Preventive maintenance is almost never treated as a priority by most building owners and is viewed as a sunk cost. Moreover, money is usually spent on urgent issues, not invested in preventive maintenance. As buildings get older, this approach proves to be futile. As a result, Facility Management teams are overloaded with corrective tasks, decreased building efficiency becomes costly and assets eventually and inevitably get replaced prematurely.
On the other hand, Facility Managers have the ability to maximize the value of the facilities, thus increasing revenue. Prioritizing proactive, preventive maintenance helps avoid costly repairs and leads to a well-managed facility and satisfied occupants. Using the below strategies would optimize facility management at your organization and reduce maintenance costs.
HOW TO REDUCE BUILDING MAINTENANCE COSTS IN YOUR ORGANIZATION
1. Accelerate Response Time
Promptly responding to maintenance requests showcases your customer service abilities. Every time there is an issue in your facility provides you with an opportunity to satisfy your clients/facility occupants, giving them a reason to promote your business. Yes, time and money will be spent on reactive tasks, however, the long term gains of prioritizing customer service are undeniable.
2. Automate Preventive Maintenance
Lack of access to information is the main cause of inefficiency in Facility management. How do you manage information? Is it all about phone calls, emails and answering questions? Facility managers often find themselves spending the majority of their days entering data, delegating tasks and looking for information. Getting to actually addressing problems and completing preventive maintenance projects becomes a challenge due to lack of time.
Maintenance software can help solve this issue. By automating workflows, having maintenance information in one place, and delegating preventive and reactive tasks to the team, Facility Managers will have the time to address issues and manage preventive maintenance flow. Use of facility maintenance software has proven to be of great help to increase wrench time and decrease deferred maintenance.
3. Plan and Strategize Facility Management
When notified about an issue, facility technicians do a great job looking for solutions and doing everything they can to resolve the issue. However, they are not always well informed nor empowered to find cost-effective solutions.
A piece of equipment that breaks down usually ends up costing more to maintain than acquiring a new unit that operates smoothly. But we often find equipment undergoing repeated maintenance instead of replacement. This is where planning and strategizing comes in handy.
Tracking maintenance activities are not only critical for benchmarking performance, but it also leads to investing in fixing problems early, which will always be more cost-effective in the long term. Taking the time to strategize facility management, prevents inefficient operations and significantly decreases overspending on unnecessary maintenance activities.
