Proactive facility and building managers already have ambitious goals for the year ahead. 23% of facilities leaders say their top priority is integrating employee, workplace, and asset solutions, while 36% are focused on optimizing their real estate portfolios, according to Eptura’s 2025 Workplace Index report.
These objectives reflect a growing push toward smarter, more connected operations, but achieving them requires more than intention. To turn goals into measurable outcomes in 2026, your team needs to start building their facility maintenance plan now.
Key takeaways
- Understand industry trends: Stay ahead by understanding the trends shaping facility management in 2026, including AI and predictive maintenance, energy efficiency, smart facilities, and IoT integration
- Establish a clear baseline: Conduct a thorough asset audit to understand the age, condition, and criticality of your systems, and use modern asset management solutions to streamline this process
- Leverage data for proactive maintenance: Use AI-powered predictive maintenance to forecast failures, minimize downtime, and optimize maintenance costs by shifting from reactive to proactive strategies
The insights from our report are echoed across the industry. By 2026, smart building technologies will evolve from basic energy management to integrated systems combining AI, IoT, and digital twins, tools that can reduce operational costs by up to 35% and energy expenses by 25%, according Facility Executive.
As the industry moves toward convergence between operational technology, information systems, and strategic planning, early preparation is even more important.
The coming year is your opportunity to shift from reactive maintenance to proactive strategy, streamlining operations, improving asset performance, and delivering consistent results across every location.
Understand the trends already shaping facility management in 2026
Before you create a roadmap, you need to understand what’s changing across the industry and how these trends are reshaping facility operations and maintenance.
AI and predictive maintenance
AI is becoming a foundational tool in facility maintenance, helping teams move from reactive problem-solving to proactive planning.
Predictive maintenance systems use AI to analyze sensor data, equipment performance, and historical service records to identify potential issues before they lead to downtime, allowing facility managers to schedule repairs more efficiently, reduce emergency calls, and extend the life of critical assets.
Energy efficiency and cost control
Energy efficiency is becoming a critical operational focus as utility costs continue to rise, and regulatory requirements grow more complex. Facility managers are turning to smart building technologies to monitor usage in real time, identify inefficiencies, and automate adjustments across HVAC, lighting, and water systems to reduce consumption without compromising performance or comfort.
Smart facilities and IoT integration
IoT integration is driving a shift toward self-healing buildings. Sensors now monitor temperature, vibration, and occupancy in real time, enabling systems to respond autonomously to issues. The smart building tech market is projected to reach $47 billion by 2026, underscoring how widespread adoption is becoming.
Rising costs and tightening supply chains
Facility managers are navigating a more volatile supply environment, where rising costs and unpredictable lead times are making it harder to plan and execute maintenance and upgrade projects.
The pressure is especially high for facilities undergoing retrofits or capital improvements. Coordinating across vendors, managing phased installations, and forecasting costs has become more complex as material prices fluctuate, and availability shifts.
Logistics facilities especially face challenges tied to labor shortages, energy costs, and fragmented technologies, making modernization efforts even more urgent.
Step one: Find your current asset and operational baseline
A thorough asset audit gives you the visibility you need to plan effectively. Without a complete and accurate inventory, it’s impossible to prioritize maintenance, forecast costs, or identify risks. An audit helps you understand the age, condition, and criticality of your systems, and helps you set the stage for smarter service strategies.
To complete a comprehensive asset audit:
- Inventory all major systems and equipment: HVAC, plumbing, electrical, elevators, and fire safety
- Document key attributes for each asset: Age, condition, location, manufacturer, warranty status, and criticality
- Log historical maintenance data: Service dates, downtime events, and repair costs
A well-maintained asset inventory empowers you to make informed decisions, reduce risk, and plan proactively for the year ahead.
How a modern maintenance solution simplifies creating an asset baseline
A modern asset management solution helps you streamline this process and gives you the visibility you need to make informed decisions.
With the right platform, you can capture key details for each asset, including age, condition, location, manufacturer, warranty status, and criticality, and keep that information consistent across all your sites. You can also track historical maintenance records, including service dates, downtime events, and repair costs, giving you a complete picture of asset performance and helping identify which systems need attention before they become costly liabilities.
