Author: MaintenX

What to Do if You Must Defer Maintenance

When funds are running low, the list of postponed repairs and maintenance can grow quickly. Although it might make short-term financial sense, deferring maintenance will always cost you dearly in the long run.

What is Deferred Maintenance?

Deferred Maintenance is maintenance, improvements, or repairs that are postponed. In order to understand your deferred maintenance situation:

  • Identify the reason maintenance was deferred
  • Understand the scope of the problem
  • Know your exposure if unmaintained equipment breaks down
  • Prioritize projects to allocate what maintenance funding you do have
  • Perform preventive maintenance and repairs on time to avoid project backlogs

Though it’s usually a funding shortfall, there are other reasons maintenance can be deferred:

  • Lack of maintenance staff
  • Unknowledgeable personnel
  • Effects of maintenance on normal facility operations
  • The needed parts are unavailable

Regular maintenance is a key factor in guaranteeing optimum facility efficiency and your employees’ health and wellbeing. Such maintenance also lowers the cost of large maintenance projects by reducing their number and severity.

When facility assets are not taken care of, they wear out early and then need to be repaired or replaced prematurely. To maximize the life of your assets, you must perform regular maintenance. Otherwise, you risk costly replacements and even costlier unscheduled downtime.

Want to know more about deferred maintenance? Call the maintenance experts at MaintenX today!

Planning for Maintenance Project Success

Efficient and active communication is vital in the world of facility maintenance. Facility managers need precise information, and they need that information to be delivered in a timely manner in order to keep their facility working at optimum efficiency.

Regrettably, many facilities aren’t very good at this. A lack of accurate and detailed information can lead to mistakes, mismanaged projects, and substantial negative effects on a facility’s productivity.

But how much information is enough? And how much is too much?

Pay Attention to Details

Facility staff should get enough information to successfully complete the tasks at hand, and no more. When considering what to disseminate, weigh the risks of leaving a piece of information out against the marginal benefit of making it need-to-know.

To make sure facility staff has enough information:

  • If you have a large organization, consider hiring a professional facility maintenance planner
  • Make detailed notes on projects, including dates with measurable goals and timetables for future facility maintenance project planning
  • Keep notes and project lists for future maintenance
  • Make a schedule for routine preventative maintenance
  • Document projects by taking pictures and storing them in the project folder
  • Create easy-to-understand tutorial guides with relevant pictures for routine facility tasks so new employees, and ones unfamiliar with a particular project, can have a simple guide for how to complete the task safely and efficiently

Want to know more project planning? Call the maintenance exports at MaintenX today!

Is There Such A Thing as Too Much Preventative Maintenance?

Any good facility manager worth their salt will tell you that regular maintenance is cheaper and a smarter financial decision than solely fixing things when they break. In addition to the financial costs of repairs, there is problem of production loss caused by unplanned downtime when an asset fails. But, with as important and crucial to a facility’s staff and the company’s bottom line as preventative maintenance is, could there really be such a thing as too much of it?

Affective Preventative Maintenance

One of the prime objectives of a good preventative maintenance program is to prevent equipment failure before it happens by performing regular, routine inspections and pre-emptive repairs. But, after preventative maintenance, some equipment can sometimes stop working correctly. There are a few different reasons this can happen:

  • Faulty replacement parts leading a mechanism to work incorrectly or stop working altogether
  • Improper installation or repair processes which lead to problems that result equipment in failure
  • Damage caused during routine maintenance can occur that is initially unnoticed, thus causing the equipment to have a problem or fail completely
  • Lengthy, prolonged maintenance work, which can cause problems for equipment designed to be in constant use

Examine and Respond

A thorough and exhaustive review of your preventive maintenance program can oftentimes lead to big efficiency improvements, leading to shorter periods of downtime and higher overall efficiency, both for the facility’s equipment and its workers.

Want to know more about preventative maintenance? Look no further than the maintenance experts at MaintenX!

The True Cost of Deferred Maintenance

Every facility manager has the same problem: how to do more with less? Facilities managers are under constant pressure to lower the price of almost everything. That’s why they are always on the lookout for new ways to cut repair costs. While deferred maintenance might shrink short-term costs, it often causes wide-ranging long-term costs. Below are some of the true costs of deferred maintenance

Lower Equipment Effectiveness

One big hidden cost of deferred maintenance comes from its effects on equipment efficiency. When equipment isn’t properly maintained, this increases the amount of energy needed to make it work correctly. As a result, the equipment has to work harder—and use more electricity, which drives up costs needlessly.

