Month: June 2020

Facility Summer Maintenance Checklist

Posted: 6/17/2020

A person on a riding mower do summer maintenance by cutting the lawn.

Many maintenance teams are required to do seasonal maintenance. As the cool spring breezes give way to the hot days of summer, it’s time to start planning your facility’s summer maintenance checklist. Being proactive about summer maintenance will keep your property and assets protected in both hot and humid weather.

Maintenance Management for Summer

Indoor Summer Maintenance

While you may be focused on the warm weather outdoors, there are several indoor maintenance management tasks you should complete before and throughout the summer months. HVAC maintenance is likely at the top of the list of summer preventive facility maintenance. The worst time for an air conditioning unit to malfunction is in July or August. You want to prevent this at all costs by completing preventive maintenance tasks. Other areas of indoor maintenance management for summer include plumbing, health and safety, electrical, and energy.

HVAC Maintenance

  • Replace the air filters.
  • Check your thermostats—set a target cooling temperature and replace or upgrade them if needed.
  • Remove dirt and sludge build-up on outdoor units, which can degrade the parts, create an odor, or distribute allergens.
  • Clean the coils.
  • Check for any air leaks or dripping, which can indicate a problem with the air intake or coolant tank.

Plumbing

  • Complete plumbing system inspections, checking for leaks and chipped sealants.
  • Investigate any odd odors that may indicate must, mold, mildew, or other irritants. These may be resulting from poor ventilation or leaks.
  • Prevent or stop mold and mildew by removing any existing spots and install dehumidifiers as needed.

Health and Safety

  • Inspect smoke and CO2 alarms and replace the batteries.
  • Clean fireplaces.
  • Refill fire extinguishers to prevent or mitigate fire damage.
  • Repair or replace light switch faceplates and ceiling tiles.
  • Steam clean tile and carpeting, and replace upholstery.
  • Evaluate all of your maintenance procedures, including security systems (both equipment and personnel), injury reporting, evacuation plans, hazard control plans, and safety training.

Electrical

  • Inspect, repair, and/or replace appliances as needed.
  • Look for anything that could pose a fire hazard in the hot, dry summer months.

Energy

  • Replace any poor window and door seals to keep cold air in and warm air out.
  • Repair or replace any cracked or broken windows.
  • Calibrate automatic lighting systems for longer days to save energy.

Outdoor Summer Maintenance

As you’ve probably guessed, a number of tasks on your summer maintenance checklist involve outdoor property maintenance at your facility. Not only do organizations want their exterior to look nice, they also want to prevent major repairs or damage whenever possible. While completing outdoor maintenance work, the maintenance team should make sure they apply sunscreen at least once every two hours to avoid sunburn, and aim to drink an ounce of water every fifteen minutes while outside in the heat. Here’s what you should do outdoors to keep your property clean and safe all summer long.

Exterior Building Maintenance

  • Clean gutters, downspouts, and chimneys.
  • Inspect roofing and make any necessary repairs.
  • Update outdoor lighting.
  • Repair cracks in masonry or foundation.

Pest Control

  • Keep an eye out for signs of pests, including holes in siding, walls, floors, or wood, shredded material to indicate nesting, damage to plants, droppings, and grease marks.
  • You should look for these signs at the beginning and end of summer if you live in a cooler climate or year-round if you live in a warmer climate.
  • Fill in any gaps or cracks and spray the appropriate deterrent around the entire building’s exterior.
  • Clean up any forgotten spills that may attract ants or flies.
  • Termite infestations cause the most damage of any pest by far. Eliminate them immediately, and have a professional conduct a termite inspection annually.
  • Small pests such as ants, flies, spiders, and bees may be easier to get rid of than larger pests.
  • Larger pests such as rats and mice will likely require the assistance of an outside professional to remove.

Landscaping

As with other seasons, summer preventive facility maintenance also includes landscaping tasks. Keep your property looking pristine by:

  • Cutting the lawn.
  • Pruning bushes, removing brush, and pulling weeds.
  • Setting up and programming your sprinkler or irrigation system.
  • Assessing any slopes to ensure they provide proper water drainage.
  • Spreading mulch or fertilizer where needed.

