Ending the Confusion of Complex Asset Relationships with Innovative Mapping
Blessing Health Facilities Management Case Study
Fast Facts
Blessing Health is an integrated health system consisting of two hospitals, a physician group, an accredited college of nursing and health sciences, a network of medical specialty businesses, and a charitable foundation.
161 locations in 14 facilities in Illinois, Iowa, and Missouri
2.5 million square feet
30 maintenance staff members
Largest, most advanced medical center in a 100-mile radius
AkitaBox client since 2018
The Struggle of Recording Asset Relationships
As a major regional medical provider with more than 160 locations within more than a dozen buildings in west central IL, northeast MO, and southeast IA, the Blessing Health’s facilities team must navigate a large, complex environment every day.
One of their biggest challenges was keeping track of how the HVAC, electrical, plumbing, and other systems are interconnected at each of their locations. Knowing the upstream and downstream relationships between assets and rooms was imperative for:
- Quickly responding to maintenance needs
- Preventing unintentional impacts to connected assets
- Ensuring patient and staff safety
- Keeping all facilities fully operational
Like many organizations, Blessing Health’s portfolio includes a number of older buildings. After a particularly bitter cold snap one winter, four sprinkler heads broke in just three weeks. “When gallons of water are pouring out of a sprinkler head, there’s no time to sift through blueprints to find the automatic shut-off valve. My team needs immediate access to room-asset relationship information,” says Craig Kurk, Maintenance Director for Blessing Health.
Originally, the organization depended on wordy descriptions to explain their asset relationships and locations. For example: Fire alarm 1 is located in the 1970 building, second floor, southwest hallway by a former employee’s old office. “We had this type of description for all of our assets. There was no map at all – just verbiage. It was a nightmare,” remembers Craig.
They needed a way to illustrate the thousands of connections within each location. Yet it had to be simple enough to understand at a glance.
Craig knew facility maps were the key, and he was determined to integrate maps into Blessing’s facility management. He tried integrating a mapping tool with his existing FM software.
But it was an imperfect solution. The two systems couldn’t fully integrate. Maintenance staff had to close out work orders in both systems. Everyone was doing dual work. As a result, no one wanted to use the tools.
They quickly realized they needed an all-in-one solution for facility management that seamlessly incorporated mapping and asset relationships. Enter AkitaBox.
Cutting-Edge, Built-In Asset Relationship Mapping
As a tool designed to collect, organize, and present facilities data, AkitaBox can display complex asset relationships in a meaningful, easy-to-understand way. Each asset is mapped (or digitally “pinned”) onto the facilities’ digital floor plans. Clicking an asset pin brings up a list of all the other assets and rooms that particular asset impacts or is impacted by.
Blessing Health took full advantage of this in a creative way. They worked with a mechanical engineering firm to map out their building systems and asset relationships in AkitaBox.
Now, each floor has separate maps for every major building system (HVAC, med gas, chilled water, steam, electrical, domestic water, etc.) showing the location of any pipes, valves, life-safety, and other assets. Every asset is also associated with any other assets or rooms it has an impact on. No longer does the maintenance team have to guess which valve controls which rooms!
“Without AkitaBox, it would be a mess right now. We would not have all of our data mapped and every asset labeled. We wouldn’t have our information in one place. I wouldn’t even know where I would find that information – or who I would go to in order to get it.”
Craig Kurk • Maintenance Director, Blessing Health
To view the asset relationships, a member of the in-house maintenance team or an outside contractor simply pulls up the floor plan for the correct floor and building system. They can click on the location pin for the asset they’re working on to immediately see a listing of any assets or rooms connected to or impacted by that asset.
It’s also easy to update the maps as the facilities change over time. With AkitaBox’s bulk editing feature, the Blessing team can quickly make changes to multiple asset relationships with only a few clicks.
- All room and asset relationships mapped onto current floor plans
- Upstream and downstream relationship information displayed on visual, easy-to-navigate maps
- Immediate access to asset relationship information from anywhere
- Faster response times to reactive situations
- No more confusion or uncertainty surrounding asset relationships
A Complete Facilities Management Platform
AkitaBox is also an all-in-one solution for everything facilities management. “We have all our blueprints, all our assets, all our preventive maintenance stuff, all our technical manuals in AkitaBox. Not only that, everything is connected to our floor maps,” says Craig. Now, everyone on the Blessing facilities team works from one, user-friendly system. As a result, staff members are actually learning and using the platform.
Since implementing AkitaBox, Blessing Health can take a more proactive approach to its facilities management, which has reduced the number of call-backs and helped prevent reactive issues (like broken sprinkler heads).
And the future looks bright. Craig meets with AkitaBox regularly to give his feedback on what can be improved to make the software even better. “AkitaBox is very open to listening and growing their software. A lot of things have been changed and implemented based on my conversations with them. I appreciate that,” says Craig.
“Some other FM systems were more advanced, but you’d need a computer science degree to use them. If I can’t figure it out, how can I expect my staff to do it? AkitaBox is working well for us because it’s very user friendly. That’s a key point.”
Craig Kurk • Maintenance Director, Blessing Health