System Failure

Prolonged deferred maintenance may result in entire system failure. In HVAC systems, for example, certain components need to be replaced from time to time. That unfortunately means that the immediate price tag of replacing these parts could seem like a huge expense, but continued use of damaged or impaired components can likely cause failures across the entire system.

Put simply, the faster you can do a repair, the better for your facility and your bottom line. Being proactive can radically grow the efficiency of staff, your facility and the long-term health of your facility’s valuable equipment. Abandoning preventative and routine maintenance can only lead to trouble down the road—trouble that will be way more costly than taking the proper measures to fix problems as they occur.

Want to know more about the dangers of deferred maintenance? Call the maintenance experts at MaintenX today!

Can You Automate Preventative Maintenance?

Today there are plenty of preventive maintenance tasks which can be automated. These tools can run programs automatically—and at specific times. In fact, you can easy set up your system to perform a whole swath of maintenance activities.

Automation Decreases Wear and Tear

Overuse of equipment reduces its working life. That means overloaded equipment needs to be replaced sooner than if it had been properly serviced. There are many ways equipment overuse can happen. Workers might, for example, use their favorite machines instead of others – shortening the life of some pieces of equipment while abandoning others for long periods of time, which shortens to life of all equipment.

Scheduling Maintenance, Automatically

When should a particular asset be maintained? Automation lets you to tailor your needed maintenance activities to your facilities specific needs.

Optimization

Drag-and-drop tools often found in maintenance software make allocating maintenance a breeze. But, did you know that these programs can also track your workforce’s Mean Daily Utilization Percentage and Maximum Daily Utilization Percentages? That’s right, you can see the specific output of individual workers with the click of a mouse. The Mean Daily Utilization Percentage helps you to understand the number of assigned work orders and their rate and speed of completion. The Max Daily Utilization Percentage, on the other hand, displays the number of hours scheduled maintenance hours on the busiest maintenance work days. By utilizing both of these factors, you will have the information you need to effectively maintain your facility for years to come.

Want to know more about automating your preventative maintenance? Call the experts at MaintenX today!

Why Reporting Is So Important

All businesses collect facility-related data—everything from financial figures, repair and maintenance costs, to reporting meeting room usage and logging employee requests. But why is this information important? And how can we better use it? We’ll discuss some of the reasons why reporting is important.

Know Your Audience

A good report depends on accurate data. How do you get accurate data? First, consider the report’s audience. Who will read this report? What information is most important? Think about the different ways each reporting method can be tailored to its specific purpose and the intended audience. This will make it easier for issues to be resolved, and for miscommunications to be minimized.

Facility Management Software

If you haven’t heard about facility management software yet, it’s a good time to study up, because there have been a lot of changes and there are many more to come.

By implementing software with reporting and analytics functionality, facility managers can start tapping into the endless stream of useful data available to help them craft constructive, innovative, and cost-saving changes that can revolutionize the way employees do their work and how workers can better relate to one another to do their jobs more effectively.

The Power of Information

Once you have the right information, given to you in a way you can understand at every level, you can then make the necessary changes to your facility’s processes and procedures to amp up productivity while reducing costs.

Want to know more about reporting and facility management solutions? Call the maintenance experts at MaintenX!

3 Ways to Lower Your Office Supply Budget

One of the simplest methods to pare back you office budget is to decrease office supply costs. Office supplies can add up quickly. That random $25 purchase can really add up over time. –Luckily, there are many ways to cut back on expenses without losing the tools you need to do business. Below are three things you can do to cut down on your office supply budget:

Recycled Paper

Buying recycled paper is an easy and painless way to be greener while saving money on office supplies. Recycled paper is easy to find and comes in every size and use you could possible require.

Also, don’t throw away that used paper. Reuse pages that only have something printed on one side. Printing double-sided documents, though, is another great way to cut down on waste awhile saving money in the process.

