The Scope Baseline: Zero-Based Scoping for facility contracts at secure sites
The Scope Baseline: what your facility contract is worth, line by line
Every recurring task is classified as value-added, preferential, required non-value-added, or waste, with annualized hours and cost attached. Three outputs: protected cost, recoverable cost, and a Scope Value Index you can take into a rebid. Built at no cost from the documents you authorize, under NDA.
The Scope Baseline is IH Services’ method for finding out what a facility contract is actually buying. Instead of carrying last year’s scope forward, every recurring task has to earn its place from zero: it serves the mission (value-added), a rule requires it (required non-value-added), someone prefers it (preferential), or nobody would miss it (waste). Then, annualized labor hours attach to each bucket at the site’s own rates. The result is protected cost, recoverable cost, and the Scope Value Index, the share of annual scope cost that sits in value-added work.
The Scope Baseline’s four buckets
Every line in the scope lands in exactly one bucket, with the reason written next to it. The buckets come from Lean value analysis, applied to a facility contract rather than a production line. In short, two buckets are protected, one is a decision, and one is removed.
Value-added (VA)
Work the mission needs and would pay for again tomorrow.
For example, restroom sanitation in a production building, FOD sweeps on a shop floor, preventive maintenance on the HVAC that keeps a lab in tolerance. Remove it and something the site cares about fails.
Protected
Preferential (PREF)
Work someone prefers but the mission does not require.
For instance, daily vacuuming of a carpeted office that sees ten people a day, nightly glass cleaning in a lobby nobody uses after six, a second weekly polish on a floor that does not show wear. Keep it or release it; either way, it should be a decision, not a habit.
Recoverable by decision
Required non-value-added (RNV)
Work no one wants that the rules demand anyway.
For example, escort time, sign-in and badge checks, security-office documentation, training that a cleared site mandates. It adds no value to the floor, but the facility clearance and the NISPOM require it. The goal is to make it cheap and reliable, not to make it disappear.
Protected, then minimized
Waste (NVA)
Work nobody asked for and nobody would miss.
For instance, cleaning unoccupied space at an occupied frequency, two inspections of the same area by two vendors, motion between buildings because the route was never planned, rework after a task that was not done right the first time. The DOWNTIME wastes, applied to a facility contract.
Recoverable
Scope Baseline outputs: protected cost, recoverable cost, Scope Value Index
Once every task carries annualized hours at the site’s own rates, the buckets add up to three figures. Each one answers a question a sourcing lead gets asked in a budget review.
Protected cost
Value-added plus required non-value-added. In short, What the mission needs and the rules demand. This is the floor a rebid should price, and the figure that protects you from a bidder who wins by cutting it.
Recoverable cost
Preferential plus waste. Likewise, What you could release or remove. Preferential is a decision you make line by line, while waste comes out. Together they are the honest size of the savings conversation.
Scope Value Index
Value-added cost as a share of total scope cost. Above all, One number, tracked from rebid to rebid. A rising index means more of the budget buys work the mission needs; a falling one means preference and waste are creeping back.
Because the figures come from your own documents and rates, they hold up in front of finance. Moreover, they give you a specification: protected scope to price, preferential scope to decide, waste to remove.
How a Scope Baseline is built in five steps
Authorize the documents
First, the current scope of work, task frequencies, staffing plan, square footage by use, and twelve months of invoices. We agree an NDA before anything changes hands, and we work from copies, never originals.
Classify every recurring task
Each line in the scope lands in one of the four buckets, with the reason recorded next to it. However, nothing carries forward because last year’s contract had it; everything has to earn its bucket.
Attribute hours and cost
Annualized labor hours attach to each task, then to each bucket, at the site’s own rates. As a result, every bucket has a dollar figure, not an opinion.
Read the three outputs
First, protected cost is what the mission needs and the rules demand. Recoverable cost is what you could release or remove. The Scope Value Index is the share of annual scope cost that sits in value-added work, one number you can track from rebid to rebid.
Take it into the rebid
Finally, the baseline becomes the specification: bidders price the protected scope, propose on the preferential scope, and commit to removing the waste. In other words, the rebid starts from measured value rather than from the incumbent’s invoice.
Why the Scope Baseline changes a rebid
Today, most facility rebids start from the incumbent’s invoice. Bidders shave the rate, keep the scope, and the preferential and waste lines ride along for another term. So, the savings are real for a year and gone by year three, because the scope never changed. A baseline reverses that order: scope first, then price.
It also changes the conversation with an incumbent broker. After all, a broker’s proposal describes coordination, whereas a baseline describes work, task by task, with the reason each line exists. Consequently, the buyer can ask any bidder the same question about any line: which bucket, and why. That is the question a self-performing provider answers easily and a broker struggles with, which is the point of asking it.
The method sits under the Reduction outcome of R3 Secure FacilityOps, alongside the escort cost calculator and the commercial models chart. Then, for the wider Lean background, the Lean Enterprise Institute describes the value-stream thinking the buckets are drawn from.
Scope Baseline questions buyers ask
What is a Scope Baseline?
A line-by-line classification of a facility contract’s recurring tasks into four buckets (value-added, preferential, required non-value-added, and waste), with annualized hours and cost attached to each. It produces three outputs: protected cost, recoverable cost, and the Scope Value Index. IH Services builds one at no cost from the documents you authorize, under NDA.
What is Zero-Based Scoping?
The method behind the Scope Baseline. Instead of carrying last year’s scope forward and negotiating the price, every task has to justify its place from zero: what it does for the mission, what rule requires it, or who prefers it. Then, tasks that cannot answer any of those questions are waste, and the baseline shows what they cost.
How is the Scope Value Index calculated?
As the share of annual scope cost that sits in the value-added bucket, after every task has been classified and costed at the site’s own rates. As a result, a rising index from one rebid to the next means more of the budget is buying work the mission needs; a falling one means preference and waste are creeping back in.
Why would IH Services build a Scope Baseline for free?
Because it is how we scope every site we take on, so the work is not extra for us, and because a buyer with a measured baseline makes better decisions, including the decision not to change providers. Either way, the baseline is yours to keep whatever you decide. Of course, we think a self-performing, cleared provider prices the protected scope better than a broker does, and the baseline is where that shows.
Does the Scope Baseline cover hard services as well as custodial?
Yes. The four buckets apply to preventive maintenance frequencies, inspection rounds, and grounds and waste schedules just as they apply to cleaning tasks. In practice, hard services carry more required non-value-added work (code-driven inspections, documentation) and custodial carries more preferential work, so the two baselines read differently. Likewise, the Scope Value Index is reported by service line as well as for the whole contract.
Want a Scope Baseline for your site?
Simply send the scope of work, task frequencies, and twelve months of invoices under NDA. In return, you get the four-bucket classification, the three figures, and a one-page summary you can take into the budget review, at no cost and with no obligation.