Balancing capital and condition: An emerging approach to facility investment strategy

Capital facilities—land and buildings—provide a long-standing environment in which public and private enterprise works, communicates, and thrives. Aligning how facilities “fit” with the dynamic demands of enterprise necessitates continual investment in maintenance, modernization, and development. Conventional tools—condition assessment and master planning—provide a means for measuring this “fit” and producing related investment needs. These tools are often applied independently with a singular focus: condition assessment on physical systems and master planning on sizing and function. The resulting investment needs and condition metrics become fragmented elements of a larger (and often unstructured) investment context that must also consider funding realities and other strategic choices. Exceedingly the methods of collecting and managing assessment data are emphasized, while linkages to capital planning and decision-making remain narrowly focused and limited in scope. The result is simply greater volumes of more “bad news”, as facility decision-makers are ill equipped to effectively synthesize numerous requirements and objectively understand the effects of investment decisions. This research develops and applies a new approach to facility investment strategy. The approach links the products of condition assessment and master planning, as well as ongoing facility costs, within a dynamic capital planning environment, where tradeoffs between present funding decisions and future conditions can be comprehensively explored. Central to the approach is a conceptual framework that integrates investment needs and condition data within a broader planning context. A prototype tool is developed with the aid of information technology as a step toward implementation. The tool employs system-based cost models, aggregated deterioration models, financial-based condition metrics, and other facility cost modeling techniques to estimate present and future investment requirements and facility conditions. The tool is applied to two real facility portfolios within the U.S. Army Medical Department to demonstrate the feasibility and robustness of developing and evaluating investment strategies that balance capital, condition, and other strategic concerns. The application suggests a new direction for public and institutional capital allocation policy and asset accountability.