Modern solutions also include features that make your job easier: barcode scanning for quick asset identification, automated reminders for inspections and warranty expirations, and mobile access so your team can update records in the field. You can use dashboards to monitor performance trends and generate reports that support compliance and budget planning.
By centralizing your asset data and keeping it up to date, you reduce risk, improve response times, and build a stronger foundation for everything from daily operations to long-term capital planning.
Step two: Define success and implement ways to track KPIs across locations
Setting clear goals is the foundation of any effective roadmap. Without defined targets, it’s difficult to measure progress, allocate resources, or demonstrate value. Whether you manage one site or a national portfolio, aligning your goals with operational priorities like uptime, cost control, compliance, and energy efficiency helps ensure consistency and accountability.
Start by identifying the metrics that matter most to your organization. Use key performance indicators (KPIs) to track performance and guide decision-making. If you’re working with multisite teams, standardize the metrics for benchmarking and identifying outliers.
To define and align goals across locations:
- Review past performance data to understand baseline metrics for uptime, work order completion, and energy usage
- Select core KPIs that reflect your strategic priorities and that you can reliably measure across sites
- Establish performance targets for each KPI, tailored to the needs and capabilities of individual locations
- Create a centralized dashboard to visualize progress and compare performance across sites
- Communicate goals clearly to your team, linking individual responsibilities to broader organizational outcomes
With shared goals and standardized metrics, your team can focus on what matters most and make data-driven decisions that drive continuous improvement.
How to set and track goals with a modern asset management solution
A modern asset management solution gives you the tools to set targets, monitor performance, and stay aligned across teams and locations.
With the right platform, you can standardize KPIs across your sites, making it easier to benchmark performance and identify outliers. You can track metrics like work order completion rates, response times, and energy usage, all from a centralized dashboard. This visibility helps you spot trends, adjust priorities, and make informed decisions based on real-time data.
You can also tailor performance targets to the needs of each location while maintaining consistency across your portfolio.
Automated reporting features save time and reduce errors, while mobile access ensures your team can log updates and view progress from anywhere. When everyone is working from the same data set, it’s easier to stay accountable and drive continuous improvement.
By using a modern asset management solution to define and track your goals, you create a more focused, efficient, and responsive maintenance operation.
Step three: Use data to stay ahead of failures
By analyzing sensor data and historical trends, AI-powered systems can forecast failures before they happen, allowing you to intervene early and avoid expensive disruptions.
Predictive maintenance minimizes downtime, extends asset lifespans, and optimizes maintenance costs by shifting from reactive or scheduled servicing to a more intelligent, data-driven model. These systems use IoT-connected sensors to monitor metrics like temperature, vibration, pressure, and energy consumption, while AI algorithms analyze the data in real time to detect anomalies and trigger alerts before failures occur.
To implement predictive maintenance effectively:
- Identify high-impact assets where failures would be most disruptive or costly
- Install IoT sensors to monitor performance indicators like temperature, vibration, and pressure
- Choose AI tools that integrate with your asset management solution, enabling automated alerts and work order generation
- Train technicians to interpret predictive insights and adjust service schedules accordingly
- Track KPIs like asset uptime and emergency work orders to evaluate performance and refine your strategy
Predictive maintenance helps you move from reactive firefighting to proactive planning, delivering more reliable service and building a stronger foundation for long-term success.
How to put proactive maintenance into practice with a digital asset solution
With the right tools in place, you can monitor high-impact assets using IoT sensors that track performance indicators like temperature, vibration, and pressure.
With your asset management system, you automate the workflows to collect and organize this data, allowing you to spot early warning signs and generate automated alerts when thresholds are exceeded. You can also trigger work orders directly from the platform, ensuring your team can respond quickly and efficiently.
These systems help you train technicians to interpret predictive insights and adjust service schedules based on actual asset conditions. You can track KPIs like uptime, emergency work orders, and deferred maintenance to evaluate how well your strategy is working and refine it over time.
Step four: Build a smarter budget to forecast inventory, plan for repairs, and fund capital projects
Budgeting is one of the most strategic responsibilities in facility management. It requires a clear understanding of your assets, operational needs, and long-term priorities. From forecasting inventory based on actual usage to preparing for major repairs and capital improvements, a well-structured budget helps teams stay proactive, reduce risk, and make the most of their available resources.
