Author: MaintenX

You might be surprised to learn that the average facility’s HVAC system accounts for over 50% of its energy use. Hot air leaking into your facility can waste facility managers a lot of money. It’s a huge expense and facility managers that costs are the most important thing when maintaining a maintenance and repair budget.  So how can facility managers cut down on expenses related to air leaks? Here are some tips on how to make sure your facility stays cool and doesn’t hurt your facility budget.

A lot of heat is lost through small cracks and holes throughout your facility. Take time to ensure that your facility is completely insulated from leaks. This will substantially cut down on your facility’s yearly energy usage.

The Importance of Proper Sealing 

Making sure your facility is properly sealed from the elements will save your company a lot of money.

Make Sure to Consider the Caveats

Failure to correctly seal and insulate your facility and its various assets lets cool air leak out. This can result in your HVAC unit working harder for longer.

When your facility is properly sealed, there is less chance of cool air escaping from the building. Your facility’s HVAC system will then not have to work as hard, which will keep occupants cool and save your facility money.

Want to learn more about how to save costs in your facility? Call MaintenX today!

Managing HVAC equipment for a facility can be stressful. Facility managers are often faced with problems from aging systems to surprise maintenance issues. Read these tips to ensure your facility’s HVAC equipment can perform for many years to come.

Asset Management Assessment

Unintended repairs and their attendant costs can cause many financial problems for a facility. That’s why you should take advantage of an asset management assessment. Asset management assessments consist of a thorough evaluation of your facility’s equipment, such as:

• Chillers
• Boilers
• Pumps
• Air handling units
• Various system controls

Once the assessment is done, the service company will provide you with a report detailing repair needs, maintenance fluctuations, and replacement requirements.

Yearly Maintenance is Very Important for Facility Managers

Prolong the life of your facility’s most important equipment while cutting costs by taking advantage of a maintenance plan that’s personally tailored to your facility. Applying a practical method will make sure your facility’s HVAC systems keep running smoothly and effectively. Getting a good maintenance agreement can help make sure your facility is fully and legally covered in the case of an unexpected HVAC emergency.

Technician Training is Important for Facility Managers

Making sure your technicians have appropriate and thorough training is vital to the life and performance of your facility’s HVAC system. 

Want to learn more? Call MaintenX today!

When you have heating and cooling issues, it’s hard to find a technician to do HVAC repairs inexpensively. Luckily, you can find reasonably priced quality services for your HVAC if you do your due diligence. Below are some tips for hiring the right HVAC technician.

Check their Licensing

It’s a big no-no to hire an HVAC technician who isn’t licensed; in fact, it is illegal for someone to offer HVAC services without a license. Make sure you check their license before hiring anyone.

Importance of Insurance

To qualify for a license, HVAC techs need to have basic liability insurance, which protects you from accidental damage. Bonding is also important an important factor to consider; it ensures that the contracted work will be finished in the event that the service company closes.

Importance of Proper References

Ask an HVAC technician to give you references who can vouch for the quality of their services. If a technician hesitates to give you proper references, they’re probably not worth your time or money.

Make Sure to Get Estimates

HVAC repair, replacement, and installation can be a costly process, so get an estimate first. How else can you comparison shop?

Want to know more about HVAC service? Call MaintenX today!

It’s typical in facility maintenance that sometimes problems are ignored. It might be a short-term solution, but these problems can add up to a lot of extra costs in the long-term. HVAC systems are often the main victims of this phenomenon. Air balancing is a good way to tackle issues like:

• Condensation
• Hot/cold spots
• Humidity

Facility Managers need to find the root cause of these issues. Use the air balance tips below to gain some perspective on the issue.

What is Balanced Airflow?

In most cases, airflow going into a building should be a little stronger than the air going out. Air is being introduced into the building by an outdoor fan, providing fresh air by replacing the old and resulting in a beneficial building pressure. If the reverse is true, however, then you will see negative building pressure, which is usually the main culprit of HVAC problems in facilities.

