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In the Northern Hemisphere, October is the heart of the fall season. During this time, you’ll notice the cooler temperatures and start wearing fall clothes to work. This is also a good time to create and execute a fall maintenance checklist. While the specific tasks on this list may vary by organization or industry, here are some fall maintenance tips you can refer to as you prepare for the change in seasons.

Additional Seasonal Maintenance Tips: Facility Summer Maintenance Checklist

Fall Preventive Maintenance Tips

Roof Inspections and Repairs

Every organization (and every building) has a roof, which is your first line of defense against the elements. It must be sturdy enough to withstand high winds, along with freeze and melt cycles that will occur in a few months during winter. You should start fall maintenance for your roof with an inspection.

• Check the drains and downspouts to ensure they are free from any blockages that would inhibit proper drainage.
• Look at the roof’s penetrations and flashing to check for any tears or gaps.
• Inspect vents and equipment to make sure they are sealed properly.
• Look for signs of damage to the roof and recommend (or seek recommendations for) solutions.
• Fix any divots or pooling, and replace any loose or broken shingles.
• Be sure to inspect the material and coating of your roof. Consider whether or not it would make financial sense to upgrade them.

Gutters and Leaf Removal

One of the most important fall maintenance tips is to ensure your gutters are inspected and cleared out. Whether you hire an outside contractor to complete this maintenance work or your team does it, make sure these important tasks are covered.

• Install gutter guards—this makes the gutter cleaning process a lot easier.
• Prune any branches that are hanging over your gutters, which will deposit leaves into them.
• Remove leaves from your gutters as needed to keep them free of debris.

Lawn and Garden

Your fall checklist should also include seasonal maintenance for your lawn and garden areas.

• Aerate and fertilize your lawn, which will put nutrients into the soil that will help with re-growth in the spring.
• Plant grass seed that will grow next spring, if needed.
• Clean your lawn and garden tools to prepare them for winter storage.
• Begin testing any equipment you’ll need for winter. It’s better to find out that something is broken or needs corrective maintenance now than to scramble to replace this equipment when you desperately need it.
• Create your snow and ice removal plan now so that you’re ready when the first winter storm hits.

Plumbing

Next on the list of preventive fall maintenance tips: your plumbing system, especially your water heaters and pipes.

• Drain your water heaters and turn off exterior faucets to prevent them from freezing when temperatures dip.
• Check your pipes for leaks and ensure they have adequate insulation to protect them from the cold winter temperatures.
• Check the water pressure on your tanks and visually inspect them for damage, if applicable.
• Bleed any radiators you have, if applicable. Bleeding a radiator involves letting trapped air out of your water tank system to prevent cold spots.

Safety

Essential commercial property maintenance for fall should always include work on assets that involve safety.

• Begin by checking your carbon monoxide and smoke detectors to make sure they’re working correctly, and replace the batteries.
• Inspect and check the operation of your generators.

Fall HVAC Maintenance

Maintaining your HVAC system before the start of each season, especially completing inspections, is important to prepare for the change of seasons.

• Make sure your air conditioning units are free of safety hazards as you prepare to wind down their use for the year.
• Perform a furnace inspection and change the filters.

Electrical System Maintenance

Seasonal fall maintenance should also include an inspection of your electrical system. Make sure it is prepared for increased capacity in the fall and winter months. After all, you may need additional lighting or space heaters and you don’t want to blow a fuse.

Other Fall Preventive Maintenance

While fall preventive maintenance tips you should follow will vary for every commercial building, there are some miscellaneous tasks that everyone should put on their fall checklist before winter.

• Begin by checking for potential places where pests may try to enter your building. This includes gaps in doorframes, windows with extra space near the frame, vents, and any holes or cracks in walls and siding.
• Keep your entryways free of mud, leaves, and moisture to prevent slips and falls.
• Check your building’s doors and windows for cracks, drafts, and worn weather stripping, using a screwdriver to probe the trim. You can fix it by adding caulk and or replacing the weather stripping with new pieces.
• Inspect exterior lighting and repair, replace, or add lights as needed. Keep in mind that there will be more lighting hours that occur as the days shorten.
• Check your insulation in both the walls and roof. Cut slits in the vapor barrier if needed to allow moisture to escape.
• Inspect all outdoor assets and make any repairs as needed before the winter months. It will be much more bearable to work outdoors now than when it’s really cold outside.

