What is a Facility Maintenance Plan and does Your Business Need One?

If you own a commercial building or a facility, you may think that maintenance is narrowed down to cleaning and occasional repairs. If you hold such beliefs, chances are that you’ve never worked a facility maintenance plan in the past.

A facility maintenance plan can be quite beneficial and it encompasses a lot more than regular cleaning. Here’s an overview of what a facility maintenance plan is and how to come up with one.

​What’s a Facility Maintenance Plan?

A facility maintenance plan is a long-term strategy for maintaining the corporate facilities in the best possible condition. An intelligently-crafted facility maintenance plan can help you save a lot of money in the long run and it will also ensure smooth corporate operations.

The typical facility maintenance plan should focus on activities and operations like cleaning, general building maintenance, regular inspections for facility problems, HVAC maintenance, electrical maintenance, landscaping, plumbing and maintenance of all corporate/production equipment.

As you can see, the maintenance plan is all-encompassing and it should feature provisions that cover a period of at least one year. You probably know that professional inspections and proper maintenance require spending but they can save you a lot of money by preventing major disasters. This is why the maintenance plan has to take into consideration all business specifics and the most common issues that companies like yours seem to run into.

Steps to Building an Effective Facility Maintenance Plan

The document is very important but coming up with a sound facility maintenance plan isn’t the easiest task in the world.

When creating a plan, you’ll need to keep several important things in mind. The most crucial components of the facility maintenance plan are:

• Purpose: what are you trying to accomplish through drafting a plan? Are you focusing on doing repairs and maintenance whenever a problem arises or would you like the strategy to have a preventative component? The second strategy is usually better because it prepares you for emergencies and enables you to handle those in a quick and efficient manner.
• Roles and responsibilities: who’ll be responsible for executing the strategies outlined in the plan? You’ll need to choose a reputable cleaning company. In addition, you’ll have to hire other contractors that will be responsible for HVAC, plumbing, electrical and other kinds of maintenance. People working in the company will also need to be informed about their roles in the maintenance process.
• Environmental and safety components: apart from thinking about facility maintenance alone, you may want to expand the document a bit. The renovation and regular maintenance activities can also focus on reducing the environmental impact of doing business and boosting the safety of your employees.
• Scheduling and time frame: this is probably the most important component of your facility maintenance plan. Decide how often you’d like to carry out each of the above-mentioned activities. While cleaning should obviously happen at least once per week, HVAC inspections can be scheduled two times per year and you can have the plumbing inspected annually. Depending on the specifics of your business and the types of equipment being used, you’ll need to come up with a personalized calendar.

Five of the Most Common Facility Maintenance Planning Mistakes

If you’re building a facility maintenance plan for the first time, you may find out that it’s somewhat ineffective or impractical with the passage of time. The program can easily be modified on the go but avoiding common mistakes altogether will definitely be better.

Here are some of the most common facility maintenance planning mistakes you should try to avoid:

• Not hiring enough people for the execution: in an attempt to minimize the cost of maintenance, you may want to keep some of the processes in house or hire just a few professionals for the execution. This strategy will easily backfire. Few people can never do a pristine job and the lack of sufficient human resources may potentially contribute to an emergency that will cost you a lot more than outsourcing maintenance, cleaning and repairs.
• Lack of procedures to follow: not having procedures outlined in the facility maintenance plan is another common mistake. All players have to be available of the calendar to follow and their responsibilities. Otherwise, you’ll end up experiencing facility maintenance chaos.
• Incorrect frequency of the maintenance processes: you can opt for professional cleaning once per month and hope that your facilities will maintain their pristine condition. It simply doesn’t work this way. The timing should be reasonable and coordinated with the manner in which your corporate activities affect the facilities.
• No emergency plan: what’s the procedure to follow in the case of an emergency? How will you handle a flood? What will you do with an unexpected plumbing failure? A good plan should include provisions for emergency situations. If everyone involved knows how to act in the case of unforeseeable circumstances, the recovery will be a lot faster.
• Lack of effective maintenance evaluation: the plan should also feature metrics that will be used to assess the effectiveness of the maintenance process. You have to know whether you’re doing a good job and which of the plan’s provisions are paying of.

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​Taking the time to come up with a facility maintenance plan and being prepared for all kinds of situations is one of the keys to effective business operations. You may need to hire professionals that will help you through the process or you should simply do a bit of research and decide on the most important components to include in the plan. Whichever approach you opt for, the results will definitely justify the efforts.​