Author: MaintenX

Commercial flooring can be difficult to maintain, especially if your facility faces high levels of foot traffic throughout the day. There are pros and cons to each option but carpet is becoming more popular in recent years. Carpet is often used for healthcare facilities, hotels, retail, education, and office buildings. There are a variety of types, colors, and materials of carpeting from which to choose in your installation. 

Commercial carpet can be installed in tiles (sections of carpet individually laid and sewn together) or broadloom carpet (large sheets of carpet typically installed in small buildings and homes). Carpet tile is often chosen for facilities because it is more economical and easy to replace if a major stain or damage occurs. However, because it must be seamed together, some commercial facilities choose broadloom carpet for its aesthetic appeal. 

Before you decide whether carpet is the right choice for your new facility or renovation, you should familiarize yourself with its pros and cons: 

Pros

• Carpet absorbs sound – Carpet is often installed in places where noise can be disruptive, such as educational facilities and medical facilities. The carpet reduces echo and ambient noise which can also be very calming in retail outlets. 
• Carpet is comfortable – Carpet is oftentimes much more comfortable to stand on for long periods of time. If your facility is open for long hours, you may consider installing carpet for tenant comfort. 
• Carpet tile can be easily replaced – Carpet tile can be easily refitted and replaced if major stains or tears occur. This provides the same benefits as regular tile but without the higher price tag. 
• Carpet is relatively low-maintenance – Carpet must be vacuumed and occasionally deep cleaned, but it rarely requires more maintenance than that. As long as you clean spills quickly, you should have no need for special cleaners. 

Cons

• Carpet can give off a “cheap” aesthetic – Some people find the look and feel of carpet to be cheap looking, especially if it is not well-maintained. In order to avoid this, invest in a high-quality carpet and vacuum regularly between deep cleanings. 
• Carpet can retain dirt and allergens – Homeowners with carpet are far too familiar with the ability of this flooring to keep hold of dirt, spills, pet hair, and other allergens you’d rather not have in your facility. Make sure that vacuuming is a priority to ensure your carpeted areas are kept clean at all times. 
• Carpet is not an eco-friendly option – Unless you choose a more expensive wool carpet, most types will be synthetic and therefore carry a high carbon footprint with them. If your company is committed to sustainable choices, opt for an eco- and allergen-friendly wool or another natural fiber carpet. 
• Carpet can wear quickly – Some believe that carpet is not as durable of a flooring option as opposed to hardwood or tile. However, carpet is much more affordable to replace, so when it does begin to degrade it won’t be as costly a replacement as stone tile. Foot traffic and facility use are important factors to consider when choosing a flooring option that will last. 

MaintenX is here to help you with all your flooring needs. If you think carpet is right for you, or if you’d like to explore other options, contact our local professionals for help. We offer professional installation, floor remodeling, and maintenance services for commercial facilities. To learn more about our flooring services, contact us today!

 

Maintenance systems are as complex as the facilities for which they are designed. Without even considering the hassle that emergency repairs cause, preventative maintenance is something that must be continually monitored and improved based on the changing needs of the facility. However, this is not how preventative maintenance plans are often organized. 

Many facility managers, especially when changing hands, focus on the new and exciting improvements to the system that they can implement. They focus on the newest tools and strategies, and oftentimes neglect to diagnose the problem first. When new systems are implemented faster than old ones are improved, this can lead to a breakdown of trust between the facility management and maintenance staff. 

When a solution is proposed before the problem is diagnosed, this only leads to greater insufficiency. This is why MaintenX takes a “finish what you started” approach to preventative maintenance planning. It’s critical to first improve basic functions of the maintenance staff, such as work order management and wrench time, before moving on to lean management or performance maximizing tools. 

This is important for several reasons. If the basic issues of the maintenance team and planning are not addressed, it will be much harder to focus on preventative maintenance. You can’t implement cutting edge systems if you are constantly putting out fires, which is what happens in many commercial facility maintenance programs. 

Dr. W. Edwards Deming, renowned statistician and systems thinker, put it simply: “People cannot be more productive than the system they work in allows them to be.” 