How CMMS Software Helps Facilitate Fall Maintenance

Okay, so now you have a comprehensive list of fall maintenance tasks to accomplish. The question is: what tools can you use to prioritize, schedule, and keep a record of these tasks? One essential tool is computerized maintenance management system (CMMS) software. A CMMS can facilitate all types of maintenance work, offering several valuable features such as work order management, asset management, inventory management, and maintenance reports.

For the purposes of fall maintenance tasks, the preventive maintenance scheduling feature of CMMS software will be the most helpful, along with work order templates or checklists. These are stored in the CMMS, where they can be updated at any time and used to create new work orders. Preventive maintenance scheduling gives you a clear picture of upcoming work that needs to be done. As needed, you can add new work orders to the overall maintenance schedule to account for unexpected emergency tasks.

Overall, CMMS software is a great organization tool that ensures you can manage all of your maintenance operation information, from work order records to inventory to service manuals and equipment warranties. You can even adjust settings to skip certain jobs in the winter months or add other jobs for the fall months only. Using CMMS software minimizes asset downtime, streamlines maintenance processes, and extends asset life through more proactive maintenance work.

FTMaintenance Can Meet All of your Fall Maintenance Needs

FTMaintenance is CMMS software designed to help you manage all of your maintenance work in one place. FTMaintenance scheduling capabilities ensure you can keep up with every upcoming maintenance job easily. You can also utilize the Work Order Template feature to save information you want to use again in future work orders, saving you time and reducing inaccuracies when creating reoccurring work orders.

FasTrak SoftWorks, Inc. has over 30 years of experience serving customers in all industries. We have the knowledge to provide timely, helpful information such as fall maintenance tips to get you through the cold weather months as smoothly as possible. To learn more about how CMMS software can assist you with seasonal maintenance in the fall, schedule a demo of FTMaintenance today.

According to KPILibrary.com, maintenance efficiency is “a measure of the maintenance effort required to deliver required performance levels from equipment (or a plant).” More specifically, maintenance efficiency can be measured through a ratio of the total asset uptime divided by the total maintenance cost for that asset, which gives you an efficiency percentage.

In any organization, it’s important to have an efficient maintenance workflow. There are some obstacles to maintenance management workflow efficiency, but using computerized maintenance management system (CMMS) software can help to address them. Improving the efficiency of your maintenance operations will save you money in multiple areas of your organization. In this blog post, we will discuss how common CMMS features address maintenance efficiency killers, solving your maintenance problems, and boosting productivity.

How CMMS Software Features Address Maintenance Efficiency Killers

While one goal of every maintenance manager is for the maintenance technicians to work as efficiently as possible, it’s inevitable that sometimes, things come up. There’s a reason why you cannot schedule jobs for every minute of the maintenance shift. If you were to plan a full schedule of preventive maintenance work for every technician, it would be likely that an unforeseen failure would require corrective maintenance, resulting in a delay of planned work. This is an inefficient, but unavoidable use of your staff’s time. However, CMMS software features can address other, more avoidable maintenance efficiency killers.

Work Order Templates

When maintenance departments manage work without a CMMS, they rely on emails and paper documents to keep track of work orders and other maintenance related documents. This often results in maintenance technicians and managers scrolling through their emails, only to find the message containing the maintenance job instructions they need is gone.

With CMMS software, the ability to create preventive maintenance (PM) work order templates ensures you have instructions for each planned maintenance job readily available, which you can refer back to and use for future work. You don’t have to memorize or reiterate specific job procedures every time.

Attachments

Before beginning a maintenance job, the maintenance team may need to rifle through stacks of paper to find a warranty or owner’s manual, which can be stressful and time consuming. This can cause a delay in completing corrective, predictive, and preventive maintenance work.

CMMS software has an attachment feature which allows you to upload any supplementary documents that you need for various maintenance jobs. The maintenance team can look at equipment manuals, warranty information, diagrams, troubleshooting guides, and more directly in the software. These documents can be viewed on a smart phone or tablet so you never have to leave the jobsite.

Maintenance History

When maintenance teams do not use CMMS software, technicians may need to walk across the plant floor repeatedly to ask others questions about the status of work orders or previous asset repair information.

CMMS software has easily accessible, searchable, and reportable history you can refer to whenever necessary so you don’t have to search all over for information you need. A CMMS system helps maintenance technicians and managers to be more prepared for executing work by having maintenance history readily accessible to review in minutes. CMMS software brings together all of the maintenance information you need in one place so you can make smarter decisions faster. This leads to more maintenance work getting accomplished quickly and therefore, less asset downtime. Anyone who works in maintenance management knows that minimizing asset downtime is crucial to maximizing production output.