This brings us to an important thing about air balance: airflow needs to be tested for performance.

What are Air Tests?

Air balance testing services involve checking the performance of HVAC airflow. Once tested, the HVAC systems are adjusted so the air brought into a facility is stronger than the air pulled out of the facility. This creates a comfortable environment for occupants.

Want to know more? Call MaintenX today!

What is Reliability-centered maintenance?

Reliability-centered maintenance is a maintenance strategy that optimizes the maintenance program of a facility. The final result of these types of programs is the implementation of a specific maintenance strategy on each of the assets of the facility. The maintenance strategies are optimized so that the productivity of the plant is maintained using cost-effective maintenance techniques.

An effective reliability-centered maintenance implementation examines the facility as a series of functional systems, each of which has inputs and outputs contributing to the success of the facility. It is the reliability, rather than the functionality, of these systems that are considered. The questions that need to be asked for each asset are:

1. What are the functions and desired performance standards of each asset?
2. How can each asset fail to fulfill its functions?
3. What are the failure modes for each functional failure?
4. What causes each of the failure modes?
5. What are the consequences of each failure?
6. What can and/or should be done to predict or prevent each failure?
7. What should be done if a suitable proactive task cannot be determined?

Hit your targets with Reliability Centered Maintenance

Reliability-centered maintenance identifies the functions of the company that are most critical and then seeks to optimize their associated maintenance strategies to minimize system failures and ultimately increase equipment reliability and availability. The most critical assets are those that are likely to fail often or have large consequences of failure.

Want to know more? Call MaintenX today!

What is Lean Maintenance?

During the past decade, the “lean” phenomenon has enabled manufacturing industries to greatly increase their levels of profitability and productivity.  Combined with other initiatives like Total Productive Maintenance, Lean Maintenance has encouraged companies to focus on production process efficiency.

Why Implement Lean Maintenance?

Many establishments have fallen into the trap of concentrating on the tools and techniques associated with Lean instead of the reason for their use. Lean Maintenance is a powerful approach to identifying and eliminating waste-related issues and delivering real bottom-line improvements, if it’s implemented and managed in the right way.

Integrated Lean Maintenance

The integrated Lean Maintenance improvement approach assertively recommends and applies Lean principles in an appropriate framework specifically adapted for their application to maintenance.

Benefits of Lean Maintenance

The benefits are:

• Full implementation of targeted Lean improvement projects over a 12 month period.
• Rapid achievement of measurable performance improvements.
• A Lean program that can be managed and monitored, which will ensure improvements are sustained over the long-term.
• Consistency of approach for future Lean improvement projects.
• Fully trained personnel in the principles of Lean maintenance.
• Site-wide exposure of Lean maintenance through demonstrating the benefits and not just the tools and techniques.  We find this is the best way to disseminate the approach through all the levels of an organization.

For more information on Lean Maintenance, call MaintenX today!

One-on-one mentoring relationships once only worked through face-to-face meetings. But mentoring is evolving thanks to a proliferation of communication tools and increasing social media activity. The future of mentoring is open and unstructured.

If your professional growth concerns aren’t met by a single mentor, have no fear: it’s perfectly acceptable and in many cases even expected for you to have more than one mentor. After all, those who can advise typically have specialized knowledge. If you need guidance in other disciplines, seek out other mentors to supplement your knowledge.

Benefits

• You are no longer limited by geography
• You can think outside your industry
• Your specific questions can be answered
• You can engage with or simply pose a question to a mentor on an ad hoc basis
• You can work with several mentors
• You can be both student and teacher
• Your mentor isn’t the only one giving in this scenario; you have insights to offer as well. Perhaps you can lend your voice to a new project they have in beta, or you can share insights on an advertising campaign as a member of a different culture or minority group.

Want to know more about how professional remote mentorship can help you? Call the maintenance experts at MaintenX today!