Before you begin implementing new strategies, take time to analyze your current inefficiencies and the simplest solutions to fix them. Are you struggling to keep up with service orders? Perhaps you should work on basic internal communication or implement a basic online work order management system before moving onto advanced methods. Or, if your maintenance workers’ wrench times are increasing rather than decreasing, a basic training session could be more effective than changing maintenance procedures entirely. 

Analysis of your core maintenance issues will help you first create a system in which people operate effectively. Once you have a smoothly running system that can prevent problems rather than simply put out fires, then you can move on to more advanced solutions. This is the approach MaintenX takes to our preventative care. We choose experienced technicians who are solid on core competencies, and those who can easily adapt to any maintenance task or plan. 

To learn more about preventative maintenance planning and implementation, contact us today!

In most commercial facilities, departments operate largely as operational silos with very little communication among them. This is especially true of the maintenance team. Most maintenance team members are not seen until an emergency happens or a preventative repair must be scheduled. They are brought in and swiftly brought out, with very little communication afterward. The staff does not communicate recurring problems until the maintenance team shows up to repair a major emergency. This can lead to inefficiencies at every level. 

New management systems have been fighting this mindset for decades. New lean management systems, holistic leadership training, and other systems thinking approaches constantly combat the siloed-department approach, and yet it still persists in most corporate enterprises today. The best way to combat this is to first think of your team as a single unit, working for one common goal. 

Your common goal may be different from one organization to the next, but it should be something everyone on your team is aiming for daily. If you manage a manufacturing facility, everyone is focused on the output of quality products and efficient systems management. Both the marketing team and maintenance technicians are focusing on quality and efficiency at every level. In contrast, if you run a reputation, your primary focus is maintaining a high reputation and steady foot traffic. The maintenance team assists in this mission just as your wait staff does. 

Aligning your goals and communicating those goals to every member of your team is critical to creating an efficient maintenance system. Building trust between departments is also essential for work order management systems. If your departments do not rely on the maintenance staff for preventative care, they will wait to report issues until they become emergencies. This will get in the way of your maintenance goals and cause more headaches for everyone involved. 

Once you’ve aligned your goals and encouraged proper communication, it’s important to create reward systems that encourage the attainment of company goals at the individual level. Your employees must first understand how their job functions for the greater purpose of the system. Then, create systems of reward that can guide employees toward both the daily tasks that complete these goals.

These systems will not only help you align goals among departments, but will strengthen the overall performance of your facility at the personal and mechanical levels alike. To learn more about maintenance systems improvement, contact your local MaintenX team today.

 

Maintenance management is all about communication. Your staff must know how and when to report maintenance issues, and your maintenance team must be able to quickly address those issues and communicate within the department to get the job done right. This is all part of setting up a maintenance management program, but there may be an element of communication you’re still missing. 

Do you listen to your HVAC system when it complains of fatigue? Can you hear when your faucets are crying because of an unmanaged leak? Do you notice when your roofing is gasping under the weight of debris, snow, or a lack of maintenance? These subtle sounds of your facility are important to notice and attend to, because they’re your guide to proper preventative care. 

You may be deaf to the sounds of your facility, which is not what you want to be if you’re trying to avoid emergency repairs. These sighs, groans, and cries for help are the first warning signs of an emergency repair that’s on its way. Oftentimes facility managers are caught off guard when a major equipment malfunction happens. However, they wouldn’t be if they took the time to listen to their facility and attend to its needs. 

When looking for signs of distress in your facility, look for loss of performance. A good indicator that an HVAC system needs maintenance is when it begins to run longer or struggle to keep up with the demands of the thermostat. If the HVAC runs all day and still isn’t able to properly heat or cool, then maintenance or a replacement is needed to keep your facility running smoothly. This applies to all major systems and pieces of equipment within the facility. 

The same can also be said for spare parts. Some spare items, such as belts, couplings, bearings, and O-rings have an optimal shelf life or require care even while in storage. Bearings, for example, will be ineffective if they have been contaminated by dust or debris in storage. Rubber materials often have a shelf life, and yet maintenance crews will use whatever’s available without seeing if it is safe for use. Spring cleaning is important exactly for this reason. It keeps your facility from suffering further due to improper inventory maintenance. 

