Excerpts from my book

The excerpts below are from my book in process. I am focusing on material designed for new Facility Managers. Please feel free to comment.

Facility physical assets are those things that are purchased by a person or organization to perform business operations. A building is an asset. It was obtained through a purchase or lease with the intent of performing tasks. Items within the facility are also considered assets. Such as air handlers, desks, and other components that make it possible to complete job tasks. Each of these assets needs to be maintained in a manner that reduces down time and extends the life expectancy of its use.

The first key in maintaining assets, is knowing what you have. What that means is all equipment should be tagged; operation and maintenance manuals kept current; and location of asset identified on searchable prints. The best way to do that is to place all the gathered information in a computerized maintenance management system (CMMS). A CMMS should integrate those three pieces of information into a work order system that encompasses an all-inclusive approach for the lifecycle of the asset. Unfortunately work order systems are not created by the manufacturer for individual businesses. The thought behind those types of systems is that a manufacturer will provide a wide scope of CMMS capabilities and the end user can determine how many of those capabilities needed. Think of it as an ala carte menu where the purchaser will select features that closely capture the needs of their organization. It is, however, important to understand how a work order process is carried out before selection begins. A process for managing work has four main features, which are: identifying; planning; doing; and recording the work.

So where do you start? No matter what role you play there is only one place to start, and that is to identify the work. You cannot do work that is unknown, nor can you successfully plan the work without first identifying it. If work cannot be performed, how will it legitimately be recorded? Identifying the work will determine priority level, environment, and schedule. The list goes on. So how do you identify the work? There are two primary ways.

The first is to understand the manufacturer’s recommended maintenance program and the other is through end user communication requests via; email; person to person; telephone calls; or any way that allows us to know of a request for work from our customers.

Performing scheduled maintenance, or responding to work requests, can sometimes generate another request that prevents possible future failures, i.e. noticing worn parts that are likely to fail, or by determining that a demand call was the symptom of another issue.

In a situation where maintenance schedules are not effective the issue should be reviewed by a planned maintenance group. A decision of whether adjustments are needed in the maintenance instructions or whether an issue exists that requires replacement or manufacturer’s input; also known as alternative equipment maintenance (AEM). So now that we have identified ways to establish work, what’s next?

We plan the work. Seems easy enough… right? A work order comes in and we hand it out to the first available technician. Wrong. Planning the work is one of the most critical aspects of a work order system. The process should take into consideration factors such as skills required to perform the task, availability of staff with that skill, urgency of the work to be performed, and prioritization. Let’s say that the work involves hanging a picture. Do we issue the work to the first tech available and require that it be performed immediately? It depends.

The CEO is giving a presentation in the next hour and needs a picture of the campus hung near his podium. This is urgent! Now if the request is by a staff member that has newly acquired a picture that will go well with his or her other pictures, this can wait. You contact the requester and determine a time in the near future that will work best for the department.

What I mean by this is there needs to be a clear understanding of what is a priority. Think of it in a hierarchical sense.

Requests that impact life safety will always take the highest priority and should not be delayed for any reason. Issues such as impaired fire suppression systems or a faulty outlet could result in loss of life. The next level of concern are needs of the business. There is no reason to maintain operations without care for the business and everyone can go home. While it may seem that corporate level executives should be lumped in with other leaders, they are much more. Senior level leaders possess a talent for ensuring that operations are well taken care of and hold the greatest responsibility for company success. Their requests come from a need to support business needs. All other needs are the least of work order priorities.

Because not all work requests are work orders, all priorities should be determined by the work order issuer. That person can be the manager, coordinator, or anyone with the authority to do so. However, there are occasions where the technician will need to have the autonomy to make line level decisions when responding to life safety issues or respecting an executive’s immediate request. Now that we know a little about the hierarchy, let’s talk about how that work is performed.

 A person issuing work orders to technicians should take into consideration what work has been issued for the day, week, and if there are any current projects that take precedent over all other calls. The issuer must have a working knowledge of staff schedules, talents, availability, and incorporate that into requirements of the request in an efficient manner.

Unfortunately, the idea of streamlining can be blocked; or at least slowed, by the multiple tasks to be completed. Typically an organization will attempt to reduce overhead by assigning one to two people the responsibility of managing multiple aspects of a department. They understand where the responsibility should rest, but the hours will realistically not be available in an eight hour shift. With so many tasks to manage, how can an organization be certain that everything is done well? The manager must address purchasing, mentoring, staffing, record keeping, financial reporting and tracking, asset management, etc.

