good.
Eighteen years ago, Travis Criner was an HVAC technician. Today, he's Senior Director at CBRE. When his team makes maintenance teams more efficient, only 20% comes from CBMâthe other 80% come from eliminating PMs that should never have been on the plan.
His rule, before any CBM tech gets bought: run a keep/modify/remove analysis on every task in the CMMS. On a BAS-connected air handler, half the quarterly inspections are failure-finding, which FDD reads more accurately. Those retire. "The goal is not CBM," Criner said. "It's the right maintenance at the right time with the right person for the right reason." (Watch Travis' presentation)
Tearle Whitson spent seventeen years inside Microsoft's smart buildings program before taking over OT at MetroNational. His fault-detection platform once live-calculated $2.5M in energy savings from a single algorithm. Leadership saw the number. Then a current transducer on one VFD turned out to be misreading, and the $2.5M disappeared. Credibility with the CFO had to be clawed back.
Whitson's rule: stand up calibration and verification before the first fault hits a work order. And go deeper than sensorsâBACnet, wireless, communication trunks. (Watch Tearle's presentation)
The University of Iowa's FDD generates 3,500+ faults a day. Most CBM programs never survive that volume. Brad Dameron runs Iowa's Asset Optimization Services team. Iowa's answer: two people with field experience on prioritization, routing faults into three bucketsâAsset Optimization for investigation, controls for programming, frontline for mechanical. Each shop carries about a dozen active CBM work orders.
"This is planned work, not reactive work," Dameron tells the shops. That framing earns the trust to retire redundant PMs. (Watch Brad's presentation)
Jose de Castro of Mapped worked with Willow and a global retailer on restroom CBMâsensors for foot traffic, flush counts, paper towels, and airflow. Instead of more dashboards or a single pane of glass, the retailer kept the CMMS as the source of truth. "Users don't want another tool," he said. "Meet them where they are." (Watch Jose's presentation)
Hannah Baker works on Willow's rules engine. At DFW Airport, the QA team runs triage. Before the CBM program, DFW could manually verify 1â2% of work orders, and the sampled resolution rate was under 10%. DFW's change: stop counting a closed ticket as a resolution. A fault that persists after the ticket closes reopens the same ticket and flags it with a KPI called "Unsuccessfully Actioned."
Rework goes back on the original record; contractors stay accountable to the fault clearing. "A closed work order is not a resolved condition," Baker said. (Watch Hannah's presentation)
Your next step depends on where your program is. Want help? We're happy to point you in the right direction. Our quick concierge form is the first step.
This article is part of our Building Owner Signal series. We're highlighting patterns we see across conversations with building owners. These short insights focus on operational risks, emerging priorities, and what owner teams should pay attention to now.
â
Last Wednesday at NexusCast #2, we polled the live audience to grade their own condition-based maintenance (CBM) programs on a five-stage maturity scale.
51% said Level 1âreactive and calendar PM running the show. Another 17% said Level 2âTech deployed, maintenance behavior unchanged. Two out of three in the room are still in setup mode or haven't even started.
â
Keep in mind: These are owners who signed up for a half-day CBM event on a Wednesday afternoon. The general owner population is almost certainly further behind.
Every person who took that poll knows why CBM matters. The drivers are well documented and felt intensely in every building they run:
- Shortened asset life
- Emergency repair costs
- Energy waste
- Occupant complaints
- Labor spent on healthy equipment
The key question for our 68% is how to move from Level 1 or 2 to Level 3 and beyond.
At Level 1, maintenance runs on calendars and complaints, with no condition signals in the workflow. At Level 2, FDD or sensors are deployed, but the faults either pile up untouched or flood the CMMS without being closed. Level 3 is where the signals, triage, and work-order execution connect into a loop that produces outcomes the team can reportâfewer emergencies, verified fixes. (My full presentation on the playbook goes into more detail)
â
At NexusCast #2, we asked five experts how to move beyond Level 2 and change how the maintenance team operates for good.
Eighteen years ago, Travis Criner was an HVAC technician. Today, he's Senior Director at CBRE. When his team makes maintenance teams more efficient, only 20% comes from CBMâthe other 80% come from eliminating PMs that should never have been on the plan.
His rule, before any CBM tech gets bought: run a keep/modify/remove analysis on every task in the CMMS. On a BAS-connected air handler, half the quarterly inspections are failure-finding, which FDD reads more accurately. Those retire. "The goal is not CBM," Criner said. "It's the right maintenance at the right time with the right person for the right reason." (Watch Travis' presentation)
Tearle Whitson spent seventeen years inside Microsoft's smart buildings program before taking over OT at MetroNational. His fault-detection platform once live-calculated $2.5M in energy savings from a single algorithm. Leadership saw the number. Then a current transducer on one VFD turned out to be misreading, and the $2.5M disappeared. Credibility with the CFO had to be clawed back.
Whitson's rule: stand up calibration and verification before the first fault hits a work order. And go deeper than sensorsâBACnet, wireless, communication trunks. (Watch Tearle's presentation)
The University of Iowa's FDD generates 3,500+ faults a day. Most CBM programs never survive that volume. Brad Dameron runs Iowa's Asset Optimization Services team. Iowa's answer: two people with field experience on prioritization, routing faults into three bucketsâAsset Optimization for investigation, controls for programming, frontline for mechanical. Each shop carries about a dozen active CBM work orders.
"This is planned work, not reactive work," Dameron tells the shops. That framing earns the trust to retire redundant PMs. (Watch Brad's presentation)
Jose de Castro of Mapped worked with Willow and a global retailer on restroom CBMâsensors for foot traffic, flush counts, paper towels, and airflow. Instead of more dashboards or a single pane of glass, the retailer kept the CMMS as the source of truth. "Users don't want another tool," he said. "Meet them where they are." (Watch Jose's presentation)
Hannah Baker works on Willow's rules engine. At DFW Airport, the QA team runs triage. Before the CBM program, DFW could manually verify 1â2% of work orders, and the sampled resolution rate was under 10%. DFW's change: stop counting a closed ticket as a resolution. A fault that persists after the ticket closes reopens the same ticket and flags it with a KPI called "Unsuccessfully Actioned."
Rework goes back on the original record; contractors stay accountable to the fault clearing. "A closed work order is not a resolved condition," Baker said. (Watch Hannah's presentation)
Your next step depends on where your program is. Want help? We're happy to point you in the right direction. Our quick concierge form is the first step.
This is a great piece!
I agree.