Maintenance Planning Essentials – Introduction and Expectation Stages

Little has been done in most facilities to standardize maintenance planning.  Strategies vary from planner to planner and in many facilities, last year’s plan is used without modification, or there is no plan at all.

To improve facility management performance, your plan for next year should build on what you have learned this year.  Below are the first two parts of a maintenance plan format example:

Introduction:

This stage of the planning process sets the scope and the tone.  Usually this stage consists of a purpose statement.  Your goal is to outline the needs of the facility, the general desired outcomes from the maintenance department, the time frame of the plan, etc.

Performance Expectations:

In this stage, the relevant performance expectations of the maintenance plan are detailed.  This might include energy cost reductions, facility improvement projects, recycling goals, and business factors that affect maintenance.

Your objective at this stage is to set goals that are achievable and strategic to the facility.  Trying to outline all of the factors important to the facility is unrealistic.

You should include some method of tracking performance to ensure that each goal is measurable with desired performance outcomes that include timelines.  Tools such as Facility Maintenance Software can be an essential part of your performance tracking plan.

Designing a Maintenance Plan

Every aspect of a facility needs a certain level of maintenance that is determined by the management team to minimize operations costs and to maintain the desired level of performance.

Approaches to facility maintenance typically fall under the following categories:

  1. Inspect and Repair Only as Necessary
  2. Cyclical Repair
  3. Preventive Maintenance
  4. Predictive Maintenance
  5. Breakdown Maintenance

A good maintenance program uses a combination of the techniques above to ensure that facility elements are maintained and repaired cost-effectively.  Depending on the goals of the facility, one of the categories should be chosen as a primary approach, with other categories providing flexibility and support to the plan.

Preventive Maintenance Software can be a big help when designing and managing your maintenance plan.  A good system will ensure that the plan is followed by effectively scheduling work, responding to requests, tracking work performance, and understanding costs.

Your maintenance plan would not be complete without tenant input.  Active roles can be taken by the tenant to save up to 10% of operation and maintenance costs in most facilities:

  • Report spills and leaks quickly
  • Report deficiencies
  • Turn off lights when not in use
  • Turn off water faucets
  • Use mats to clean feet
  • Report unsafe conditions

When you put all of the requirements and resources within your facility into one plan, you have a solid path to avoid many costly issues and improve the efficiency of your facility.

Efficient Inventory Management with Barcodes

Inventory management serves three purposes:  To keep an accurate count of what is available, to understand consumption for better planning, and to ensure depreciable items are accounted for properly.

Although some inventory management rules are not made by the facility management team, facility managers are responsible for efficient utilization of their inventory.  To get the most from your inventory resources, technology such as bar coding used by Preventive Maintenance Software can be a good investment.

Bar coding assigns a number to a piece of property to track its physical location and also to create a history of use.  Handheld scanners can then be used to effectively manage inventory, such as supplies, tools, parts, and equipment.

 Considerations for implements a bar coding system:

  1. What degree of detail is desired for inventory tracking?
  2. What will be described (Condition, Quantity, etc.)?
  3. How are locations defined so that everyone understands them?
  4. Will inventory be differentiated (depreciated value, owned v. leased, etc.)?
  5. What will be the strategy used for initial tagging?
  6. How will information be updated?

Although purchasing handheld scanners to benefit from bar coding does come with an up-front expense, it is an effective way to optimize inventory management in mid to large size organizations.

Facility Operations

If you asked an average person in your building about Facility Operations, you are likely to get the impression that facility management runs smoothly with little funding, doesn’t experience many problems, and needs little management attention.  Oh, the stuff dreams are made of…

What you know is that 50-75% of facility budgets revolve around facility operations:

  • Plant Operations
  • Energy Management
  • Hazardous Waste Management
  • Recycling
  • Inventory Management
  • Communications Management
  • Alterations Management
  • Relocations and Move Management
  • Furniture Installation
  • Disaster Recovery
  • Maintenance and Repair
  • Security
  • Fire and Life Safety

Well run facilities rely on well organized staff so their tenants don’t experience many issues.  And with ever shrinking resources, facility managers are increasing their reliance on tools such as Building Maintenance Software to prevent wasting their valuable resources.

On reflection, maybe it’s a good thing that facility operations are often forgotten.  This demonstrates that a good management team is insuring that over 95% of problems are solved effectively with little notice by tenants and visitors.

If we could only get them to forget about the pesky 5% that is left….

Work Coordination

If you are like most managers, you have probably sworn to yourself on a number of occasions that you won’t let scheduling conflicts get the better of you again.

Scheduling conflicts can quickly drain your available resources, lead to unreasonable amounts of waste, and can turn a good project into one that keeps you up at night.  Managers and suppliers should work as a team to achieve the efficiencies needed to have successful operations.

Building Maintenance Software can be an effective way to help your team manage preventive maintenance, cyclical maintenance, repair projects, service orders, alteration projects, and capital projects.  These tools help your team coordinate successfully with a minimal amount of effort, even when the projects involve conferences, parties, and after-hours activities.

The objective of work coordination should be to make the most efficient use of everyone’s time.  When challenged with the many functions of facility management, scheduling conflicts and potential problems have become expected to some degree.

Keep in mind that efficient work may not mean eliminating all scheduling conflicts, since that may actually cost more than it’s worth.  Efficient work means eliminating scheduling conflicts that drain your resources and have excessive costs, knowing that you will still have some minor conflicts.

Using the right tools and techniques for proper planning and project management, along with a good communication process, will result in work coordination that everyone on your team will appreciate.