This is where the thought of divisional management comes into play. So how does that look on an organizational chart? The manager will direct the coordination of a work group that will comprise of three main units. They are the reporting and purchasing agent (RPA), work order dispatcher (WOD), and planned work dispatcher (PWD). The manager still has complete responsibility of the department work, and he difference is that there is delegation of the management responsibilities.

The RPA will generate reports and organize it so that the manager can review outcomes and implement any changes that are needed. That agent will also ensure that parts needed to complete work orders are ordered and received. RPA will receive requests from work dispatchers so that they may have parts and equipment available for technicians. Technicians are those that receive work orders and purchased items to complete tasks.

Work order agents will receive and distribute work orders. Their objective is to dispatch work orders, monitor timeliness of work order completion, and track staff activities. Staff tracking includes monitoring attendance and availability. This position requires those that are skilled at scheduling work to maintain a balance between workloads for each technician and ensuring customer satisfaction.

Planned work agents will focus on preventative maintenance and projects that require scheduling beyond two days or sensitive areas such as operation rooms. This person will dispatch work to those designated as project staff. As with the work order dispatch agent position, this agent should possess the ability to monitor work activity and disseminate information to stakeholders.

The demand work, planned work, and RPA are now focused on their respective departments. As I mentioned previously, demand work is received in one of two ways. The dispatcher will review the work and make a determination of who should receive the work order. Work may be held, dispatched, or routed to the planned work department. Planned work dispatcher coordinates with manager and reviews existing preventative maintenance schedules. All work handled by this person will already have a time line and assigned person. The main objective is to ensure that work is performed in a time frame that is required by code or accreditation.

Building prints are the second key to a well-designed CMMS. It will allow the user to view building layouts and design. There are multiple uses such as room locating and determining utility locations. Incorporating building prints into the work order system allows technicians and dispatchers to more effectively schedule the day's activities. Furthermore, the technician can utilize MEP portions for reduced travel time needed to research where shutoffs and runs are located. If I am a technician with a work order stating no hot water in room XX123.01, most of my investigation can occur with the aid of prints. If we take that idea a step further, we can imagine a work order system that incorporates the use of digital tablets. This would reduce the rate of research even further by eliminating a trip to the print room. Technicians are now capable of electronically viewing the work order and building prints from a single location, and that location will change with the technician. Though there are several benefits with utilizing technology, some work will need to be completed first. Someone familiar with Auto CAD will need to upload the prints into digital format. Once that process has been completed, there will be further work in updating the digital prints with every alteration to the building design. A devoted team will be needed to handle this task in larger facilities.

Asset information provides the third key with fundamental details such as purchase date, manufacturer instructions, and design specifications. Too often there are technicians in the field with enough technical expertise to handle most repair work, but that knowledge was a compilation of on the job training and secrets shared by a contractor. We call them the jack-of-all-trades. These are the men and women that have been in the field for several years. Unfortunately, technology and manufacturing processes are outpacing that type of intellect. Code standards have changed as well, and will almost certainly make the knowhow of most seasoned technicians obsolete when working with newer assets. Another fact to consider is the detail provided in asset documentation. It is imperative to ordering replacement parts or discussing issues with technical support staff. Giving that information to a technician at time of repair will reduce research time. This is why it would behoove the department to correlate this data with that of the work order system and building prints.

In recent years there has been a shift towards making information available to staff via digital devices. Like the out of box work order program, this model needs to be custom fit so that it makes sense to those that use it. Developing this model will reveal existing needs and determine what is no longer needed. The designer should stay focused and have a clear vision of the results that are desired and align with the institution’s mission. Ideally the way to effectively address work orders is through the use of tablets. Summarily the thought is that digital devices are confusing and cumbersome. In years past this may have been true. Today’s technology is design to be light weight and intuitive. Companies that supply the technology for these devices are aware that companies are requiring multiple applications to interface.  

Recording the work performed will allow others to gain insight into what it took to perform the task. This document that is created will be used by the manager as a way to research history, perform quality inspections, and verify daily activity. It is imperative that enough information has been recorded to allow readers to clearly understand how the work was performed. Simply clicking the completion box will do little to say work was performed. All day long I could just go down a list of work orders and click completed and put my name on it. I would look like a top performer, or I could be called into my supervisor’s office for failure to perform a critical work order that has my name on it.