Author: MaintenX

Water Management Facts

Clean water is often wasted by companies and consumers alike, even though it’s one of our most vital resources. Conserve and save money in the process by following these tips.

Why Conserve Water?

  • Americans use an average of 88 gallons of water a day per person.
  • Installing water-efficient fixtures and appliances can reduce water consumption by 20%.
  • The average family spends more than $1,000 per year in water costs, but can save more than $380 annually from retrofitting with WaterSense labeled fixtures and ENERGY STAR-certified appliances.
  • Recycling a pound of paper, less than the weight of your average newspaper, saves about 3.5 gallons of water.

A better water management plan will not only result in cost savings for water, but could also lead to savings in energy. There are also many other benefits, like:

  • Prolonged life of equipment and reduced maintenance costs
  • Financial incentives, rebates, and tax credits
  • Qualifying for green certifications and enhancing public opinion of your company via commitment to the environment

Water is just a part of your facility’s larger energy plan. This is why it is essential to look at the entire energy picture of your facility’s resource use and how different systems affect each other. Why? Because changes to one system can alter those of other systems in your building. A cohesive, all-encompassing energy management plan ought to be your final objective.

MaintenX is here to help you with you water management needs. Give us a call today!

Pros and Cons of Permanent Maintenance Staff

What is the difference between hiring temporary and permanent maintenance staff? We will discuss the pros and cons of each.

Temporary Maintenance Staff Pros:

  • Your company can test out their potential to perform various responsibilities before making a long-term commitment. 
  • It’s generally more cost-effective to hire a temporary facility management company, taking into consideration employee costs like a 401K, health insurance, and Paid Time Off.

Temporary Maintenance Staff Cons:

  • Training is required for any temporary employee. This can be time-consuming and expensive.
  • There will be a set end date for the employment period which may fall during a busy time when extra work is necessary.
  • Staff may be less dedicated and familiar with your plant, and performance may suffer.

Permanent Maintenance Staff Pros:

  • Permanent, full-time maintenance staff offers more financial security and job stability. This can reduce stress for workers and possibly make their performance better.
  • Your permanent staff can develop long-term friendships with colleagues in a team-oriented environment, which can contribute to the overall success of your company.
  • Extended engagements mean the team will be intimately familiar with the systems they maintain.

Permanent Maintenance Staff Cons:

  • Permanent maintenance staff requires additional costs in the form of benefits, training, resources, and space, among others.
  • If the job does not provide enough work to keep permanent employees busy, it may lead to reduced paid hours for the workers.

In the end, it all boils down to your company’s specific needs, and budget.

Have questions about maintenance staffing? MaintenX is here to help!

What is OEE?

Overall equipment effectiveness (OEE) is a mathematical system developed to accurately measure the performance of a company’s manufacturing operations, processes, and overall productivity. This metric is expressed as a percentage; OEE shows how efficient a production facility is. It can be compared to a company’s past OEEs to gauge improvements or losses, and to predict future productivity.

What are Overall Equipment Effectiveness Metrics used for?

OEE is a decent gauge of a machine’s or a system’s productivity level. It can also glean insights into the behaviors and effectiveness levels of the workers who maintain and operate the system.

For example, a lousy maintenance technician might fix problems, but they won’t prevent them from occurring again in the future. A good maintenance technician will complete regular inspections to find and fix problems before they occur. OEE also offers a method of gauging the success of facilities, staff, systems, and processes.

Calculating Overall Equipment Effectiveness

The calculation of overall equipment effectiveness uses three metrics:

  • Availability = Production Time / Loading Time
  • Performance = Actual Output / Production Time
  • Quality = Good Output / Actual Output

All three of these metrics are expressed as percentages.

Using these three metrics gives business owners and facility managers a real-world view of their facilities’, employees’, and machinery’s current and former productivity and overall cost-to-benefit ratio.

If you’d like to know more about calculating overall equipment effectiveness and how it can help track your manufacturing procedures, speak to a MaintenX representative today.