Hardscaping

Finally, a summer maintenance checklist should include “hardscaping” tasks, which are closely related to landscaping, but involve hard surfaces and materials rather than plants and soil. Be sure to:

  • Pressure-wash commercial patios, sidewalks, and siding.
  • Repair cracks or holes in sidewalks and parking lots, and resurface them as needed.

Maintenance Management for Summer with FTMaintenance

Computerized Maintenance Management System (CMMS) software such as FTMaintenance can help you plan ahead for all of your summer maintenance tasks. The ability to create customized preventive maintenance schedules ensures you won’t miss any tasks or fall behind. Seasonal maintenance tasks can be scheduled in the software so you can “set them and forget them”. If unexpected emergency repairs do come up, don’t worry, FTMaintenance handles corrective maintenance, too. Contact us if you have any questions or schedule a demo to learn more.

How to Change the Culture of the Maintenance Department

Posted: 6/11/2020

Three diversified employees in hard hats in a garage to represent maintenance department culture.

Take a minute to think about your organization’s culture as it relates to asset maintenance:

  • Is your team constantly reacting to breakdowns or more proactive in its approach to maintenance?
  • Is there tension between operations and maintenance or is there a good working relationship?
  • Do employees feel like their contributions make a difference?
  • Are employees motivated to perform quality maintenance work?

Based on your responses, it should be clear whether the maintenance culture at your organization needs work. This article discusses how to change your maintenance culture for the better.

What is Maintenance Culture?

Maintenance culture is the set of values, behaviors, attitudes, perceptions, practices and underlying assumptions use to guide maintenance activities performed to prevent assets from failing and keep them in proper working order.

Why should you care about maintenance culture? For better or worse, maintenance culture drives the behavior of maintenance employees, which trickles down to the quality of asset maintenance. A poor maintenance culture causes employees to operate reactively, neglect their work, and make careless mistakes, ultimately lowering asset reliability. On the other hand, a good maintenance culture inspires employees to do good work and seek to improve asset health.

Components of Maintenance Culture

According to social science researchers, maintenance culture is comprised of 10 key factors:

  1. Leadership
  2. Communication
  3. Rewards and recognition
  4. Teamwork
  5. Training and education
  6. Motivation
  7. Involvement
  8. Empowerment
  9. Policy systems, strategy, and work planning
  10. Organizational structure

Leadership

A good leader is someone who can influence others to understand and agree about what needs to be done, how to do it, and why it matters. However, this is often difficult to accomplish alone. Changing the maintenance culture requires stakeholders to possess strong leadership skills as well as the support of upper management. Top-down commitment to improving maintenance culture can quickly change the attitudes of employees. Part of this commitment comes from hiring the right people who will be best suited to manage change.

Communication

Part of changing maintenance culture is getting all personnel on the same page about the importance of asset maintenance. Maintenance employees should have a shared understanding of the mission, vision, goals, and responsibilities of the maintenance department.

Rewards and Recognition

Everyone likes to be acknowledged for a job well done. Public recognition for high-level performance and high-quality results makes team members feel appreciated for their work. This can be especially powerful for maintenance teams who are often blamed when equipment breaks down, but never thanked for keeping it up and running. If possible, rewards such as pay bumps, bonuses, and promotions are powerful motivators as well.

Teamwork

Teamwork involves multiple people working together towards a common mission or goal. While each individual on the team may have a specific role, all contribute to overarching maintenance goals. Teamwork can be viewed as internal to the maintenance department, or expand to other departments who depend on the work of the maintenance team, such as the operations and production department. When working together, individuals or departments feel more comfortable sharing thoughts and opinions about improvements to maintenance operations.

Training and Education

Maintenance work requires in-depth technical knowledge of assets and their related systems. Especially in times where there is a maintenance technician shortage, ongoing technical training can help retain and motivate employees. As the knowledgebase of your staff grows, the quality and effectiveness of maintenance work should also increase.

Along with training comes the implementation of tools that enable employees to do their jobs better. This includes inspection tools, condition-monitoring sensors, and computerized maintenance management system (CMMS) software.

Motivation

A lack of motivation affects many aspects of an employee’s performance. Individuals who aren’t motivated may leave the company, neglect job responsibilities, communicate poorly, or work without urgency. All of these can negatively impact asset performance.

Maintenance personnel can be motivated by some of the factors already discussed, such as commitment from upper management, recognition, and training opportunities. When employees are adequately motivated, high quality maintenance work naturally follows.