Listening to your facility means diagnosing problems early before they become breakdowns. Once an issue occurs, it is likely to enter a positive feedback loop where the equipment loses performance power, which only makes it weaker to other damages. At MaintenX, we encourage scheduled preventative maintenance to avoid these issues altogether. To learn more about our preventative care programs, contact your local MaintenX team today!

 

As facility managers, we often believe that we plan for preventative maintenance. We set maintenance goals for the quarter or year, and at least attempt to put those strategies into place. We make maintenance checklists and schedule repairs when we need them, but there is still oftentimes a disconnect between our goals and the maintenance department’s reality. What could be going on that makes our maintenance goals never reach their potential? 

One possibility is that you’re planning for preventative care, but are actually rewarding reactive maintenance. You may think, “How is that possible? We plan for preventative maintenance all the time.” But, you may want to take a closer look at how you reward and motivate your maintenance team to find the issue. 

Surveys report that approximately 30% or more of a maintenance technician’s income comes from overtime pay. Emergency services that are required on nights, weekends, or holidays are what help these technicians make the salaries they do. You may plan for preventative care, but when you provide double the compensation for emergency repairs, that’s what you’ll get. 

This positive reinforcement is furthered the next day when the maintenance technician is given recognition throughout the facility for saving the day. They are then receiving social praise and feel good about their contribution to the workforce, which is undoubtedly deserved, but rewards the emergency repair that you’re trying to avoid. It is not the technician’s fault if they don’t take preventative maintenance seriously, when every sign is pointing them toward reactive maintenance. 

The only way to change this is by changing the reward system for preventative maintenance. It is first necessary to pay maintenance technician’s a highly competitive salary, so that they don’t need overtime to afford vacations or leisure. They should be able to live a comfortable lifestyle on their basic salary, without having to compete for double time. This will lessen the tendency to put off repairs until they become emergencies. 

This can also be achieved by providing comp time, where the employee receives time off for overtime hours worked instead of overtime pay. This may not be popular at first, but it can eventually boost morale as long as the pay is based on performance and substantial to accommodate their current salaries.

However, changes in the pay structure are not enough. You must reward maintenance technicians with intrinsic rewards on the job when performing preventative care. They must see how their contributions are working within greater company goals, and be rewarded for hard work even if it doesn’t “save the day.” Preventative care saves the day now, and it saves the day in the future, which is even more important than fixing an emergency leak or system breakdown. Providing employee of the month rewards, performance meetings, and other rewards for preventative maintenance work will go a long way toward building a strong maintenance team.

 

Reliability maintenance systems are one of the greatest investments your team can make to reduce costs and improve facility performance. Reliability and preventative maintenance reduce breakdowns, improve team efficiency, and improve quality across the board, all while reducing costs. In many ways, this system of maintenance planning is similar to the systems of Lean management, or the Deming philosophy used often in manufacturing industries. 

However, reliability and Lean thinking come at a cost. They are centered around the idea that all procedures within a system should add value, rather than repair or plan for disaster. They task the facility manager with the responsibility of questioning the system and constantly improving it. This is no easy feat, and can lead to costly mistakes or trepidatious forward movement that doesn’t provide true change. 

In order to fully integrate Lean management into your facility maintenance plan, your plan requires these three principles:

• Eliminate waste in the form of preventative maintenance that doesn’t add value (that which only responds or prepares for failure)
• Optimize the preventative maintenance tasks that are left so that their results are amplified 
• Analyze and adjust routinely to avoid complacency with current mental models

First, you must take a hard look at the current systems and “mental models” (or mindsets governing your procedures) that are determining your preventative care. It is likely that at least 30% or more is being budgeted for preventative tasks that simply try to avoid failure rather than add value. If your preventative maintenance plan is designed around potential failures, you will eventually face them. However, if you design your preventative maintenance plan around optimal success, you can more easily navigate toward it and avoid failure altogether. 

Of the preventative tasks that are remaining, you must then adopt lean tools that will accelerate them. Communication tools, work order management software, and improved maintenance protocols are all tools you can use to maximize the benefits of your most effective preventative steps. This is where you’ll start to see positive feedback loops emerge and facility performance gain forward momentum. 

Finally, as new Lean practices fall into routine, it’s important to analyze them in comparison to both your former models, as well as your higher goals. This begins the process over again, where you can find new areas for improvement and continue adopting your maintenance system to the changing environment. 