How to Find Quality Maintenance Professionals

Hiring a maintenance professional can be difficult, expensive work. That’s why you need to know precisely what you need from a candidate for the job. Here are some things to prioritize when you’re looking for your perfect maintenance professional:

Certified and Licensed

You’re hiring someone who will be repairing complex, expensive systems, so first of all, you’ll want to ensure that every prospective candidate has the proper certifications and licenses to carry out such work. Without a license or a permit, there is no guarantee of quality, and the company is opened to different kinds of legal liability. Don’t get too excited at the lower wages unlicensed maintenance workers ask for. If they make a mistake, it might turn into a much more expensive problem than you’d anticipated.

People Skills

People with good interpersonal skills know how to deal with complicated, stressful issues with grace. They can keep their cool during problems and are well-respected by their colleagues and management. Ensure that your candidate possesses these characteristics by checking their references and speaking to former clients or managers.

Attention to Detail

From your property to the people who work in it, the perfect maintenance professional will be able to provide you with the skillful and attentive service you and your employees require. Sloppy maintenance work can be dangerous.

If you are looking for a licensed, personable, and detail-oriented maintenance professional, look no further than MaintenX. Call a MaintenX service representative today and learn more about the many facility maintenance services we offer!

What is Total Productive Maintenance?

Most industrial production is done with the help of machines. When a mechanical breakdown happens, this will inevitably have an effect on the overall productivity of your facility, leading to a loss in profit.

Total productive maintenance (TPM) is one way of maintaining and refining the quality and consistency of production of:

  • Machines
  • Equipment
  • Employees
  • Supporting Processes

Total Productive Maintenance can be of great value and its target is to expand and streamline the core business processes of your company.

Why use Total Productive Maintenance?

Total Productive Maintenance is designed to:

  • Avoid waste in an ever-changing economy
  • Produce goods efficiently without sacrificing quality
  • Reducing overall production costs
  • Virtually eliminate the production of defective products

Preventive Maintenance

Preventative Maintenance is one of the most successful and time-honored systems in industrial settings. This is a daily maintenance system (cleaning, inspecting, oiling, and re-tightening equipment), designed specifically to maintain the optimum condition of equipment and prevent failure through refreshing and replacing small parts as needed, periodic scheduled inspection or thorough equipment condition analysis to measure the level of facility and equipment decline.

Just as a human’s life is extended by preventive medical care and regular doctor’s visits and check-ups, the life of service equipment and facility features can be prolonged by doing regular preventive maintenance.

 

Total productive maintenance helps workers care for the equipment and machines they use daily. This process can reduce costs while improving efficiency.

Want to know more about TPM? Contact MaintenX today!

Analyzing Your Office Space Usage

For almost any business, property and rental costs are the second biggest expense after employee wages. Analyzing your office space usage can help you decide if you need the space you have, and if you’re using your space in the most efficient way possible.

What is Space Utilization?

Analyzing how you use your area can help you reallocate space, shift workflow, or relocate to another space better suited to your needs while maximizing benefits and reducing costs.

Knowledge is Power

Knowing how much of your office space is really being used on a regular basis can save you and your company a lot of money.

The objective of office space analysis is to:

  • Establish a standard of current office space use.
  • Show opportunities for improving space effectiveness.
  • Use that data to create an action plan to enhance your company’s productivity while maintaining a competitive advantage.

Efficient Use of Office Space

When you track the space utilization of your workplace, you can then design a streamlined work environment. After this process, when you walk through the building you won’t see empty desks and unused meeting rooms.

With a nimble, responsive, and organized workplace, you will find that productivity increases, property, and rental costs are lower, and employees are happier and more satisfied with their work.

To learn more about office space usage analysis, call a MaintenX representative today.

How Fans can Increase Energy Savings

If you want to decrease your energy use and trim the fat from your electricity bill, ceiling fans might be able to help. With these power saving tips, you’ll learn how to make the most of your ceiling fans while reducing HVAC costs.

Ceiling Fans

If you’re looking to maximize your savings and lower your energy consumption effectively, a ceiling fan is your best bet. Ceiling fans circulate air in a room without using too much electricity. If you use an air conditioning system, a ceiling fan will allow you to use it less while maintaining the temperature you want.

Unfortunately, ceiling fans are appropriate only in rooms with ceilings at least 8 ft. high. Ceiling fans must be installed so their blades are no closer than 8 inches from the ceiling.

Generally speaking, more expensive ceiling fans operate more quietly often last longer than cheaper versions.

ENERGY STAR

To maximize your energy savings, look for ceiling fans that have the ENERGY STAR label. Fans with this label are guaranteed to move air 20% more efficiently than standard—and more expensive, over time—models.

