Case Study: Columbia College Chicago achieves an 80% reduction in unanticipated maintenance requests with Accruent’s FAMIS Maintenance Management

How Columbia College Chicago used Accruent’s FAMIS cloud solution to track work order requests from start to finish

Columbia College Chicago, a 9,500‑student arts and media institution with 17 buildings and more than 1.5 million sq ft to maintain, relied on a 40‑person facilities team that couldn’t track service requests, operated mostly reactively, and lacked a central system of record—leading to forgotten requests, uneven technician workloads, and frequent equipment failures.

The college implemented Accruent’s FAMIS cloud maintenance management to route and track work orders, enforce policies, and schedule preventive maintenance. The solution enabled better staff‑hour visibility and training, extended asset life, eliminated on‑premise infrastructure support, and cut unanticipated requests by 80%, while providing data to justify additional staff and capital investments.

Columbia College Chicago

Sarah McGing

Director of Operations