MaintenX works with our clients to create lean preventative maintenance services that add value, save time, and lower your overall maintenance budget. To learn more about preventative maintenance methods, tools, and our services, contact your local team today!

Trying to implement a reliability-centered maintenance program in any facility is hard work. Facility managers may think that it’s because of the upfront investment in tools and technology, but the real challenge is changing the people. Creating a reliability-centered mindset is much more difficult than changing the technology or the equipment. It requires an understanding of the implicit structure changes needed, and the trust within your team to make the pivot in a new direction. 

Many company cultures are based on survival. This is especially true in small teams where every person is directly impacting the bottom line. When resources are scarce and you’re fighting your way into an industry, it is hard to pull your team out of the survival mindset. Many of them show up, try their best to get through the day, and mentally check out as soon as the day ends. 

In order to shift from the survival mindset (centered upon reactive maintenance) to the reliability mindset, you must set up certain expectations with your team: 

• Everybody understands the vision of the department and its role within the greater organization
• Everybody aligns their daily tasks with that vision because they truly believe in it
• As individuals and as a team, the maintenance technicians see themselves as actors of change rather than reactors to disaster
• Leadership is holistic rather than linear; both the janitor and the facility manager have the same level of commitment to their role and accept responsibility for their work to the best of their ability. 

People are much more inclined to keep the status quo than to change it. Some will be more willing than others, but it will be impossible to change minds if you don’t carefully articulate the purpose of reliability-centered maintenance to every member of the maintenance team. They must first understand the goal from its highest purpose (the company’s overall goals and mission) and then to its highest resolution (daily tasks and objectives) in order to achieve the right mindset. 

It is also important to empower every member of the maintenance team by giving them as much personal responsibility as possible. Everybody within your organization should be a leader — they should be able to self-direct their daily tasks and meet objectives without the need for micromanagement. As the facility manager, you’ll then be able to focus on the big picture and course-correct only when team members are lost or mistaken. 

By implementing these changes in mindset, your facility can adopt the reliability-centered maintenance program that will actually cut costs and improve facility performance. MaintenX works using these principles within our contractor network, and therefore are able to provide you with the best maintenance service possible every day. To learn more about our preventative maintenance programs and services, contact us!

Facility managers spend a great amount of time planning. They plan for emergencies, plan for the next quarter, and plan for the upcoming year’s costs and new developments. However, not all planning yields the same results. Many facility managers follow the status quo when it comes to their maintenance, but don’t put in the time to redevelop strategies for facility performance efficiency. At MaintenX, we want to help facility maintenance teams build a strong foundation for maintenance planning success. 

Below are just a few ways in which we seek continual improvement at the MaintenX team. It isn’t enough for our preventative maintenance programs to be good enough. It’s important that we strive to exceed client expectations during every visit. By investing in these core elements, your facility maintenance plan can be an integral part of your company’s success. 

Training & Education

A strong maintenance plan includes improvement at the core level — your workforce. The technicians who arrive onsite oftentimes have the fate of your facility in their hands. Therefore conferences, seminars and webinars, focused skills training, wrench time studies, and other forms of in-house skills development should all be in your maintenance management plan. 

Predictive and Reliability Maintenance

If you are running a tight ship, it’s unlikely you have redundancies in your equipment. Therefore, investing in reliability is essential to avoid costly breakdowns. Even equipment that is not in regular use, such as preventative safety equipment, should be included in your predictive and reliability maintenance planning. This is arguably more important than reactive maintenance planning because it can reduce expenses and extend the service life of facility machinery. 

Lean Thinking Applied to Maintenance

Your preventative maintenance system shouldn’t be working to just stave off disasters. Every action you take should not only prevent disaster, but also add value to the system. Cleaning your HVAC’s air ducts, for example, does much more than simply prevent the buildup of contaminants and early deterioration. It adds value to your ventilation system, which can run more efficiently with a clean duct system. It also puts money back in your pocket in the form of energy savings. Before choosing preventative maintenance services, be sure to choose the ones that add value rather than those that simply prevent disaster. 

These tips can help you design a maintenance plan that is great, not just good enough. MaintenX applies these principles to all of our service work, and would like to help you create a more efficient, productive facility environment. To learn more about our preventative maintenance services, contact us today!

