AI Across the Lifecycle Series #4 - Lifecycle, Costing, & Capital Planning | Facilities Unfiltered Episode 12

Capital planning has always asked facilities teams to “predict the future” with tools that weren’t built to be maintained—binders, spreadsheets, PDFs, and one-time assessments that quickly go stale. In this installment of the AI Across the Lifecycle series, Josh Lowe and Nic Guedenet get candid about why traditional lifecycle costing models erode trust (when the model says four panels but the building has 22) and why the real bottleneck isn’t technology—it’s culture, workflow, and how consistently teams capture the right data. They dig into what AI can actually change when the fundamentals are in place: more realistic, variable-aware cost forecasting (labor type, prevailing wage impacts, permitting, rigging, disposal, contingencies), continuously updating ROM estimates that reflect market shifts, and scenario planning that helps leaders understand the true cost of underfunding. Along the way, they unpack practical steps you can take now—even in an “old crappy system”—from tying work to the actual asset, to building a site-specific useful life table, to tapping purchasing history, so you’re not waiting for a “magic button” to start getting better outcomes.