A reactive maintenance strategy is one that focuses on fixing equipment after it breaks down or fails. Reactive maintenance was the predominant strategy for many years, but as new software and technology tools became available, proactive approaches like preventive maintenance and predictive maintenance became more prevalent. Most maintenance programs today are some combination of reactive and proactive.

While the perfect ratio of reactive to proactive maintenance varies based on many factors, there are 5 primary consequences of reactive maintenance strategies that are compelling reasons for companies to continue to shift toward more proactive approaches:

• Reduced Safety
• High Unplanned Downtime
• Maintenance Labor Inefficiency
• Shortened Asset Life
• Increased Maintenance Costs

High Unplanned Downtime

One of the primary goals of manufacturing maintenance programs is to limit unplanned downtime. Preventive maintenance programs focus on regularly schedule maintenance based on calendar time or in-service utilization that prevents the downtime event. Reactive maintenance strategies allow downtime events to occur. As a result, manufacturers who use reactive strategies have a much higher frequency and longer durations of unplanned downtime than those who employ preventive or predictive maintenance approaches.

Maintenance Labor Inefficiency

One often overlooked consequence of a reactive maintenance strategy is its contribution to maintenance labor inefficiency. It is very difficult to plan work schedules when unknown maintenance events take priority. The maintenance planner/scheduler job can be extremely challenging when unplanned downtime events frequently interrupt scheduled work.

Want to know more? Call MaintenX today!

Summer is upon us! But that warm weather we’ve been waiting for all year also comes with substantial surges in our utility bills. Here are a couple tips to help you save on your energy bill.

Turn it Off

Turning your AC off while you’re sleeping can result in huge savings.

Programmable Thermostat

A programmable thermostat is a very energy-efficient tool that allows you to program what hours your home will be vacant and when you will be asleep. During those times, it will adjust the temperature of your home accordingly.

ENERGY STAR

The ENERGY STAR is an accolade given by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency to a product that meets the rigorous energy-efficiency guidelines set forth by the U.S. government in order to reduce greenhouse emissions.

Insulation

Air leakage occurs when air from the outside enters and conditioned air leaves your house through cracks and openings. Although you may not notice it, this makes it harder and more expensive for you to ventilate your home. Reducing the flow of air leaking in and out of your home is a cost-effective way to cut the price of cooling and maximize the functionality of your air conditioning system.

Cleaning HVAC Unit

In order for an air conditioning unit to function efficiently, its filters, coils, and fins must be maintained regularly. Simply put, a clean air conditioner is an effective one. The most crucial piece of maintenance that will ensure the maximization of your air conditioner is routinely replacing or cleaning its filters.

Want to know more? Call MaintenX today!

Cleaning is a crucial part of food safety in a food service establishment. If your facility is not cleaned properly, customers could get sick, pests could enter and infest your establishment, and many more undesirable consequences will likely occur

Learning to manage cleaning tasks is a critical part of your duties as a food manager.

Cleaning Schedules

Cleaning schedules can help you and your employees know what needs to be cleaned and how often it should be cleaned. Some things, like food preparation utensils and surfaces, should be cleaned very often.

Surfaces

Any food-contact surface, such as a knife or cutting board, constantly used with time/temperature control for safety foods should be cleaned at least every four hours. Why the four hour rule?

Other Surfaces

Non-food-contact surfaces are surfaces that do not directly come into contact with food that will be prepared. Clean them often enough to keep soil and mold from accumulating.

In addition to the items mentioned above, make sure to clean:

• Floors
• Walls
• Ceilings
• light fixtures
• equipment
• other components of your restaurant

Doing a thorough walk-through will help you determine how often to clean these items.

Other Cleaning Tips

Regularly check to make sure that the cleaning is getting done correctly, and that your employees are fully trained on what is expected of them. See employees doing their cleaning duties and inspect their work afterward.

Food Safety Reminder

Clean and sanitize ice machines regularly to prevent the growth of harmful bacteria.