Case Study: Howard-Winneshiek Community School District achieves modernized, efficient facilities management with AkitaBox

How to Replace an Outdated Facilities Management Software in K-12 Schools

Howard-Winneshiek Community School District, a rural K–12 district in northeast Iowa serving about 1,200 students across five buildings, struggled with outdated facilities management—relying on spreadsheets and a competing K‑12 CMMS with a cluttered mobile app—which left them without accurate building and asset data, a robust preventive maintenance program, or high staff adoption. To solve this, the district selected AkitaBox’s facilities management software to modernize asset tracking, work orders, and preventive maintenance.

AkitaBox’s team walked the buildings, modeled Revit floor plans, pinned assets, and collected data across 285,000 sq ft in under 90 days, then implemented custom preventive maintenance, training, and ongoing support. The result: improved mobile adoption and easier service requests, streamlined inspections (bulk-complete assets like fire extinguishers), fewer service calls, and measurable efficiency gains — 6.63 work orders completed per day, ~3 hours logged per work order, an opened:closed ratio of 1:1.04 and a reactive:preventive ratio of 1:1.31 — demonstrating AkitaBox’s positive impact on accountability and operations.

Howard-Winneshiek Community School District

Larry Trende

Facilities Manager