Title: Facililties Maintenance
Course: 2016FA-MCO-110-401 > Section: Module 4: Facilities Maintenance and HVAC

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Facilities Maintenance (FM)

Facilities Maintenance (sometimes called facilities management) refers to the many various tasks and strategies that are integral to keeping a business facility operating. It can include equipment and systems maintenance as well as HVAC, plumbing, electrical, and other duties more particular to the facility. Specialized mission critical operations may have very specific needs from their facilities maintenance team, sometimes requiring industry specific training and certifications. Some of the goals of a comprehensive maintenance plan include a reduction in capital repairs, a reduction in unscheduled downtime, and extending the life of equipment and systems. [1]

To keep a facility running it takes more than just repair, there are strategies that must be employed. These strategies, once put into place, can help a facility to adhere to standards and guidelines, stick with a schedule, avoid voiding equipment warranties and otherwise keep moving forward in keeping the facility and all its systems operating safely and efficiently. A maintenance strategy is a plan of action designed to keep a particular system or systems maintained in such a way as to provide cost efficiency and reliability. A company may utilize more than one maintenance strategy for its different systems.

Preventive Maintenance (PM)

One type of maintenance strategy is called preventive maintenance (PM). PM is caring for the facility, equipment, and systems in such a way as to prevent breakage and down time. This maintenance strategy involves working on (maintaining) equipment that is not broken and can help to minimize wear and breakage and involves inspection, replacing worn parts, cleaning, adjusting, lubricating, and similar work that will help mitigate failures or hopefully avoid them all together.

Predictive Maintenance (PdM)

A maintenance plan that includes determining the status or condition of a system or piece of equipment in order to predict the best time to perform maintenance. Predictive maintenance or PdM is also known as condition based maintenance. In this strategy, equipment is only maintained when necessary and this offers a savings over PM. Additional savings are made possible since there is a need for fewer spare parts to be kept on hand and because PdM requires shorter and fewer periods of planned downtime for maintenance. Oil analysis, vibration analysis, acoustic analysis, and other technologies are often used to help determine the condition of equipment when utilizing the PdM strategy [2] [3] [4].

Reliability Centered Maintenance (RCM)

There is even a strategy that uses a process to decide on the best maintenance strategy for each particular system or piece of equipment; this process is called RCM or Reliability Centered Maintenance. The process involves identifying potential points of failure, what could cause a failure, what affect the failure would have on the system or operation, and what could possibly mitigate the failure. RCM focuses on reliability but recognizes that equipment is only designed to last for a certain amount of time. A decision making flow chart or logic tree is often associated with RCM [5].

Maintenance Procedures

Documentation

In order to ensure that information about things that are critical to a facility is always available, a documentation policy is usually in place. Having complete and accurate documentation can help in cases where employees leave the company or are absent. Businesses strive to have their documentation be an ever-changing source of critical information that can be used in managing emergencies or critical events [6, pp. 14-15].

Work Orders

A work order is a formal request from a customer, either internal or external, for a contractor or other employee to provide a service. For the purpose of our module, a work order is a formal request, traditionally in writing (can be issued electronically), that alerts a maintenance team that repair or maintenance needs to be performed. Work orders serve as a way to keep track of and prioritize what needs to be done and what has been done, to hold the maintenance team as well as other employees accountable, to record the history of equipment repair and maintenance, and to track expenses [7]. The work order can be used in conjunction with a CMMS to provide data that can be analyzed to improve efficiency and mitigate costs.

Computerized Maintenance Management (CMMS)

A computerized maintenance management system (CMMS) is sometimes used to help manage a large operation. A CMMS can interface with the work order system and with inventory and other systems. It can keep track of data relating to resources available, maintenance inventory, history of work performed and the dates it was performed, as well as provide data that helps with safety - like keeping track of hazards, precautions, etc. CMMSs can be used in scheduling maintenance. Some CMMSs can even print safety procedures on work orders in addition to planning work assignments and dispatching labor resources [8].

Maintenance Key Performance Indicators

In the field of maintenance as well as in business in general you may hear the term KPI or key performance indicator(s) (sometimes simply referred to as performance indicators or PIs). KPIs are a tool used by management to help measure how well a business, or an aspect of a business such as maintenance, are doing. You could potentially see many different KPIs that can be used to measure the “health” of a facility’s maintenance team or department. The process of maintaining a system or piece of equipment, often called an asset, as well as the result of that maintenance are measured.

Change Management (CM)

Another term that you will probably hear in a mission critical environment is change management or CM. Change management is the set of rules, procedures, and other tools in place to control or manage a change effort [9]. A CM plan would probably include rules for how things should be communicated, who they should be communicated to, and who is responsible for the process or asset that is involved in a change. A CM plan or procedure will vary depending on the particular change that is being implemented.

Objectives met:
- C4
- 4.2