It is a current reality that many companies have been forced to cut back on maintenance spending, with an emphasis on shorter term profitability. Since most new contracts have less margin, and retaining long term contracts has become more competitive, budgets aren’t what they used to be.
It has become more critical to “get it right the first time” to avoid costly issues, but faced with reduced resources, many managers have actually done less planning and more reacting, which is counter productive to increasing profits. This dynamic has greatly increased risk, without providing adequate savings to cover the bet.
Unfortunately, there is no magic bullet to stop the current economic decline, but there are a few things that will help keep your company moving forward. Ideally, you would want to bring in more money to help ease the crunch, but more business at a lower margin might actually hurt your profitability.
One of the best moves is to re-evaluate your current management tools, including communications. You may have already paid for productivity enhancing tools that are under utilized by management which can immediately bring improved efficiencies while reducing risk. If the management tools have become outdated, or don’t really fit your work process, it is time to seek a better return on your investment.
Maintenance Management Software is one of the key tools your staff can optimize to improve planning, communications, accountability, and profitability. By keeping the right resources on the right projects to avoid costly mistakes, you can readiliy increase resource utilization and profitability.
The right work processes provided by a well implemented Maintenance Management Software system can provide your team with live information on resource availability while ensuring that resources match facility and financial realities.
When times get tough, the goal of your service delivery systems is to organize your work flow and communications to increase cashflow and profitability. Without spending much manager time, the proper actions can be scheduled and tracked much more efficiently, freeing managers to pursue other profit generating opportunities.
Today’s Maintenance Management Software takes advantage of technical tools you already have, such as Blackberries and Smart Phones to increase efficiency and deliver live communications that can prevent costly issues. The end result is better use of your manager’s time and field resources to increase profits without taking on too much risk.