Pre-preventive maintenance strategy
Preventive maintenance plans don’t just focus on the upkeep of certain assets Work orders scheduled for the future, while a part of the proactive puzzle, won’t fully unlock the potential of a preventive strategy. Instead, a successful preventive maintenance plan requires work upfront before it can truly be implemented.
Before implementing a plan, facility teams should always analyze the portfolio of buildings that need to be effectively managed. Because of this, facility teams need to prioritize collecting organizing and understanding any building data that has accumulated over the history of the facility.
Collecting and Organizing Data
The first step to take before implementing a preventive maintenance plan involves examining buildings and their assets. To do this, facility managers should start with finding a way to walk each facility to update floor plans. This step can require a lot of work, so it’s important that building managers strategize about the best way to complete this task.
External Collection Process
Many organizations don’t have the overhead available to assign building teams to updating and validating floor plans and asset information. This comes in useful for facility teams, especially when:
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Floor plans are not in a digital format
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Floor plans are not up to-date
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Floor plans are not available at all
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Staff does not have time to walk buildings themselves
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There is a deadline to collect and upload data
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Facility software has missing data sets
In most cases with the right partner, these data collection services can be completed by a partner in less than 90 days. This gives facility teams the opportunity to incorporate a preventive maintenance plan faster and with minimal interruptions to every day operations.
Does outsourcing the data collection process sounds like the best method for your organization?
Internal Collection Process of facilities are small enough and staff bandwidth is available, facility teams can walk the vicinity and update information on floor plans themselves.
This method requires that floor plans be up-to-date for the most accurate results. It’s important to note that if this process is conducted in-house, staff is given specific instructions on what information to collect so that the process focuses on what’s important to document and doesn’t become overwhelming. To do this, assets should be given priority.
There are a number of key data points that should be collected.
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Identifiable Asset Information
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Asset Location Information
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Asset Name
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Category (HVAC, Plumbing, Electrical)
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Type (Air Compressor, Boiler)
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Manufacturer, Model and Serial Number
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Photo of Asset, Name Plate and Surrounding Area
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Condition
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Building Name
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Floor
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Room Name and Number
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Specific Location on Floor Plan
Understanding Data
The data that is collected during a walkthrough of a facility portfolio is only useful when interpreted the right way. The data that is collected onsite during a walkthrough should be imported into a facility management software that can record the data, create work orders for future repairs on assets collected, and ultimately schedule preventive maintenance planning tasks.
Building teams should invest in facility management software that provides two ways to interpret data: a comprehensive list view and a visual-based map of buildings and their assets. List views give staff an easy way to filter through assets quickly, and this can expedite processes like inspections.
However, a visual map of facilities can tell custodians, maintenance technicians, and even contractors where they need to go and what equipment they need to bring before stepping foot into the facility?