Inventory Management

Maintenance teams that don’t use CMMS software lack quick access to MRO inventory management data, such as part counts, purchase order history, and vendor contact information. Looking around the stockroom without knowing exactly where things are or if parts are available wastes time.

The inventory management capabilities in CMMS software help maintenance team employees know where MRO parts are and where to source them from. This information is always readily available and can be updated quickly to ensure accuracy at all times.

Service Requests

Managing incoming maintenance requests can be difficult when you don’t have a solidified digital system in place. The process can easily get disorganized. When feedback regarding incoming maintenance requests comes from anyone and everyone, the maintenance team can be redirected to any job. When someone calls a technician, he makes an on-the-spot decision to prioritize the new work with the information he has directly at hand. When an email flagged as urgent comes in, he quickly goes to complete that job. If someone stops him in the hallway, he tends to that job next. This method will not satisfy management and is not productive.

When outstanding planned maintenance work and incoming new maintenance requests aren’t being tracked, the maintenance team becomes reactive in nature. However, CMMS software drives maintenance efficiency with features such as maintenance requests, which standardizes the process. These systems are easy to use and manage. People outside of the maintenance department can identify potential problems and submit a request. When the maintenance request is received, maintenance managers can determine if the request should be approved to become a work order and if so, what the priority level is.

Additionally, a formal maintenance request system and process saves technicians time because they can review all maintenance job requests at one time, in one place. Checking work order statuses can be done in minutes and people outside the maintenance department are automatically notified when their request advances toward completion. It can prevent a small issue from going unnoticed and turning into a major, costly repair.

PM Scheduling

Without the proper tools, it can feel like an overwhelming task to create a preventive maintenance program or schedule. Without scheduled preventive maintenance for critical equipment, it is inevitable that there will be more equipment failures and downtime, creating a vicious cycle of corrective, on-the-fly work that can be difficult for the maintenance team to escape.

CMMS systems have easy-to-set-up preventive maintenance schedules that can clearly communicate work requirements. They also facilitate giving advanced notice of upcoming preventive maintenance tasks. With CMMS software, you can create a more efficient maintenance management workflow by keeping track of reoccurring jobs and their estimated durations. Maintenance managers can also schedule preventive maintenance work orders at any interval needed.

Corrective Maintenance Work Order Tracking

Another hindrance to efficient maintenance is lack of job time tracking for corrective maintenance work. This can lead to gaps of lost time when you know work was being done, but are uncertain of what the work was or how long it took. For example, a job that was supposed to take 20 minutes took 40 minutes, but there was no record of the reason for the longer duration, or whether or not the extra time was warranted. The timeframes of unexpected corrective maintenance jobs should still be logged after they are completed to maintain comprehensive maintenance history.

With CMMS software work order tracking, you can log an unplanned or emergency job’s duration immediately afterward to ensure your labor hours were accounted for. Logging unexpected maintenance also helps maintenance managers delegate work more effectively when a similar situation arises again. Any time job duration is being tracked, it will help the maintenance department make more informed decisions about future scheduling and job prioritization.

Reporting

To run reports without maintenance management software, maintenance managers need to compile them manually. This process includes writing down the data on paper, entering this information into a spreadsheet, and then using word processing software to create charts, graphs, and images as needed. Going through all of these steps manually can take hours—hours that could be spent delegating, reviewing, or completing maintenance work.

With maintenance records and reports available in CMMS software, you will have easy access to electronic records, which saves you the time and effort that it takes to manually assemble data. For example, you can look at last month’s air duct usage costs and you have data comparing that to any other metric you need to. All you have to do is query your report and you will have data to share with management.

Improve Maintenance Efficiency with FTMaintenance

FTMaintenance provides valuable tools for improving maintenance operational efficiencies to save your organization money. Documenting processes and automating workflows with FTMaintenance means that you and the maintenance team have digital records of every asset, inspection, and repair to refer to at any time. In addition to the maintenance work order process, FTMaintenance CMMS assists maintenance teams with asset management, inventory management, corrective and predictive maintenance tracking, and document storage. To learn more about FTMaintenance, schedule a demo with us today.

The shortage of maintenance technicians is a problem that is neither new nor one that is easy to solve. In the last 20 years, a number of generational, societal, and economic factors have contributed to this growing concern. That’s the bad news. The good news is there are several feasible solutions that can help solve this dilemma. While it won’t be resolved overnight, progress is being made. Here we will talk about why the problem exists and how to combat the maintenance technician shortage.

