Maintenance: Five Steps Every School Leader Should Take for Effective Facility Maintenance
By: Paul Claybaker
School leaders across the nation continue to face escalating facility operations costs. With thousands of assets required to keep operations running smoothly, most school officials react in one of two ways: they either “ignore” the daunting task of developing a comprehensive plan to link maintenance costs to actual work performed, or they purchase facility management software assuming that the technology will solve their problems.
Leading school officials know that a technology solution provides support for a well-developed maintenance plan and tracking mechanism. They also know that a strong link exists between well-maintained, safe facilities and student performance and teacher retention. Finally, these same school officials have effectively contained their ongoing facility operations costs and continue to modernize their facilities with minimal annual budget increases. Why are they able to reduce their annual operating costs in direct contrast to the growing national trend?
Five-Step Process Using Facility Management Software
Every school leader can effectively manage facility operations via a five-step process supported by Facility Management (FM) software. For as little as $100 per month, FM software simplifies the entire process and provides administrators the ability to capture significant cost savings. With less than an hour of FM software training, maintenance staff can take the first of five steps to effective facility maintenance.
Step One: Document Existing Facilities and Assets
Documentation of existing facilities and assets is the foundation for successful facility management. Therefore, school administrators need to dedicate resources to ensure this step is completed in full before moving forward. The more detailed information organizations capture about their assets, the greater the ability for administrators to track and analyze maintenance costs, project future capital facility requirements, and make better and more informed facility operations decisions.
An asset-based FM software solution will provide templates for the documentation process and tools for completing the next steps in the process. The selected FM solution should be flexible enough to capture a wide-range of asset types (e.g., HVAC equipment, furniture, and roofing systems) and reflect facility-specific requirements.
Step Two: Create and Use a Work Order System
A work order is the mechanism whereby maintenance costs – both labor and material – are captured and tracked against documented assets. Any work performed from the simplest of tasks (e.g., repairing a broken cabinet hinge) to the most complex (e.g., rebuilding a HVAC unit) should be documented to provide administrators complete decision-making information.
A FM solution work order system, using the asset base documented in Step One, should be intuitive and easy to use, possess the ability to track work for any asset type, and be flexible enough to handle a variety of work order types including:
:
* Remote – whereby all facility users have access to the work order system
* Instant – whereby the work request is immediately performed and completed
* Retroactive – whereby previously performed work is documented after the fact
* Future – whereby the work request can be logged, prioritized, and scheduled
Step Three: Develop and Use Preventative Maintenance Procedures
Preventative Maintenance (PM) procedures, consisting of scheduled work orders for a specific asset, are activities that extend the life of facilities and assets. PM procedures range from annual re-lamping of lecture halls to inspection of roofing surfaces ensuring that, for example, a 20-year roof lasts 20, or even 25, years. PM procedures should be developed and implemented for all mission-critical and life-safety assets based upon manufacturer and maintenance staff recommendations. FM software solutions with a comprehensive work order system should have the ability to track and report PM procedures with relative ease.
Step Four: Conduct a Facility Condition Assessment
Facility Condition Assessment (FCA) – essentially a status report of the facilities and assets – is the result of documenting assets, tracking work orders, and conducting preventative maintenance procedures. FCAs provide school leaders with the information needed to project future capital requirements thereby eliminating most capital expenditure “surprises.” FCAs should identify the future expenditures and timing requirements based upon repair or replacement of parts, or replacement of assets for each facility or asset identified.
Step Five: Use FM Software Data to Prepare Budgets and Improve Future Operations
If the above steps are properly performed, the return on investment for FM software solution increases as it collects data necessary to improve the efficiency of the maintenance mission. As schools use FM software for work orders and PM procedures, they collect a wealth of maintenance history. The ability to analyze collected data to optimize the maintenance program, thereby reducing operating costs and future capital expenditures, is the most critical step in the five-step process and the most valuable benefit of a FM software solution.
Benefits of Using a Facility Maintenance Software Solution
FM software data greatly simplifies budget preparation and adds real-time cost tracking. While FM software data provides credibility for budgets and accounting purposes, the real value in this historical information is how analyzing historical data can improve future operations. For example:
Cost Tracking – Tracking maintenance costs makes it easier to stay within budgets and justify budget requests.
Equipment Cost Analysis – Analyzing equipment costs can identify trends, but analyzing previous years’ totals against aggregated costs can reveal underlying problems. For example, a review of one school district’s FM system revealed a $9,000 annual expenditure to maintain 10 pumps that had a replacement cost of $250 per pump.
Equipment Reliability Analysis – A review of maintenance history can be revealing. For example, a model of equipment that is 25 percent less expensive than a similar model by a different manufacturer but has double the maintenance problems might not be the best investment.
Labor Analysis – Most maintenance managers are required to justify staffing levels or increased labor hours. Being able to show a relatively high utilization rate, along with a comparative breakdown of preventive maintenance hours vs. corrective maintenance and capital improvements, can provide significant support and credibility when faced with inevitable labor justification questions.
The real secret of success in maximizing the FM software solution investment is to utilize information captured via the steps described above. Managers might be surprised by what they find if they simply take time to see how the system can help them make better and more informed managerial decisions. With a little digging and persistence, managers can take advantage of the valuable data collected to reap increasing operating benefits in perpetuity.
Paul Claybaker is a consultant with FacilityTree.com, a facility management software service company serving the needs of schools and faith-based organizations.
