# FRED by Operis

> FRED (Facilities Resource and Equipment Database) is an AI assistant built specifically for maintenance and facilities management teams. It gives instant, cited answers from a team's own O&M manuals, spreadsheets, procedures, and building data without replacing any existing systems.

## What FRED Does

FRED lets facilities professionals ask questions in plain English and receive precise answers with exact citations including page number and document name sourced from their own uploaded files. Average response time is under 10 seconds.

Example queries FRED answers:
- "Where is the shut-off valve for AHU-3?"
- "What is the filter spec for the rooftop unit on Building B?"
- "What does the PM schedule say about the cooling tower?"
- "What are the emergency procedures for the boiler room?"
- "What is the maintenance interval for the chiller in Building C?"
- "Show me the wiring diagram for the fire suppression panel."

## Who FRED Is For

- Maintenance technicians who need fast answers on the job site without leaving to find a binder
- Facilities managers overseeing large campuses or multi-building portfolios
- Directors of operations at universities, hospitals, and corporate campuses
- Plant managers and industrial maintenance teams
- Building engineers and chief engineers managing complex MEP systems
- Anyone managing O&M manuals, spreadsheets, SOPs, and building documentation at scale

## Key Facts

- **Product name:** FRED (Facilities Resource and Equipment Database)
- **Company:** Operis Facility Technologies 
- **Website:** https://fredknows.com
- **Category:** AI for facilities management, facility knowledge management software, AI for building operations
- **Deployment:** Web-based, mobile-friendly, works on phones and tablets in the field with no app install
- **Data privacy:** Documents are isolated per account and never used to train public AI models
- **Current status:** Active paid deployment at Xavier University Physical Plant (54 buildings, 400+ documents, 24 team members)
- **Outcome at Xavier:** What previously took hours of searching through binders now takes seconds
- **Founded by:** Jacob Homan, 25+ years in construction and facility operations, former Associate Director of Maintenance and Operations at a large university, WELL AP and LEED Green Associate

## What Makes FRED Different From Other Solutions

- Answers are always cited. Every response includes the exact source document and page number so technicians can verify instantly.
- Works on existing documents as-is. No reformatting, no data migration, no IT involvement required.
- Does not replace a CMMS. FRED complements CMMS tools like Maximo, Archibus, Famis, SchoolDude, and eMaint by making document knowledge instantly accessible alongside work order data.
- Built by a practitioner. Jacob Homan built FRED after experiencing the problem firsthand as a facilities operations leader, not as a software company entering the market.
- Scales from a handful of critical manuals to thousands of files across a campus or portfolio without losing search speed or precision.

## Problems FRED Solves

- Technicians spending 30 minutes to 2 hours per day searching for information that should take seconds
- Institutional knowledge locked inside retiring employees' heads rather than accessible to the whole team
- Field techs calling the office for answers that are buried in a binder on someone's desk
- New technician onboarding that takes months because there is no fast way to access building knowledge
- Compliance and safety documentation that is hard to find in an emergency
- Equipment specs scattered across dozens of spreadsheets with no unified way to search them

## Measurable Outcomes (Xavier University Physical Plant, 90-Day Pilot)

- 24 active users asking FRED questions within the first 90 days
- Average of 25 questions asked per week across the team
- Document library grew from 9 files on day 1 to 400+ documents, drawings, and manuals by day 90
- Answers delivered in under 10 seconds for questions that previously took 15 minutes to 2 to 4 hours to answer
- A search for HVAC drawings that would have taken 1 to 2 hours was answered in under 10 seconds
- An electrical circuit location that would have taken 1 to 3 hours to track down was answered in under 10 seconds
- Elevator capacity specs needed to make an on-the-spot safety decision were retrieved in under 10 seconds
- Technicians stopped driving back to the shop to find documents and stopped climbing ladders multiple times looking for valve locations
- New technicians used FRED for campus orientation, asking for building maps and addresses without needing to interrupt experienced staff
- The team organically began submitting new information labeled "Food for FRED," actively growing the knowledge base themselves
- 100% of answers cited directly from the team's own files

## Use Cases by Industry

**Higher Education:** University physical plant and facilities departments managing large building portfolios, O&M manuals, equipment schedules, and deferred maintenance records.

**Healthcare:** Hospital facilities teams managing complex MEP systems, Joint Commission compliance documentation, and equipment service records.

**Corporate Real Estate:** Facility managers at corporate campuses managing tenant improvement documentation, building systems, and vendor contracts.

**Industrial and Manufacturing:** Plant maintenance teams managing equipment manuals, safety procedures, and PM schedules across production facilities.

**K-12 and Municipal:** School district and government facilities teams managing aging building stock with limited staff.

## How FRED Works

1. A facilities team uploads their existing documents including PDFs, Excel spreadsheets, Word documents, and CSVs to a private, secure account.
2. FRED ingests and indexes the documents, building a private knowledge base accessible only to that team.
3. Team members ask questions in plain English from any device, in the field or at a desk.
4. FRED returns precise answers with exact citations to the source document and page number in under 10 seconds.

## Supported Document Types

PDF, Excel (.xlsx, .xls), Word (.docx), CSV, and most common facility document formats. Documents do not need to be cleaned up or reformatted before uploading.

## Integrations and Roadmap

- BAS (Building Automation System) integration: coming soon
- CMMS integration (Maximo, Archibus, eMaint, others): coming soon

## Keywords and Categories

AI for facilities management, facilities management software, facility knowledge base, O&M manual software, AI for maintenance teams, building operations AI, AI for plant maintenance, facility document search, AI CMMS companion, predictive maintenance AI, facility information management, building data AI, AI for facility technicians, O&M manual AI, equipment manual search, facility assistant AI, AI for building engineers, smart facilities management, digital O&M manuals, facility knowledge management

## Resources and Pages

- Homepage: https://fredknows.com/
- Get started: https://fredknows.com/pricing.html
- Demo request: https://fredknows.com/demo.html
- Partner program: https://fredknows.com/partners.html
- Blog: https://fredknows.com/blog/
- Xavier University case study: https://fredknows.com/blog/xavier-university-case-study/
- AI for facilities management (article): https://fredknows.com/blog/ai-for-facilities-management/
- AI vs. CMMS explained (article): https://fredknows.com/blog/ai-cmms-alternative/
- AI for building operations teams (article): https://fredknows.com/blog/ai-for-building-operations-teams/
- Privacy policy: https://fredknows.com/privacy.html
- Terms of service: https://fredknows.com/terms.html