Why is there a Shortage of Technicians?

There are several reasons why there is a maintenance technician shortage in today’s industrial environment.

More Soon-to-Be Retirees than New Prospects

One major reason for the technician shortage is that there are more seasoned veterans retiring than there are new, entry-level workers entering the workforce. According to Greg Settle, Director of National Initiatives at the TechForce Foundation, as of 2019, 125,000 positions need to be replaced in the automotive industry alone as experienced technicians retire.

In addition, there is a need to fill countless newly created maintenance technician positions across a variety of industries. Cutting edge technology is making assets more complex, requiring a more diversified skill set. In turn, this creates the need for more specialization, which requires more new job openings. While the new positions are expected to be filled completely by 2022, the number of retirees leaving their roles continues to grow. Statistically, everyone in the baby boom generation will reach retirement age by 2031. As these older workers leave their positions, they take their years of knowledge with them.

College Promoted Over the Trades

For the last few generations, four-year college degrees were promoted over the trades—almost to a fault. Many students were guided to believe that obtaining a Bachelor’s degree was the best and sometimes the only path to a lucrative, stable career. While many careers do require a 4-year degree, many others do not.

This major focus on college programs has led to a generational skills gap, meaning there are fewer individuals in their 20s that possess the skills needed to be successful in these positions. Technical programs focused on training young professionals for jobs such as maintenance technician positions provide the skills needed to build a successful career.

Dwindling Interest

Currently, 46% of organizations that have trouble filling maintenance roles say that it’s due to lack of interest. Because of the way maintenance technician roles were presented to Generation X in their academic careers (as less lucrative and secure than jobs requiring a 4-year degree), interest in this type of position has dwindled significantly. Industries that suffer most from lack of interest in maintenance technician roles include fleet, property management, and automotive. Since these industries tend to offer lower pay than others, it makes it more difficult to attract and retain workers with the right skill level.

Another contributing factor to the lessening interest among some new grads may be outdated and inefficient work environments. While OEM automotive environments are on top of updating manufacturing working conditions, other industries still operate with poorly lit and cluttered workspaces. The workflow is often unorganized due to the placement of workers and machines. Many new workers are not attracted to that type of environment.

Lack of Correct Skill Sets

It’s important to note that rapidly changing technology requires a diversified skill set. Industrial digitization, collection of more data, and equipment with cutting edge technology requires more technical knowledge. Those who have or can quickly obtain these technical skills need to regularly supplement their knowledge and learn new skills to stay current with industry developments. In any organization, there will be employees who are unwilling to put in the effort to learn these new skills. These types of roles (as many others do) also require soft or “people” skills, and 12% of newly available applicants lack these skills.

Tight Budgets

The need for companies to be competitive in their product markets is making it necessary to reduce costs, therefore creating tight budgets for organizations looking to fill maintenance technician positions. Different industries have the ability to offer higher or lower compensation based on product demand—for example, fleet maintenance technicians tend to make more than a technician who works on amusement park rides. It is expected that 74% of businesses will experience a major shortfall of maintenance workers in the next five years, which will result in the loss of millions of dollars. This loss of revenue will make it even more difficult to provide competitive wages for the workers they do hire, thus compounding the problem.

Strained Relationships between Maintenance Managers and Executives

Finally, a common contributor to the problem of technician shortage is strained relationships between maintenance managers and executives. When maintenance managers and technicians feel that they aren’t respected or visible to executive level management, it affects morale and work quality. In many organizations, the maintenance team is almost ignored until there is a problem.

Solutions to Maintenance Technician Shortage

While the problem of the shortage of technicians is complex, there are solutions that, when put in place, will help your organization combat this problem over time.

Invest in Technical Training

An important solution that every organization should implement if possible is technical training. Training should be ongoing because technology continually evolves. There are organizations that offer onsite consulting and training services to modernize maintenance programs, such as implementing Total Productive Maintenance. It’s also crucial to educate your team on software that will help them be more efficient throughout their work day. Modern maintenance training programs will help attract individuals who have newly entered the workforce.

Invest in CMMS Software

Computerized Maintenance Management System (CMMS) software is another solution that combats the technician shortage. CMMS software is a tool that allows fewer technicians to do much more during their workday. Maintenance work completed with the use of maintenance management software is distributed more quickly and accurately. In the long run, it results in less maintenance needed on machines, saving the organization time and money. The monetary savings achieved through the use of CMMS software allows the maintenance team to invest more in the hiring process, training, and on-the-job incentives that will result in better employee retention.