 

How often do you see your maintenance staff? Are they familiar faces that you rely on for preventative care of your facility? Or do they only see you in your most stressed, dire circumstances when something has gone terribly wrong? If the latter is the case, you are likely relying on reactive maintenance planning for your facility. This approach is oftentimes the most convenient, but also the most costly for many reasons. It leaves no room for analysis or careful planning. When your facility is flooding or the HVAC system has shut down, a quick fix is all you can afford. 

This is why we at MaintenX recommend preventative maintenance planning. It allows for the analysis of maintenance issues and offers technicians to provide long-term solutions rather than quick fixes. We use a system of root cause analysis, the practice of determining the source of a maintenance need, and creating the solution for its root cause rather than the surface issue. 

This approach is similar to how a doctor might treat a patient for disease. The patient comes in with a list of symptoms. While the doctor could simply prescribe medication for the symptoms, they are much more successful when they diagnose the problem causing the symptoms. A fever may be indicative of a cold, or it could be something much worse. The same is true for an HVAC that is running slowly, a backed-up drain, or a problematic electrical circuit. You may see the symptoms, but your maintenance technician can identify the root cause if given time to analyze and diagnose. 

Root cause analysis is critical for several reasons. First, it is the only solution that is likely to stop a maintenance problem from recurring. By only treating the symptoms (for example, running chemicals down a backed-up drain), you temporarily fix the appearance of the issue, but the cause is still lurking in the shadows. If instead, you allowed your plumber to snake or perform hydro-jetting on the drain, or do an inspection to assess the issue, you might find a major blockage of line break that is in need of immediate repair. 

Root cause analysis is not an easy way out. It requires you to schedule regular preventative visits with your technicians in order for them to catch symptoms early. Again, there is no time for root cause analysis when you have a major system breakdown in the middle of the workday or when a tenant is furious. You must invest time upfront to notice the subtle signs of a breakdown to come. Using this approach to maintenance, you can build a more efficient and cost-effective maintenance plan. 

MaintenX performs this thorough analysis during preventative maintenance services. We provide the basic preventative maintenance services, but also go deeper to ensure you are not caught off guard by a major maintenance issue in the future. For this level of customer care, contact your local MaintenX team today. 

 

The maintenance backlog is a continual source of stress for facility managers. For most, the backlog is the endless line of maintenance tasks that need to be done ASAP, few of which you actually have time for. But this is not the real purpose of the backlog. They should truly only be used for planned services that you want to complete by a certain date. Using the backlog as an urgent to-do list will only set your system up for failure. 

Facility managers can divide their job into several responsibilities. They must plan and schedule maintenance services, organize maintenance staffing, direct major projects, and lead the flow of events as smoothly as possible. Scheduling is a tool oftentimes used to control the maintenance team’s workload so that they are able to meet goals and keep up with necessary tasks. By taking control of your backlog, you can better perform scheduling at your facility with more effective results. 

Your backlog should be the answer to your question, “What’s on the agenda for next week?” It condenses your overall goals and strategies and puts them into actionable steps you can take on a daily basis. Each action taken to reduce the backlog should, therefore, always be improving the system. By comparing facility performance over time, you can determine what services yield the greatest results and design your backlog for added value. 

Retooling your backlog should also improve wrench time significantly. By reducing the demand on your maintenance team for putting out fires, you can plan for more cost-effective preventative care measures. These typically take less time and fewer resources, and give your technicians the ability to perform their best work. In times of crisis, the technician’s goal will be to find the fastest solution, no matter how temporary or costly it may be. If you create a backlog that’s focused on preventative repairs, they have the time to brainstorm effective solutions and prevent problems before they become disastrous. 

Your maintenance backlog doesn’t have to be a sore spot of your facility. It can be a great tool for organizing the workload, but only if you use it correctly. One of the ways we at MaintenX combat this issue is through the use of our advanced work order management system. 

When you contact our offices, our dispatch team provides information to technicians via the MaintenX vendor management technology platform. This advanced system is available in every MaintenX service vehicle, which means our technicians arrive on time and prepared for any service you request. We can also track service history to give your technician a full picture of your facility’s needs. No other self-performing contractor network delivers the same great service in record times. 

To learn more about the MaintenX commitment to superior service, contact us today!