Last month, I covered the importance of developing design intent documents (DIDs) that reflect the integrated nature of today's building systems. This month, I'd like to take that concept another step further and recommend incorporating "maintainability" criteria into each DID.
What does that mean? It means looking beyond the first tier of functional performance criteria (temperature, humidity, IAQ, noise, etc.) of the systems being commissioned to defining quantitative metrics regarding how maintainable all aspects of the building should be. In addition, let's look at how maintenance practices may impact the ability of the systems to sustain their "as commissioned" performance criteria.