How to Develop or Update a Facility Maintenance Program, Part 2

In a previous post, we here at Goodway encouraged you to think differently about the facility maintenance planning process and described how to determine critical ranking for various equipment covered by a facility maintenance program.  Once you have determined rank, you need to assess your direct impact and safety/environmental items.  These all need to be on a regular maintenance schedule, so you need to decide a couple of things at this point: a) how often should we perform maintenance on this equipment, and  b) do we do this in-house or do we contract it out?

There are a couple of ways to go on maintenance frequencies. If you don’t have historical data or institutional knowledge, refer to OEM specifications.  The challenge with using this method is that sometimes the specs are written to lead to failures at the end of equipment life cycle. The other problem is that maintenance practices are vastly different now than they were in the past, and some specified maintenance routines could be outdated.  If you can rely on historical data, you are much better off and will probably be able to document the reliability limits for any piece of equipment in your inventory. Consider these avenues: a CMMS program, written maintenance records or the memory of an old-timer.

Next, after you have determined your frequencies, decide if you are doing the work in-house or contracting it out.  In most situations, it makes sense to do your direct impact PM’s yourself.  A contractor doesn’t have the sense of ownership a facility staff does.  It’s just another job to them — no more or less important than any other job. Also look at what you are contracting out and why.  Old school thinking was to avoid purchasing an expensive piece of equipment to do a job that occurs once a year.  Those jobs, like boiler cleaning and cooling tower maintenance, were the ones that were regularly farmed out.  With the rising cost of labor, the economics are now different. When I bought a boiler cleaner for our facility, we got our return on investment after the first boiler was cleaned (about 8 hours!).

Finally, determine the instructions to be followed for each PM.  Standardize as much as possible, so everyone is on the same page.  Don’t just let the contractors come in and do maintenance without reviewing what they are doing and why.  They must perform the work you request, as you requested.

Remember, these are just suggested guidelines but by following these steps, you can have an efficient and effective facility department.

Here are some additional steps you can take in conjunction with your facilities maintenance planning activities:

• Check out our learning center on how best to maintain all your facility’s existing equipment.
• Subscribe to our blog to get the latest HVAC maintenance news and insight.
• Stay up to date on facility maintenance tools such as chiller tube cleaners, boiler tube cleaners, hose/pipe cleaners, descaler systems, test instruments, industrial vacuums, commercial pressure washers, and drain cleaners.