Involvement

Changing the maintenance culture is an organization-wide effort. Involvement means that everyone is included in the changes to maintenance culture, not just certain employees. Maintenance staff should perform, or at the very least, be trained on how to perform all maintenance activities so that they fully understand what each task entails. Upper management should emphasize and advocate for the importance of maintenance within the organization.

Empowerment

Empowerment means to delegate a certain level of decision-making power to lower-level staff. Depending on the organization, this may mean upper management giving more authority to maintenance managers, or maintenance managers giving more autonomy to maintenance technicians. Entrusting the maintenance team to carry out work without requiring instruction from higher levels of management builds trust, engages employees, and removes some bottlenecks that get in the way of efficient maintenance.

Policy Systems, Strategy, and Work Planning

Organizations with a good maintenance culture have well-defined rules and procedures that provide structure to maintenance operations. Little progress will be made if employees go about performing and documenting maintenance work in a haphazard manner. Detailed maintenance procedures that are easy to understand are vital to changing behaviors and motivating employees.

Organization Structure

The organization structure outlines the hierarchy of employees and management in the organization, communicating the power dynamics that exist between them. Understanding the organizational structure shows how roles within the organization support one another, and how they work together to achieve maintenance goals. It also helps define who in each role is responsible to certain tasks and duties.

Signs of a Poor Maintenance Culture

Maintenance culture differs from one organization to the next. Some organizations may exhibit multiple signs of a poor maintenance culture, while other may only recognize one or two areas for improvement. Generally speaking, poor maintenance culture is characterized by the following factors:

  • Indifference or feelings of distrust among staff members
  • High staff turnover
  • Wasted time and resources
  • Lack of trust, credibility, or respect from people in charge
  • Lack of proper data entry
  • Unscheduled preventive maintenance work
  • Slow responses to critical failures
  • Low task completion
  • Aging work order backlog
  • Excessive mistakes and errors
  • Finger-pointing instead of taking accountability

The list goes on and on. What’s important is that once you identify these symptoms of poor maintenance culture, you can work towards making changes.

How to Change the Culture of the Maintenance Department

When employee’s attitudes are positive, a good maintenance culture is developed and maintained. Think about what type of maintenance culture you would like to see for years to come. Drawing from the components of maintenance culture described earlier, here are ten steps you can take to positively change your maintenance department culture:

  1. Hire the right people.
  2. Create a vision for a better maintenance culture and communicate that vision to others.
  3. Recognize and reward superior performance.
  4. Work together to achieve goals.
  5. Provide ongoing training and learning opportunities; encourage professional development.
  6. Inspire others to perform quality work.
  7. Involve employees in the process.
  8. Give others authority and control over their work.
  9. Create clear, defined rules, procedures, and standards.
  10. Communicate organizational roles and responsibilities.

Keep in mind that having all of the things above would create an ideal maintenance culture, but that is often far from reality. Implementing as many of these as possible will create a positive maintenance culture.

Using CMMS as a Catalyst for Change

Computerized maintenance management system (CMMS) software is a tool that can be used to positively change maintenance department culture. A CMMS is a centralized platform for documenting, tracking, organizing, and managing maintenance activities. Implementing a CMMS provides a method of holding others accountable for changing their behavior and attitudes towards asset maintenance.

When properly utilized, a CMMS serves as a single, shared source of communication about maintenance work, maintenance procedures, and documentation. Further, maintenance management software holds maintenance personnel accountable for following new maintenance processes or documentation requirements.

Further Reading: Creating a Culture of Accountability with CMMS

Even though implementing a CMMS will positively impact maintenance culture, there may still be some resistance from staff. Some may see using CMMS software as yet one more thing to do that disrupts the usual workflow, or as a way for management to watch over technicians. Therefore, you must also manage change as it relates to CMMS implementation.

To encourage buy-in from the maintenance team, introduce any new software or processes in phases so that it’s not overwhelming. Demonstrate that the data collected in the CMMS such as tool lists, part locations, and descriptions of repairs can make their jobs easier. In the process, be sure to remain open to feedback and ideas from technicians. People are more accepting of new processes when they have some control over them rather than feeling like it’s being forced upon them.