Provide Resources for Completing Certifications

Certifications are geared towards maintenance technicians who are already on the job and seeking to improve their skills. While it is up to your employees to take initiative to improve their skills, a step towards resolving the maintenance technician shortage is to provide your team with resources (work time and tuition funding) to obtain certifications. A few of the most popular certificates for maintenance professionals include:

• Certified Maintenance and Reliability Technician
• Certified Maintenance and Reliability Professional
• Certified Facility Manager
• Certified Plant Engineer

There are also industry-specific certifications technicians can obtain, such as automotive and diesel service technician programs. Some of those are offered through the NADA Foundation.

Partner with Tech Schools for Internships or Apprenticeships

Internships and apprenticeships, which can be obtained through or independent of reputable tech schools, will train new technicians before they begin working full time. Any organization with a maintenance team can partner with these tech schools (or create these opportunities on their own). Developing positive professional relationships with these schools will provide you with additional resources for these programs. Internships are short term, often part-time job opportunities for students that can be paid or unpaid. Apprenticeship positions are always paid, longer term, and almost guarantee a full time role upon completion.

Interview and Offer Consulting Roles to Retirees

When your senior maintenance technicians are preparing to retire, one thing you can do to overcome the maintenance technician shortage is interview these technicians before they leave. Doing so will help you retain the knowledge they have gained about your machines and how to perform specific maintenance work. Here are some things you can ask them about:

• Key people and important documents
• Existing projects and deadlines
• Regular and reoccurring duties
• Summary of their role and responsibilities

After you interview your soon-to-be retirees, you can implement any new knowledge they have provided to improve upon recruiting efforts, training, documentation, and maintenance procedures. Many organizations go beyond a single interview with their employees who are ready to retire, offering them consulting arrangements. These experienced maintenance workers can remain semi-retired while providing longer-term transfer of knowledge to new technicians who join the company.

Provide a Fulfilling, Competitive Work Environment

Finally, one of the most important ways to address the maintenance technician shortage is by providing a fulfilling, competitive work environment. In any job or industry, the key to enjoying one’s job is passion. Employees must be passionate about what they do, and managers must be passionate about mentoring them in what they do.

Monetary compensation is one component that creates a fulfilling environment. For example, using an hourly pay model with production-based incentive may be more competitive in today’s market than traditional flat-rate pay models. That being said, be straightforward with what your compensation and benefits are when recruiting new hires. Other things young workers are looking for in a fulfilling work environment include working with other like-minded people, building their skills regularly, and the sense of having a hand in producing the products that are used every day.

Use FTMaintenance to Combat the Technician Shortage

CMMS software such as FTMaintenance can help your team be more efficient which will ease the problems associated with the technician shortage. CMMS software proficiency is a key part of improving technical training for new maintenance team members, as well as for seasoned technicians who have not used CMMS software in the past.

Using CMMS software will lower maintenance costs. With the ability to track maintenance, labor, and inventory, maintenance managers can pinpoint superfluous costs and make decisions on where they can afford to cut those costs. Maintenance reports give you insight into maintenance-related problems and help you to use data to make decisions. The correct data-driven decisions will positively impact your bottom line. If you need more labor resources, the customized data available in your CMMS system will help justify those needs to upper management. FTMaintenance work orders can broken down into easy-to-understand tasks, which can help less experienced technicians more easily determine what work they need to perform. Additionally, work orders will be distributed and completed more quickly, ensuring that more work gets done in less time, increasing productivity.

To find out how FTMaintenance can help you do all of this and more, schedule a demo today.

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.

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:

• Maintenance management expertise in the following areas:
  • Work order management
  • Asset management
  • Inventory management
  • Preventive maintenance

• 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.

When equipment unexpectedly fails in a manufacturing environment, maintenance staff is immediately placed “on the spot.” Equipment failure creates unplanned downtime where production completely stops. Although achieving zero unplanned downtime is nearly impossible, reducing unplanned downtime is a top objective for a maintenance department. Because unplanned downtime impacts the entire organization, understanding the true cost of downtime will help the organization make better business decisions.

Factors that Impact the Cost of Unplanned Downtime

80% of companies experience unplanned downtime each year. According to research conducted by Aberdeen, the average cost of unplanned downtime in large corporations per hour is $260,000! The average equipment outage time is as long as 4 hours. With such large dollar amounts at stake, there needs to be a way for companies to significantly reduce unplanned downtime.

