Facility managers are buried in metrics. Square footage maintained, work order count, tenant satisfaction scores, vendor SLAs — every dashboard claims to be "the one." Most are noise. The 10 KPIs in this guide are the ones that actually predict whether your facility is run well, and they're all things you can measure with a basic CMMS.
If you're picking metrics for a facility-management dashboard, start with these. If your current dashboard has 30+ metrics, this list is permission to delete two-thirds of them.
The 10 KPIs That Matter
1. PM Compliance Rate (the foundation)
Formula: PMs completed on time ÷ PMs scheduled × 100
Target: ≥ 85% mature, ≥ 70% in year 1
The single most predictive number in facility maintenance. High compliance correlates with everything else: lower MTTR, fewer emergency repairs, better tenant satisfaction, lower insurance premiums.
If you only track one KPI, track this. See the PM compliance metrics guide for how to calculate properly.
2. Mean Time to Resolution (MTTR)
Formula: Total resolution time ÷ Number of resolved tickets
Target: Critical < 4 hours, Standard < 48 hours
How fast does the facility team resolve tenant complaints and reactive maintenance? Lower is better. Critical safety issues should be sub-4-hour; standard requests sub-48-hour.
If MTTR is climbing, your team is overcommitted. Either reduce workload or add resources.
3. First-Time Fix Rate
Formula: Tickets resolved on first visit ÷ Total tickets × 100
Target: ≥ 80%
Measures whether your team has the right tools, parts, and information on the first visit. Below 60% means too many "I'll come back when I have the part" trips. The fix is usually better parts management, not better techs.
4. Reactive Hours % (the leading indicator)
Formula: Reactive maintenance hours ÷ Total maintenance hours × 100
Target: < 30% mature, < 50% in year 1
The North Star. A reactive-heavy operation is a future-failure operation. As you do more PM, this should drop.
If you're stuck at 60%+ reactive after a year of CMMS use, your PM program is miscalibrated.
5. Cost per Square Foot
Formula: Total maintenance cost ÷ Total square footage
Target: Class A office: $2.50–4.50/sqft/year; Class B: $1.80–3.20
The CFO's favorite metric. Allows benchmarking against industry. If you're significantly above industry average, dig in: are you paying premium for emergency repairs? Over-PM-ing? Under-utilizing your team?
6. Tenant Satisfaction (CSAT) for maintenance
Formula: Survey: "How satisfied with your last maintenance request?" — Avg of 1-5 scale
Target: ≥ 4.2
Lagging indicator, but the one your customer (the tenant) actually feels. Below 4.0, you have a perception problem (even if the work is technically done well).
Send a quick 1-question survey after every closed work order. Most modern CMMS platforms automate this.
7. Compliance Audit Pass Rate
Formula: Audits passed without findings ÷ Total audits × 100
Target: 100% (audit findings are never acceptable)
Tracks regulatory health. Fire marshal, OSHA, ADA, environmental — when external auditors come, do you pass clean?
If you have any findings, the corrective action time is also a KPI. Below 30 days to close findings is the standard.
8. Asset Uptime % (for critical systems)
Formula: (Total hours − downtime hours) ÷ Total hours × 100
Target: ≥ 99% for elevators, HVAC, fire systems
Tracks the systems that must work. Elevator out of service? Insurance and lease implications. HVAC down in summer? Tenant complaints, possible health issues.
Track per-asset, not per-facility. A 95% uptime average can hide one chronically broken elevator.
9. Deferred Maintenance Backlog
Formula: $ value of deferred maintenance ÷ replacement asset value × 100
Target: < 5% (above 10% is alarming)
The maintenance debt indicator. Every month of deferred PM accumulates. Track the trend quarterly. Rising backlog = future emergencies = future budget overruns.
10. Energy & Water Cost per Square Foot
Formula: Annual utility cost ÷ Square footage
Target: Varies by climate; benchmark against ENERGY STAR Portfolio Manager
PM directly affects this. Dirty filters increase HVAC energy use 5–15%. Leaking water fixtures inflate water bills. Tracking utility cost per square foot reveals when maintenance is slipping.
What NOT to Track (the vanity metrics)
These look impressive but don't drive better decisions:
- Total work orders created — measures volume, not effectiveness
- Average response time — better captured by MTTR; "response" is ambiguous
- Tickets closed per technician — incentivizes quick closes, not real fixes
- Vendor count — more vendors isn't better
- Square footage maintained — physical metric, says nothing about quality
If your dashboard has any of these, replace them with the 10 above.
How to Build the Dashboard
Three sections, fits on one screen:
Top row (4 cards): Headline KPIs
- PM Compliance Rate
- MTTR
- Reactive Hours %
- Tenant CSAT
Middle row (3 cards): Cost view
- Cost per square foot
- Deferred backlog %
- Energy cost per sqft (12-month trend)
Bottom row (2 cards): Risk view
- Compliance audit status (pass/fail/findings open)
- Critical asset uptime % (for elevators, HVAC, fire systems)
Update monthly. Share with: Facility Manager (tactical), Operations VP (strategic), CFO (cost & risk).
How a CMMS Captures These KPIs
Most of these come automatically from a properly-configured CMMS:
- PM Compliance & Schedule Adherence — auto-calculated from PM completion data
- MTTR & First-Time Fix — from work order timestamps and visit count
- Reactive Hours % — from work order categorization (Reactive vs. PM)
- Cost per sqft — from work order labor + parts cost / building sqft
- Asset Uptime — from work order status changes
- Deferred Backlog — from PMs marked "deferred" with $ estimate
The two that need extra effort:
- Tenant CSAT — survey integration (some CMMS platforms include, like Maintoro's request portal)
- Audit Pass Rate — manual entry after each external audit
Common Mistakes in Facility KPI Programs
Mistake 1: Tracking too much. 30+ KPIs lead to "metric blindness." Stick to 10. Add only when you can defend each addition.
Mistake 2: No targets. Tracking a number without a target is journaling. Set a target, hold review meetings, adjust.
Mistake 3: Reporting in isolation. Maintenance KPIs in a vacuum are dry. Pair with business metrics: occupancy rate, lease renewal %, insurance premiums. That's how the CFO sees the value.
Mistake 4: Letting metrics game themselves. "Average MTTR" can be gamed by closing easy tickets fast. Track median + 95th percentile alongside average.
Mistake 5: Measuring quarterly, deciding annually. Monthly cadence is right. Reviewing only at year-end means you can't course-correct.
What to Do Next
- Pick the 5 most relevant KPIs for your facility from the list above.
- Configure your CMMS to auto-calculate them. See Maintoro's reports for templates.
- Build the one-screen dashboard. Share monthly with leadership.
- Review and adjust quarterly. As targets are hit, raise the bar.
For deeper context, see the PM compliance metrics guide and the maintenance KPIs and metrics guide.
Ready to put this into practice?
Maintoro tracks all 10 KPIs out of the box — no custom reporting, no spreadsheet hell. Free forever for 2 users. Start free and your first KPI dashboard is live within 30 days. Book a demo for a guided walkthrough specific to facility management.