Further Reading: How to Increase CMMS User Adoption

Improve Maintenance Culture with FTMaintenance Select

Maintenance culture is not easy to develop or change, but it is not impossible either. It takes time for employees to change their behaviors, embrace their responsibilities in making the change, and follow through. CMMS software like FTMaintenance Select can help you transform your maintenance culture from bad to good – or good to great! Request a demo to learn more about FTMaintenance Select.

What Makes a Good Maintenance Manager?

Posted: 6/5/2020

Two maintenance workers in hard hats shaking hands, one holding a tablet, in a warehouse, representing how good maintenance managers can positively impact the team.

Before his time as a U.S. president, John F. Kennedy said to his commanding officer on the PT-109 during a rescue operation, “If the men are to do a good job for us, we must do a good job for them.” What he meant was that those leading the team of crewmates had to work well under pressure to expect the same from their crew.

This simple, yet important statement can be applied to many areas, including maintenance management. For a maintenance manager, this means that if he expects his team to perform well, he must meet them halfway and create an environment set up for success. In order to be a successful maintenance manager, he needs to ask the question: what makes a good maintenance manager?

Qualities of a Good Maintenance Manager

There are several qualities of a good maintenance manager that are important for his success. Qualities are characteristics an effective maintenance manager has developed over time. Some of these qualities include:

  • Dignity and respect for his superiors, team, vendors, and guests
  • Mentor to his team
  • Attentive, supportive, and responsive to team needs
  • Confident in his abilities
  • Knowledgeable about assets, materials, and skills of his team
  • Big picture thinker
  • Neutrality during debates or conflicts
  • Forward-thinking mentality
  • Handles stress well
  • Adaptable to ever-changing needs and circumstances

An effective maintenance manager needs to understand how every other department in the organization works, communicating with them as necessary on a daily basis. It’s important for a maintenance manager to maintain good relationships with colleagues, vendors, subordinates, and superiors. A good maintenance manager also ensures that every day, his team of maintenance technicians are assigned to the work that best fits their skills, keeping roadblocks to working efficiently out of the way.

A good maintenance manager also seeks to prevent problems. This can be difficult because there is rarely a direct reward for those who use foresight to keep a problem from occurring. However, it’s not always possible to prevent problems, which is why a good maintenance manager must also know how to effectively solve problems. In addition to guiding others in problem solving, he is willing to “get his hands dirty” when necessary, and do the type of good work he expects from his team. A successful maintenance manager knows he needs to leave his ego and desire to get ahead at home so he can think like a team player.

Top Skills of Good Maintenance Managers

In addition to the qualities of a good maintenance manager, he has several skills that make him successful. A skill is an ability to do something well, which can be learned and perfected over time. When these skills are mastered, it will cut down on stress.

Hard Skills

A good maintenance manager has “hard skills”, which involve having specific technical knowledge. Examples of these hard skills include:

  • Knowledge of current OSHA guidelines and other safety regulations
  • Industry-specific knowledge
  • Working knowledge of mechanical and electrical systems

Soft Skills

As a leader, an effective maintenance manager must possess soft skills to be successful. These skills can be taught in a classroom, however, they are best refined through on-the-job experience and the willingness of the maintenance manager to learn and continually improve. These skills include:

  • Excellent organizational, time management, and communication skills
  • Expertise in and ability to pick up on new technologies
  • Ability to work within a tight budget
  • Grace under pressure
  • Ability to solve problems and identify misunderstandings
  • Ability to develop staff by providing budding leaders with opportunities to train others
  • Ability to set vision and strategy for the department
  • Ability to create a transparent work environment
  • Ability to recognize and appreciate other good problem solvers (engineers, planners, and inspectors)

Become an Effective Maintenance Manager

A computerized maintenance management system (CMMS) can help a maintenance manager become more effective. CMMS software will allow him to make smarter maintenance management decisions, helping to reduce maintenance costs and control the budget, quickly analyze everyday maintenance problems, and assign the proper resources. The maintenance manager will also be able to automate some daily administrative tasks, allowing him to spend more time completing maintenance, analyzing data, and improving preventive maintenance plans.

CMMS software also allows a maintenance manager to increase his team’s productivity with an easy-to-use maintenance tracking platform. It will help to improve communications between maintenance and other departments via service requests, notifications, and sharing of the maintenance calendar. There will be less back and forth or “I don’t know” answers to questions.

FTMaintenance is CMMS software that offers solutions for every maintenance manager. Schedule a demo today to learn more about FTMaintenance.