Unplanned downtime affects more than the loss of direct production from machines. Organizations must take into account the costly effects of unplanned downtime on the maintenance department, production, sales, employees, and other areas. When added together, the cost of downtime is considerable.

Cost of Downtime Factors Explained

• Increased maintenance department costs – When equipment unexpectedly breaks down, maintenance staff have to respond immediately. This forces the maintenance department to rearrange priorities. Preventive maintenance plans often suffer in this process, which results in an increase in future equipment failures and more downtime.
• Employees affected by downtime – It’s not only maintenance employees who are affected by downtime. Production staff who cannot perform their jobs because equipment is down still need to be paid or they will lose work hours. A serious breakdown may require additional staff to be scheduled, overtime to be paid, or outside help from a vendor or specialist.
• Fixed organization costs – The fixed cost to maintain the organization and production infrastructure continue to mount even when no product is produced.
• Lost revenue – Your entire organization is impacted when no or reduced revenue is made while a machine is down. The more hours the machine is down, the more significant this impact becomes. Money made on each part or product after production costs is reduced significantly.

Intangible Costs of Unplanned Downtime

The total cost of unplanned downtime goes beyond numbers the loss of production which can be easily calculated. Other factors include loss of credibility and reputation with customers, stress on employees, and lack of process improvement.

The loss of credibility and reputation with customers occurs when the organization fails to deliver products on time. When customers no longer believe in the company, they will look elsewhere for products to fulfill their needs. Stress comes from employees worrying about how to make up for the unplanned downtime, which can lead to rash decisions and easily avoidable mistakes. When the team is worried about putting out fires, it leaves little time to improve maintenance processes. While these things are not easily measured in exact numbers, they can increase the total cost of downtime.

What Organizations Do to Reduce Unplanned Downtime

There are a number of ways organizations strive to reduce downtime. These strategies include:

• Employing Total Productive Maintenance (TPM) to keep equipment in optimum working condition to avoid breakdowns and resultant production downtime
• Making a printed list of PM procedures that production agrees maintenance should perform
• Scheduling planned, preventive maintenance downtime
• Implementing a quality CMMS (computerized maintenance management system)

These things can be done more quickly and accurately when supported by CMMS software.

Reduce Unplanned Downtime with a CMMS

One way to reduce unplanned downtime is through CMMS software. A CMMS assists you with creating a preventive maintenance program, as well as implementing and documenting preventive maintenance activities. Supporting an efficient, rigorous preventive maintenance plan to meet today’s industry standards may not be possible without a CMMS.

Using a CMMS to manage MRO inventory assures parts are on hand when a breakdown does occur so that the equipment can be repaired as soon as possible. There are also ways to measure equipment performance, providing clues as to when to perform preventive maintenance, which also reduces downtime and extends asset life.

FTMaintenance Helps You Reduce Unplanned Downtime

FTMaintenance is industry-leading CMMS software that will help your organization reduce unplanned downtime. You can schedule preventive maintenance tasks ahead of time directly in the CMMS, choosing daily, weekly, monthly, seasonal, or any other frequency. In addition to focusing on preventive maintenance, you can also inventory and assets, and generate maintenance reports. Request a demo today to learn more about how FTMaintenance can help you reduce downtime on your critical assets.

Preventive maintenance (PM) is one of the foundations for a well-run maintenance program. While many maintenance departments have procedures in place, there always room to improve a preventive maintenance plan. Continuous improvement leads to growth, so you should always look for ways to make your current processes better. If you are looking to take your maintenance operations to the next level, follow these 12 tips for improving your preventive maintenance plan from our computerized maintenance management system (CMMS) experts.

Tips for your Assets

1. Make a comprehensive list of all assets the maintenance team is responsible for maintaining.

This can be a good place to start—in order to improve preventive maintenance through better planned maintenance of vital assets, you need to know where and what all of them are. This list should include all the specifications and maintenance instructions of every asset, from the HVAC system to essential production line equipment, buildings, vehicles, and property. Many CMMS systems have an asset hierarchy capability, in which you can link various parts to their assets, assets to their locations, and more.