Buy in Bulk

It’s a good idea to buy bulk wholesale office supplies whenever you have the chance. There are thousands of online and offline paper product sellers that can substantially mark down the price if you buy in bulk from them. Buy all the ink cartridges, lead pencils, paper, pens, dry erase markers, note pads, sticky notes, and clipboards you want that are on clearance. If you think you can’t afford to purchase in bulk, do some homework. There are a lot of sources and you can find great prices and liquidation sales if you’re savvy enough. It’s worth the effort and can save you thousands of dollars in office supply costs.

The Best Office Cleaning Products of 2018

When it comes to keeping your office clean, it’s a good idea to keep up with the latest trends. It might just increase the productivity of your maintenance processes and even save you on your monthly expense budget. Here are some of the best office cleaning products of 2018.

Lysol Disinfectant Cleaner

Lysol is a hospital-grade cleaning product which is a tried-and-true defense against infection and disease. This powerful stuff can get rid of dust, fungus, mold, organic matter, mildew, and viruses.

This cleaning powerhouse is a concentrated formula that can decimate harmful micro-organisms that cause illness. If preventing the spread of diseases in the workplace is a priority, Lysol Disinfectant Cleaner is your best defense.

Nitrile Gloves

When dealing with harsh chemicals or facing infectious surfaces while at work, nitrite gloves are the answer. You need to make sure to put on protective gloves when you need to come in contact with dirty—and potentially infectious—surfaces. Nitrile is a material which is perfectly suited for this task. It keeps germs out while cleaning and can be easily and safely cleaned.

Febreze

Even with regular cleaning, office and facility furniture can start to emit odors that can be off-putting as well as dangerous.

Many people try to mask odors with air fresheners. Sadly, air fresheners just add an overpowering scent to the air and don’t attack the problem at its source. To remove bacteria—the thing that’s causing the odor—you need to use a product which chemically breaks down the problem, not one that solely hides it.

Febreze Fabric Refreshener is different from other refreshening products because it is specifically formulated to eradicate strong odor from fabric by killing the bacteria which produces it in the first place.

The Importance of Disaster Recovery Plans

Do you have a disaster recovery plan in place in your facility? If not, you really should. Here’s why.

What is a Disaster Recovery Plan?

First of all, what exactly is a disaster recovery plan, anyway? A disaster recovery plan (DRP) is a thorough, documented process which aims to create a system meant to recover a business’s IT infrastructure in the event of a disaster.

The purpose of a disaster recovery plan is to make sure you are ready to deal with the aftereffects of service outages caused by an emergency (hurricane, flood, tornado, terrorist attack, snow storm, wildfire, etc.”) and to restore services to the widest extent possible in the shortest possible timeframe.

Effective Communication is Key

When a disaster occurs, your best defense is communication. A well-planned communication strategy is of the most importance. That’s because a truly effective disaster recovery plan puts all of your company’s employees on the same page and guarantees that clearly outlined procedures are enacted—enhancing and safeguarding all communication within your company during this crucial time.

Rely on your Backup System

Make sure that your backup is running correctly and make sure it includes a supplementary full local backup on all of your facility’s servers and any relevant data in your disaster preparation plan. Run them as far back as possible. Ensure that they’re backed up to a secure location which will not be impacted by the emergency.

Want to know more about disaster recovery plans? Contact MaintenX today!

Bank of the West’s Renewable Energy Exhibitions

BNP Paribas has promised that it will invest $15 billion in renewable energy by the year 2020. BNP Paribas, parent company to Bank of the West, is celebrating its commitment to investing in Renewable Energy in a spectacular and unusual way by hosting a yearly renewable energy exhibition. The exhibition, which first launched in central London in January 2018, has a lot of features to look out for, including ICX’s ingenious new heating pump system.

ICAX uses a heat pump to reprocess the heat it creates back into the building in winter month without burning fossil fuels.

Also featured at the event is the Owen Square Community Energy Scheme which exhibits the decarbonization of heating in system which nixes the necessity for insulated ductwork.

The ICAX Energy Center:

  • moves electricity use from peak and off-peak energy hours to maximize efficiency while lowering costs
  • transfers heat into buildings in winter without using combustion and without emitting greenhouse gases
  • works in traditional spaces and with existing infrastructure already in place in most facilities

The BNP Paribas Group has said that it will no longer do business with any companies whose principal business activity is the exploration, production, or trading of oil or gas.

The BNP Paribus Group also promised that it will no longer finance any oil or gas exploration or projects in the Arctic.

Want to know more about renewable energy and how companies are using them to change the world? Contact MaintenX today!