Preventive Maintenance (PM) Planning is an essential factor to optimize cost and extend equipment life.  Preventive maintenance can be better planned when it is separated into four disciplines:

1. Plant or Manufacturing Support
2. Exteriors, Interiors, Furniture, Security, Fire and Life Safety Systems
3. Electrical Switchboards, Floor panels, and Devices
4. Vendor Maintenance Services such as Elevators, Building Controls, Painting, etc.

Using this approach, your maintenance team can focus on the important aspects of each critical area to avoid generalizing services, which will lead to lower costs and more consistent service.

As an example, Painting is a common issue in a number of facilities.  Preventive maintenance engineers are usually not responsible for painting, but they may be asked to do touch-ups.  However, excessive touch-ups can leave a leopard look in the facility, so painters should be called in to re-paint instead.

These types of issues are common, and can be predicted with some level of accuracy, so they should be included in the Preventive Maintenance Plan to avoid inconsistent service.  To lower costs and increase service, tools such as Preventive Maintenance Software are often used to keep track of all PM frequencies, work instructions, and PM Inspections.

Inspecting your facility regularly can also improve PM performance:

– Public and Executive Areas – usually inspected weekly
– Building Exteriors – usually inspected annually
– Garages and Back Hallways – usually inspected semi-annually
– Occupied Areas of the Building – usually inspected quarterly

Creating and effectively using your Preventive Maintenance Plan will increase control, reduce costs, and improve service in your facilities.

When choosing a Maintenance and Repair Management System, it often difficult to find one system that meets the needs of everyone in the organization.   Although there are quite a number of Preventive Maintenance Software systems available, they each are organized differently and have their own requirements regarding maintenance.

An effective maintenance and repair system operates from the perspective of a facility manager.  Maintenance needs to be goal oriented, and Preventive Maintenance Software should support the needs of those directly performing or managing the work.

A well-designed management system will follow the classic management model: planning, organizing, staffing, directing, controlling, and evaluating.  An excellent system will include a high level of automation and notification of significant events.

Elements to look for in a Maintenance and Repair Management System:

– Work Planning and Budgeting
– Staffing, Scheduling, and Performance Tracking
– Unscheduled Work Management and Automated Notifications
– Preventive Maintenance Management, Condition Assessment, and Equipment History
– Reports that increase understanding and lead to Preventive Action

Of course, oversight control and quick access to key performance measurements are important to corporate managers, and they should seek a system that will give them the tracking capabilities they need.

However, the most important priority should be choosing a system that your staff understands so they use it properly.  Bells and whistles may look desirable, but if the bell never rings and the whistle never blows, you have just purchased expensive eye candy.

Once you plan is in place, you now have a game plan to insure performance.  Tracking performance is a critical part of your plan – without it, there is no need for a plan.

This is where tools such as Preventive Maintenance Software can really help you.  Understanding the dynamics of your facility, and having the framework to improve performance will help your team achieve their objectives.

Performance tracking is a daily event.  Whenever work is performed, there is a cost and hopefully a benefit.  Knowing the balance between cost and benefit is one of the primary roles of a CMMS.  It is easier to make improvements when you have a performance baseline rather than taking an educated guess.

Tracking performance will improve your budget control, allow you to test your assumptions better, and understand when conditions have changed that can affect your maintenance plan.

Discussion within your team is essential to help you consider many different scenarios to improve contingency plans.  This will allow you to be more responsive when issues arise, but also demonstrate the capabilities of your staff to respond to those issues in a consistent manner.  Your goal is to think through the scenarios that will protect you from failure.

Here are some common scenarios to consider:

Fiscal – Running out of funding is not fun.  Estimate your “burn rate” for normal services, but include likely scenarios where you may need additional funds.  In particular, if additional funding is needed, how will the extra funds be secured?  If there is a high probability of exceeding your budgets, you should clearly define the circumstances that need to be managed to minimize the potential budget threats.

Emergency Response – What will be done in case of a flood?  How about a power outage?  What if the sewage is not flowing?  Emergencies don’t have to be disasters if they are thought through and you have a plan to overcome them.

Personnel – Do you have coverage for key personnel if they were unavailable to work?  Understanding your human resources and what can be done to cover for key staff is an important part of your plan.  Considering today’s budget shrinkage at many facilities, even if you only have to cover for vacations and sick days, you could be too light staffed to perform adequately.

Budgeting, Work Notifications, and Scheduling are fundamental needs of your facility.  Using tools such as Facility Maintenance Software will help you control day to day activities more efficiently, which leads to better organization when dealing with the unexpected.