Facility Maintenance Best Practices

Best maintenance practices in your facility decrease the likelihood that someone will be injured on a property and extra costs that might be incurred. As it is usually more expensive to make urgent repairs than to take early preventive action, you need to care for your facility maintenance. Some faults such as water leaks and cracked windows can lead to expensive problems such as damp and high heating or water costs.

The objective of the maintenance plan is to sustain asset reliability and to improve its availability. The plan should include the necessary maintenance and service-type actions needed to detect potential failures before they create unscheduled downtime (Ramesh Gulati, Ricky Smith, 2009). High standards of premises maintenance are not only important for maintaining the safety and appearance of buildings but are also essential for realizing the value of the estate assets and preventing impairment. So, what are today’s best practices in facility maintenance?

Types Of Maintenance

In general, maintenance means to hold, keep, sustain or preserve the building or structure to an acceptable standard, in which acceptable standard is defined as one which sustains the utility and value of the facility. While maintenance management should properly be regarded as describing how a system of maintenance effort could be organized to deal with the problems of building maintenance as a whole (B. Hamilton, M. Wan Salleh, 2001).

Traditionally, 5 types of maintenance have been identified:

1. Corrective Maintenance.

Its purpose is to correct the defects to be found in the different equipment and that are communicated to the maintenance department by users of the same equipment.

2. Preventive Maintenance.

Its mission is to maintain a level of certain service on equipment, programming the interventions of their vulnerabilities in the most convenient time. The equipment is inspected even if it has not given any symptoms of having a problem.

3. Predictive Maintenance.

It pursues constantly know and report the status and operational capacity of the installations by knowing the values of certain variables, which represent such state and operational ability. To apply this maintenance, it is necessary to identify physical variables such as the temperature, vibration, power consumption and so on.

4. Zero Hours Maintenance (Overhaul).

The goal is to review the equipment at scheduled intervals before appearing any failure, either when the reliability of the equipment has decreased considerably so it is risky to make forecasts of production capacity.

5. Periodic Maintenance (Time Based Maintenance).

The basic maintenance of equipment made by the users of it. It consists of a series of elementary tasks such as data collections, visual inspection, cleaning, lubrication and retightening screws for which no extensive training is necessary, but perhaps only brief training.

Routine Care & Maintenance

There are no set frequencies for maintenance inspections. However, specialist clinical or electrical equipment should be inspected according to the manufacturer’s guidelines and in line with guarantees or statutory requirements. The terms of a lease may also dictate buildings maintenance schedules.

The following general guidelines can be used as a rule of thumb:

Since there are tasks that need to be completed on a more and on a less frequent basis, it is recommended for a building to create a daily facility maintenance checklist and a monthly facility maintenance checklist.

Facility Maintenance Checklist

Roof

Any buildings maintenance schedule should include a rolling programmed of redecoration and improvements to ensure that the building presents a safe, clean, comfortable and pleasant environment at all times. A roof system is arguably the most vulnerable part of a building’s exterior. Roof maintenance is critical to preventing roof problems and keeping the roof in a watertight condition. Early identification and repair of roof problems will help provide a long-lasting roof system.

External Wall

Allowing the external envelope of a building to deteriorate will not only give a very negative visual impression but also create an environment for materials/components to deteriorate and decay. Exterior walls (including doors and windows) should be carefully inspected at least once a year. Exterior walls and masonry workwear out as time goes by and should be checked at least monthly, if not more often in detail, and daily for any visible cracks or demolished areas. Building arches, eaves and canopies should be inspected carefully as they tend to ruin more often.

Windows & Doors, Gates and Other Openings

Proper maintenance of your windows and doors start with cleaning. Afterwards, check if there are any cracks or gaps. Studies show that openings and cracks around your windows and doors can account for up to 10% of your heating bills. Caulk and seal any gaps you find. Depending on the materials from which they are built such, doors and windows have various durability and should not be replaced often. But small parts, such as hinges, locks, and handles can break faster and thus prevent proper door functioning.

Stairs & Floors

Mop the entrance and vestibule daily. Sweep the stairs and halls daily. Mop stairs and halls at least twice a week. A stone floor in the public lobby of an office building should state that the floor will be inspected at the beginning of each shift and again each hour. Any spills discovered should be immediately cordoned off to block pedestrian access. The building’s janitorial provider or in-house cleaner must prevent items from being left on the floor that might present a slip-and-fall or trip-and-fall hazard.

Lighting

Although lighting has its own voice to tell when it doesn’t work, a facility manager mustn’t wait for defects to act. Periodical check-ups of the lighting system must be part of the facility management checklist, and the power supply must be inspected on a daily basis.

Plumbing

Plumbing defects are not so easy to notice until they occur, but if you own a checklist template with equipment replacement guidelines, for instance, when to replace a valve, you can avoid major issues. Irrigation system maintenance is sometimes done as part of plumbing activities, but it can also include additional checkups done by specialists.

Fire Equipment

Checking fire safety equipment is a law requirement, and if you don’t make it a part of the facility maintenance checklist, you can not only bring your facility to risk but also face fines and penalties. Depending on where you are located, fire extinguishers must be serviced at least once a year, while the door and crawl spaces should be inspected more often. If you have a sprinkler system installed, it should also undergo preventative maintenance together with the rest of the equipment.

Heating & Cooling

The HVAC system requires cleaning and regular maintenance as, although it won’t automatically break your business, it is one of the most common complaints by staff, majorly affecting staff morale.

Access Control

Specific elements of the access control system can be integrated with other aspects of the facility, thus causing confusion about when and how each of them needs to be inspected. For instance, fire alarms can activate sprinklers while disabling some access doors. Video cameras can operate in several modes for monitoring, as well as for safety purposes. The Wi-Fi network can be combined. Therefore, it’s good to have each of these aspects in a separate box on your daily and monthly facility inspection checklists in order to be able to do them without worrying you’ve missed an important aspect.

Getting Urgent Repairs Done

A maintenance system should form part of a fault reporting and tracking system whereby faults or potential problem areas are logged and followed up until they are recorded as fixed. Faults or problems should first be subjected to a risk assessment by a competent member of staff and the urgency or seriousness of the repair recorded and communicated to appropriate maintenance staff or contractors. Building managers should then check that any necessary work has been completed satisfactorily.

Urgent repairs mean any work needed to repair any of the following:

• a failure or breakdown of the gas, electricity or water supply
• a failure or breakdown of any essential service for hot water, cooking, heating, cooling or laundering
• any fault or damage that makes the premises unsafe or insecure
• serious damage from a natural disaster.

Examples of damage include:

• a burst water
• an appliance or fixture (such as a tap) that is not working or broken and is causing a substantial waste of water
• a blocked or broken toilet
• a serious roof leaks
• a gas leaks
• a dangerous electrical fault
• flooding or serious flood damage
• serious storm or fire damage

Atalian Global Services offers comprehensive facility management services and we are dedicated to help your business maintain assets efficiently. We can consult, operate and organize your facilities that will definitely improve occupant comfort. Atalian provides the best facility management services service that is tailored to your specific needs and provides a suited package for you. Do contact us for a free consultation today for more information about our services.