Technology has transformed nearly every aspect of facilities management. From cloud-based work order systems to AI-driven invoice audits, today’s operations are more digital, measurable, and data-rich than ever before. Yet the industry faces a growing truth: technology cannot replace the experience, intuition, and accountability that skilled facilities professionals bring to the table.
The future of facilities management will not be human or machine. It will be the collaboration of both, aligned around a common goal—operational excellence.
Over the past decade, facility management software adoption has skyrocketed. Analysts estimate that over 70 percent of multi-site retailers and restaurant chains now rely on some form of CMMS or FM platform, up from 38 percent in 2015. The global market for facility management software is projected to exceed $96 billion by 2030, growing at a compound rate of more than 11 percent annually.
However, technology adoption does not always mean results. Studies reveal that 80 percent of CMMS users do not use even half of the system’s features because of complexity, poor training, or limited integration. In many cases, automation projects deliver partial insights without solving fundamental challenges such as work order accuracy, technician efficiency, and provider accountability.
The problem is not the technology itself. It is how organizations implement and integrate it.
Facility managers remain the critical link between data and action. They interpret the story behind the numbers, applying context that algorithms cannot. Experienced teams understand that a one-hour variance in time-on-site may signal a legitimate issue in a refrigeration unit or a repeat workmanship problem that requires retraining.
In a recent CBRE survey, 64 percent of facilities leaders said “human judgment and relationship management” remain their top performance drivers, while 58 percent said technology works best when used to “validate, not dictate” decisions.
Technology can show what is happening. Humans must decide why it happened and how to prevent it again.
Leading organizations are now creating operational models that pair automation with empowered human oversight. These companies understand that efficiency gains are achieved when machines handle repetitive work and humans handle interpretation, strategy, and accountability.
Repetitive administrative tasks once performed by back-office teams—such as invoice auditing, cost verification, and service ticket review—are now managed through automated cost-control systems.
Vixxo’s patented Continuously Analyzed Pricing System (CAPS), for example, compares every line item on an invoice against 40 years of work order history. This process identifies hidden overages on labor, parts, and travel, cutting costs by up to 5 to 10 percent per invoice. Over a 12-month period, CAPS generated $2.6 million in direct savings across convenience and grocery portfolios.
The result is not fewer people. It is smarter people. Freed from manual reviews, facility teams can analyze trends, benchmark providers, and proactively correct performance issues.
Automation without collaboration leads to disengagement. The best-performing programs use data to drive conversations, not just reports.
Through platforms such as VixxoLink, facility directors gain visibility into critical KPIs like first-time fix rate, time to site, and average work order cost. Instead of isolated metrics, these insights become discussion points during weekly performance reviews with providers.
In one national grocery program, these reviews improved SLA compliance by 23 percent year-over-year, reduced callbacks by 19 percent, and helped decrease the average time to complete a work order from 14.7 days to 8.7 days—a performance improvement of nearly 40 percent.
Artificial intelligence is now giving technicians in the field a measurable edge. Vixxo’s VITA (Vixxo Intelligent Tech Assistant), an AI-powered tool built into the VixxoLink platform, is trained on thousands of equipment manuals, model numbers, and error codes. It provides guided troubleshooting for HVAC, refrigeration, and foodservice equipment.
Technicians using VITA report a 1.4 percent faster job completion rate, higher first-trip success, and greater confidence handling unfamiliar assets. Across thousands of annual work orders, this small improvement translates into hundreds of hours of reduced downtime and measurable gains in customer satisfaction.
Automation introduces transparency that strengthens accountability rather than replacing it. Every work order now carries a digital footprint—check-in and check-out timestamps, GPS verification, and part cost comparisons.
This transparency helps providers and facility managers align around facts rather than assumptions. A Vixxo analysis of 3.75 million work orders revealed that work orders with verified time-on-site data had 30 percent fewer cost disputes and closed two days faster on average than those without.
When data is visible to everyone—client, service provider, and internal team—trust grows, and so does performance.
As automation scales, the facilities role is becoming more analytical and strategic. Tasks that once consumed time, like tracking invoices or validating quotes, are now automated. The facilities professional of the future will focus on:
Data interpretation: Understanding cost and performance patterns at a portfolio level.
Provider optimization: Using benchmarks to assign more work to top-performing vendors.
Proactive planning: Leveraging analytics to anticipate asset replacement or preventive maintenance.
Customer experience: Partnering with operations teams to minimize downtime and disruption.
Vixxo clients who implemented automation across their programs report a 30 percent reduction in administrative workload, allowing FM leaders to redirect time toward strategic initiatives such as energy efficiency, remodel projects, and capital planning.
Bridging the human-machine divide is not just a systems challenge. It is a culture shift. The most successful organizations build teams that view technology as an enabler rather than a threat.
Three best practices stand out:
Transparency first: Every stakeholder—from store managers to providers—should have access to the same performance data. This prevents finger-pointing and creates shared ownership of results.
Training and trust: Ongoing education ensures employees understand how to use data effectively. At the same time, leaders must trust human judgment when exceptions arise.
Metrics with meaning: Data should measure outcomes that matter. For example, a first-time fix rate of 85 percent or higher correlates with 10 to 12 percent lower annual repair costs in multi-site portfolios.
When culture supports both innovation and accountability, technology adoption becomes sustainable and self-reinforcing.
Facilities costs are rising across every industry vertical. Repair and maintenance expenses increased 13.7 percent in 2022 and 5.2 percent in 2023 for convenience stores alone, according to NACS. In grocery, the total facilities spend climbed 11.8 percent year-over-year in 2024, driven by inflation in parts and labor.
Automated analytics tools can identify cost drivers before they escalate. Predictive maintenance powered by AI has been shown to reduce unplanned downtime by 30 to 50 percent and lower maintenance costs by 10 to 40 percent, according to Deloitte’s 2024 Smart Operations Study.
But even with these gains, organizations that pair predictive tools with human review achieve the best results. Facility teams that manually validate AI-driven alerts avoid false positives and build better preventive strategies—saving up to 18 percent more per asset compared to automation-only programs.
Automation is here to stay, and its value is undeniable. But the goal is not to eliminate people. It is to elevate them.
In modern facility operations, machines handle precision and scale while humans provide judgment, ethics, and empathy. Together they create a feedback loop of continuous improvement—data informs decisions, decisions refine the data, and performance accelerates.
As one Vixxo client summarized, “Automation didn’t make our team smaller. It made our team smarter.”
The most successful facilities organizations will be those that invest equally in technology and talent. They will understand that while machines can monitor, measure, and predict, only people can lead, inspire, and hold the system accountable.
The divide between human and machine is not a gap to close. It is a bridge to build—one that connects data with wisdom, technology with trust, and automation with accountability.
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