An Introduction to the Maintenance Scorecard

Building maintenance has always relied on data, but 2026 finds the industry at a crossroads between "AI hype" and "Industrial AI" reality. While marketing noise often conflates maintenance tools with general language models like ChatGPT or Gemini, true industrial systems require a different architecture focused on precision, not probability.

REM recently caught up with Christer Idhammar, founder and executive vice-president of IDCON INC, and asked him to share his perspective on World Class maintenance.

The question of whether managed in-house maintenance or contract maintenance is superior is a persistent one, and both options present unique challenges. Administration, for instance, can be a minefield regardless of the chosen path. A maintenance agreement contract, for example, is a broad subject that can lead to numerous issues if not carefully drafted and agreed upon. This means that in-house maintenance isn't always the straightforward solution it might seem to be.

How do you move your reliability improvements forward? Do you know how good you are? You need to identify the Reliability Gap.

I believe that most training efforts are wasted unless the training is focused on the training needs of each individual. After going through training, a person should immediately apply the new skills. As the saying goes, “If you do not use it, you lose it.”

A shift is occurring in maintenance of equipment and systems called prognostics and health management. Although it uses similar predictive maintenance (PdM) diagnostic tools such as infrared, vibration monitoring, and oil analysis to deliver the current condition of components, it differs in that it does not correlate and trend the measured parameters. When it comes to prognostics in compressed air systems, knowing what parameters should be measured and how they should be analyzed help to form good practices in condition-based maintenance (CBM).

Good indoor air quality (IAQ) depends on a number of factors, including effective filtration, which provides the primary defense for building occupants and HVAC (Heating, Ventilating and Air Conditioning) equipment against particular pollutants. Today's higher standards in filtration, coupled with rigorous attention paid to HVAC filter selection, helps to produce cleaner, purer air and reduce IAQ-related problems.