2. Assess all of your assets.

This assessment should include the condition of the equipment, repair history, total hours of operation, downtime, and estimated life expectancy. There are a handful of questions you can ask to carry out a complete assessment of your equipment:

• What does it take to maintain your equipment? (e.g., tools, parts, labor resources, and costs)
• Is it cheaper to replace older models than to continue performing maintenance on them?
• Does the cost of downtime outweigh the cost of replacing the asset?
• Do any of your existing assets pose a safety hazard?
• Does your current equipment meet all organizational goals?
• Do you have the parts inventory to service machines quickly?

3. Listen to your assets.

In an ideal world, you would perform the same preventive maintenance tasks on each asset at regular intervals without any need for variations. Of course, the world of maintenance is far from ideal, so it’s important to listen for noises (and look for signs) that suggest your assets need some additional TLC. For instance, are bearings squeaking from dirty lubricants as a result of excessive wear? Are motors noisy from machine overload? Is there water dripping from pumps?

If any of these are occurring, perform the necessary repairs sooner rather than later, and adjust your upcoming preventive maintenance schedule accordingly. While the repairs themselves fall outside of planned preventive maintenance, staying on top of these minor unplanned preventive maintenance tasks will minimize production downtime or conflicts in your preventive maintenance schedule.

4. Develop standards for measuring performance and improving efficiency.

This can be accomplished through analyzing maintenance reports, determining what benchmarks need to be set, and setting clear expectations for your machine performance and your people. You can use a number of asset management Key Performance Indicators (KPIs) to make decisions to improve upon your preventive maintenance plan.

For more information on getting starting with preventive maintenance, read Create a Preventive Maintenance Program in 8 Easy Steps

Tips for your People

5. Assess your maintenance team.

When trying to improve any type of process, you need to know where everyone on your team stands. Here are a handful of questions you can ask to determine what changes you may need to make within your team to improve your preventive maintenance plan.

• Are all of your maintenance team members qualified to perform your preventive maintenance tasks on all assets?
• Will improving your preventive maintenance plan require any help from third party services?
• Do you have adequate resources to keep up with preventive maintenance or do you need to hire additional team members?
• Do you have backup resources in the event of an injury or leave of absence, so that crucial PM jobs don’t get missed or delayed?
• Who is responsible for which assets?
• How are staff members held accountable for ensuring PM deadlines are met?

6. Involve stakeholders.

Ask key CMMS stakeholders for  input on how well your current CMMS software is meeting the organization’s needs (if applicable). Reports can be used to compare and contrast various metrics related to preventive maintenance over time. When other stakeholders are involved, you are more likely to receive budgetary support you may need to obtain additional resources to improve upon your PM plan.

7. Create a checklist to use with every PM job.

These can be distributed to your team via printed documents, email, or included in the attachments area of your CMMS. Checklists can be as general or specific as you like. Since every asset requires different PM, you can create a general list with blank fields to fill out for each asset, or create a customized list for each type of asset. When expectations are clearly laid out, it makes it easier to stay organized and ensure standards are met.

Tips for your Workflow

8. Measure the percentage of preventive maintenance tasks completed on time.

It is essential to track metrics and performance in order to improve your preventive maintenance plan. Doing so allows you to focus on setting goals like to achieve (if you’re not satisfied with the current level of PM compliance), and leads to further analysis of data that would reveal what is preventing tasks from being completed on time.

9. Do not perform unnecessary preventive maintenance.

Focus on eliminating tasks that do not add value. According to Reliable Plant, 30% of preventive maintenance tasks organizations carry out do not add value to production. Examples of these tasks include duplicate jobs, tasks done too frequently, and jobs that should be conditioned-based instead. When you determine what those are for your team, you can take them out of your maintenance schedule.

10. Create maintenance kits to complete preventive maintenance jobs more efficiently.

Kits are tools and supplies that can be bundled together to carry out a specific task. For example, you might create a kit with a the appropriate type and amount of motor oil, rag, funnel, drip pan, and owner’s manual to perform an oil change. Having these kits ready means that a maintenance technician can “grab and go”, rather than searching the stockroom and gathering all these supplies.

11. Create and maintain a centralized database to schedule and track preventive maintenance tasks.

This is much easier to do with a CMMS. A CMMS stores all types of maintenance information, including asset specifications, maintenance work order history, tasks lists, attachments such as owner’s manuals, vendor contact information, inventory, and more. It is essential to have the support of a software system to facilitate the best preventive maintenance plan possible.

12. Look for areas of improvement after the plan has been implemented, review the plan periodically, and make changes where necessary.

This last tip ties all of them together. After implementing changes, you should continually evaluate your improved preventive maintenance plan and continue to make changes as your maintenance management needs evolve.

