Facility management asset management sounds like two disciplines stapled together and is really one observation: every useful thing a facilities team knows is an attribute of an asset. What is due is an attribute of an asset. What something cost is an attribute of an asset. What condition the building is in is the sum of the conditions of its assets. Which means the register is not a module of the system, it is the system, and everything downstream inherits whatever is wrong with it.
What belongs in the register, and what does not
Anything that carries an interval, a cost or a condition. The boiler, the air handlers, the roof, the lift, the panels, the pumps. Not every light fitting and not every door handle: a register nobody can keep current is worse than a shorter one that is true. The test is whether you would ever want to ask a question about that thing specifically. If not, it belongs to a space rather than to the register.
The attributes that actually get used
Location, so somebody can find it. Age or install date, so remaining life means something. Interval or intervals, so the schedule derives. Condition with a price attached, so the backlog adds up. And a replacement cost, so renewal planning is possible. Serial numbers and model codes are useful when they are known and are not worth stalling the register for; the five above are the ones that make it work.
Why the register decays, and what stops it
Registers rot at the edges: equipment replaced without the record being updated, assets removed and left in the list, new plant never added. The only reliable defense is that the register is the thing people work from rather than a document maintained alongside the work. If the technician's job list comes from it, an asset missing from the register is noticed the first week rather than at the next audit.
Questions people ask about facility management asset management
How do we start a register from nothing?
Walk the plant rooms and the roof first, then the systems that would close the building if they failed. Capture location, age and interval. A hundred assets that are true beats a thousand imported from a spreadsheet nobody has checked.
Should leased or contractor-maintained assets be in it?
Yes, with the contract recorded against them. The questions are identical: when is it due, was it done, what was found. A separate list for contracted plant is how half a building's equipment goes unwatched.
How does the register connect to the condition index?
The deficiencies recorded against assets, priced, add up to the deferred backlog, and the backlog against the building's replacement value is the index. Without the register the index is an estimate somebody made once.