Though ceiling fans deliver better circulation of cool air, they can still waste your money and energy if no one is in the room to enjoy their effects. Here are a few tips to avoid this:

  • Don’t install fans in rooms that aren’t used very often.
  • Turn fans off as you leave a room.
  • Keep the fan turned off, and the light on as a default. Only use the fan feature when you need it, and turn it off when you don’t.

If you’d like to know more about fans and energy savings, contact MaintenX today!

How Paint Affects Your Office Space

The effect paint can have on the environment of your office is enormous. Color choice can affect your employee’s behavior, productivity, and general well-being. Colors can be vital in setting the right atmosphere for workers to feel relaxed and motivated.

Below are some tips for finding the right paint scheme for your office:

Blue

Blue produces a calming effect on the body, and it’s not often you’ll find someone opposed to the color. It doesn’t hurt that it’s also the most popular answer to the question “What’s your favorite color?”.

Green

To boost creativity, integrate green into places where people brainstorm together or where computers are located. The color green also:

  • promotes agreement
  • reduces stress
  • alleviates eye strain

Yellow

The color yellow is a welcoming, stimulating color. It’s best utilized in active environments. Yellow is also good for:

  • stimulating hopefulness
  • fostering attention and direction
  • promoting innovation and creativity

Red

Red is a perfect paint color choice for office environments where people need to do something physical, rather than mental. Because the color red can sometimes trigger stress and anger, it should be used selectively and sparingly.

White

As a general rule, white is a terrible color to paint your office. White walls often elicit a sterile or clinical feeling, like being in a doctor’s office. It’s best to use white in small doses in the work environment.

If you’d like to know more about color psychology in the workplace, contact MaintenX.

Planning for Power Outages

There are a lot of things that can cause power outages, such as:

  • Severe storms
  • High winds
  • Earthquakes
  • Power surges
  • Brownouts
  • Blackouts
  • Tornadoes
  • Hurricanes
  • Accidents

Though outages can be unpredictable, there are some simple things that you can do to stay safe if they happen to you.

Emergency Plan

Having a power outage emergency plan is the most essential part of being prepared. Here’s a tip a lot of people forget to put on their emergency preparedness checklist: know where your emergency release lever on your electric garage door is. That way, you can get your car in and out in the event of an outage. It’s also a smart idea to hide a spare key outside your home, especially if you usually depend on your garage door as your main entryway.

Safety First

  • Stay away from downed power lines and anything that touches them.
  • Never use your outdoor stove, gas grill, or heater indoors.
  • Keep candles and any other open flame away from pets and small children.

Emergency Kit Essentials:

At a minimum, have these items in your emergency kit, and keep the kit in an easily accessible place:

  • Flashlights
  • Extra Batteries
  • Battery-powered Radio
  • Bottled Water
  • Camping Equipment
  • Cell Phone

 

Charge your Phone

If you have advance warning of an outage, charge your phone immediately. Try to keep a full battery by disabling non-essential apps and turning down the brightness of your screen.

Want to know more about power outage safety? Contact MaintenX today.

How Smart Utility Meters Can Save You Money

What is a “Smart” Utility Meter?

Smart electric utility meters are electronic devices that track and record electricity usage in customers’ homes, businesses, or facilities. These smart meters automatically record energy data and then send it back to your power company.

Smart utility meters can provide fast, precise measurements of electricity use while removing the need for an estimated monthly bill or human meter readers.

While there are many benefits to smart utility meters, there have also been concerns raised by the public that smart utility meters are collecting customers’ private information. Critics of smart utility meters argue that this collection of data is a violation of customers’ privacy.

Benefits

Some of the benefits of smart utility meters include:

  • Faster power-restoration times: some smart utility meters can notify the power company if a power outage occurs, allowing them to more efficiently map and address service problems, and restore your power faster than with a traditional meter.
  • A greener option: advocates for smart utility meters argue that the automation of meter-reading could take thousands of service vehicles off the road, reducing power companies’ carbon footprints.
  • The ability to check your energy consumption in real time gives you a better and more accurate understanding of your energy habits.

If you are considering a smart utility meter for your home or business, contact your power company and ask about your options.

If you’d like to know more about smart utility meter technology, contact MaintenX.