Improve your Preventive Maintenance Program with FTMaintenance

FTMaintenance is designed to help you improve your preventive maintenance program. If you’re currently tracking your preventive maintenance activities via pen and paper, spreadsheets, or emails, our CMMS will make everything much easier for you. You can employ flexible scheduling in the CMMS, including either date or run-time based PMs and receive automatic notifications in advance of due dates. Request a demo today to learn more about how FTMaintenance can help you improve your preventive maintenance plan.

At home or in the workplace, there will always be unexpected repairs—like when a falling tree branch breaks a window. You have to install a new window, which is corrective maintenance. Other major repairs may be avoided if the correct preventive maintenance is performed ahead of failure.

For example, you might decide to trim off a dead or overhanging branch before it falls during the next storm and breaks the window, which would be preventive maintenance. Due to budget constraints, miscommunication from management, or limited resources, in some production environments, it may not always be obvious when to use corrective vs. preventive maintenance. We’ll help you make informed decisions by discussing and comparing them both in detail.

About Corrective Maintenance

Corrective maintenance (CM) is maintenance performed to restore a non- or under-performing asset to an optimum or operational condition. Examples of corrective maintenance include:

• Pulling weeds as part of facilities maintenance
• Replacing the alternator in a fleet vehicle after it refused to start
• Replacing an entire machine in a production line post-failure
• Changing a belt on a machine that malfunctioned

Corrective maintenance can fall into two categories: scheduled and unscheduled. Scheduled corrective maintenance is a repair that needs to be made, but doesn’t have to be performed immediately. Unscheduled corrective maintenance occurs when a repair is required immediately due to the failure of an asset critical to production. As you may have guessed, unscheduled corrective maintenance usually takes priority over scheduled corrective maintenance.

While corrective maintenance can get a bad rap, it is a valid maintenance strategy and in some cases, the best type of maintenance to perform. It has advantages such as less planning required, a simplified need-based process, and saving money when maintenance involves a simple process (minimal labor) replacing inexpensive parts.

Read Blog Post: What is Corrective Maintenance?

About Preventive Maintenance

Preventive maintenance (PM) is maintenance that is proactively performed on an asset with the goal of lessening the likelihood of failure, reducing unexpected downtime, and prolonging its useful life. Examples of preventive maintenance include:

• Changing the oil on a riding lawn mower
• Cleaning an air duct
• Replacing rusted bolts on a machine
• Inspecting a production line asset

Just like with corrective maintenance, there are two types of preventive maintenance: calendar-based and runtime-based. Calendar-based PM is done on a planned, periodic basis, anywhere from once per week to once per year. Runtime-based PM is done based on how long a machine has been operating since the last preventive maintenance task was performed on the asset. For example, you might schedule lubrication of a machine after every 3000 hours of runtime.

Preventive maintenance has a number of advantages, including improved scheduling, lower, more controlled maintenance costs, and less stressful preparation since parts, supplies, and labor are scheduled to be available ahead of time.

Read Blog Post: What is Preventive Maintenance?

Difference Between Corrective and Preventive Maintenance

If you’ve been getting by without a preventive maintenance plan in place, is shifting the focus to preventing machine failure really worth the effort? See the chart below for a comparison of corrective and preventive maintenance.

The recommended balance for maintenance is 80% preventive to 20% corrective. While you want to lean toward preventive maintenance whenever possible, corrective maintenance is still important and will never be eliminated completely. A cost-benefits analysis on all of your assets may help to support the case for scheduled corrective maintenance.

As we mentioned earlier, some corrective maintenance is unexpected and unavoidable, but you should still approach these sudden repair jobs in an organized, systematic way. Ideally, you want to use PM to extend the lifespan of all your assets, but you need to prioritize when you’re just starting out. Begin with the assets that are essential to production.

Ultimately, making decisions about when to use preventive or corrective maintenance depends on your industry, organizational goals, and types of equipment you maintain. However, a CMMS can help to make those decisions easier.

FTMaintenance Helps with Corrective and Preventive Maintenance

FTMaintenance is a CMMS with features such as preventive maintenance task lists, automated work order notifications, and auto-distribution. This powerful software helps organizations take control of their maintenance operations, fostering a shift from an emphasis on reactionary corrective maintenance to more planned preventive maintenance. As a result, more breakdowns are prevented, major repairs and unplanned shutdowns are reduced, and asset life expectancy is increased. Take a tour to learn more about FTMaintenance.