Forecast inventory using current consumption rates
By analyzing historical usage rates like how often the team uses filters, belts, bulbs, or cleaning supplies, you can predict future demand with greater accuracy, helping avoid disruptive, expensive overstocking and stockouts.
Start by looking at trends in usage over the past 12–24 months. Then, compare those trends against current inventory levels and upcoming seasonal or operational shifts. For example, HVAC filters may be used more heavily in summer months, while snow removal supplies spike in winter.
Conduct facility condition assessments to prioritize repairs
Budgeting for large repairs or retrofits starts with understanding the current state of your assets. Facility Condition Assessments (FCAs) provide a structured way to evaluate the age, performance, and remaining life of critical systems like HVAC, roofing, plumbing, and electrical infrastructure. These assessments help you identify which assets are nearing failure and which can be deferred, allowing you to allocate funds strategically.
An FCA typically includes visual inspections, performance testing, and a review of maintenance history. The goal is to assign a condition rating and estimate the cost of repair or replacement. This data feeds directly into your capital planning process, helping you avoid surprise expenses and justify budget requests to leadership.
IFMA’s benchmarking research shows that early involvement of facility managers in capital planning can reduce life cycle costs and prevent design flaws that lead to expensive retrofits, according to the International Facility Management Association (IFMA). By proactively assessing your assets, you can shift from reactive spending to planned investment and build a more resilient operation.
Align capital planning with organizational goals
Capital projects like system upgrades, building expansions, or sustainability retrofits require more than just funding. They need strategic alignment with your organization’s long-term goals. Whether you’re aiming to reduce energy consumption, improve occupant comfort, or meet ESG targets, your capital plan should reflect those priorities.
Start by collaborating with finance, operations, and sustainability teams to understand what matters most. Then, map your facility needs to those goals. For example, if energy efficiency is a top priority, investing in smart HVAC systems or LED retrofits may take precedence over cosmetic upgrades.
Use multi-year budgeting to smooth out funding peaks and valleys. It’s an approach that allows you to phase large projects over time, making them more manageable and less disruptive. It also helps secure buy-in from stakeholders by showing how each investment supports broader business outcomes.
When capital planning is aligned with strategic goals, facility managers become key contributors to organizational success, not just cost centers.
How to strengthen every step of your budgeting with a modern facility management solution
Whether you are forecasting inventory, assessing asset conditions, or planning capital projects, the right platform gives you the tools to work more efficiently and with greater accuracy.
When forecasting inventory, you can use built-in tracking features to monitor consumption trends, set reorder points, and view real-time stock levels across multiple locations, helping you avoid overstocking and shortages while keeping purchasing aligned with actual demand.
For facility condition assessments, the system stores detailed asset histories, including service records, inspection results, and downtime events. You can assign condition ratings, schedule assessments, and attach documentation directly to each asset, making it easier to identify which systems need attention and to justify budget requests with clear, organized data.
In capital planning, the platform helps you align projects with organizational goals by providing visibility into asset performance, life cycle costs, and deferred maintenance. You can build multi-year budgets, track funding allocations, and use dashboards to communicate priorities across departments.
With everything in one place, you can ensure consistency, reduce risk, and keep your budgeting process focused and proactive.
Building a proactive facility maintenance plan
As you look ahead to 2026, creating a comprehensive facility maintenance roadmap is essential for turning ambitious goals into measurable outcomes. By understanding industry trends, establishing a clear asset baseline, defining success through KPIs, leveraging data for predictive maintenance, and building smarter budgets, you can shift from reactive maintenance to proactive strategy.
A forward-thinking approach will help you streamline operations, improve asset performance, and deliver consistent results across every location, positioning your organization for long-term success in an increasingly complex and dynamic facility management landscape.
Frequently asked questions
By Jonathan Davis
As a content creator at Eptura, Jonathan Davis covers asset management, maintenance software, and SaaS solutions, delivering thought leadership with actionable insights across industries such as fleet, manufacturing, healthcare, and hospitality. Jonathan’s writing focuses on topics to help enterprises optimize their operations, including building lifecycle management, digital twins, BIM for facility management, and preventive and predictive maintenance strategies. With a master's degree in journalism and a diverse background that includes writing textbooks, editing video game dialogue, and teaching English as a foreign language, Jonathan brings a versatile perspective to his content creation.
