Editorial - This Caring Business (January)
Property
Maintenance –
the second highest cost !
By
Tony Lines of Linton Management Services Limited
It
is estimated that the overall expenditure in the care market is approximately £9.1
billion per annum. Of this amount
it is calculated that approximately £500 million is spent on property
maintenance. Therefore, property maintenance is likely to be the second highest
cost to a business after salaries.
In
some organisations, maintenance tends to receive attention only when equipment
becomes broken or properties start to deteriorate. This approach is often
thought to be cost effective in the short term, but it impacts severely on
future expenditure.
A
programme of Planned Preventive Maintenance (PPM) will normally achieve two
things - reduce the number of plant or system failures and reduce the overall
expenditure. The reduction in costs
can, of course, support your profit or it can fund other developments in your
business.
The
management of maintenance can be very complicated and time consuming.
Property maintenance has such a wide range of services that, the people
given the task of administering it often do not have the knowledge, experience
or inclination to enable them to be efficient or cost effective.
Maintenance
is often low on the list of priorities because, when other financial pressures
exist, it can often be ignored without any obvious immediate impact, but it will
catch up with you. Systems
deteriorate if they are not properly serviced in the same way that if a roof
that leaks, and is not repaired, will cause significant damage to the building.
So, how can you ensure that your maintenance is properly controlled and managed
without having to employ staff to administer contractors?
The
management of maintenance can now be handled by professional companies
(sometimes called facility managers) that will relieve you of the daily
responsibility of PPM and breakdown maintenance. Firstly, they will organise the Planned Preventive
Maintenance and produce a schedule of contracts and Contractors. You will also
be provided with a number to call to report unplanned (Reactive) maintenance.
Their ‘Service Centre’ will then manage the process through to completion.
The management process will include receiving and verifying the Contractors report and account, scanning these to the computer based management system to form the job “history” and then paying the Contractor. In short, giving you peace of mind and allowing you the valuable commodity of time to focus on your core business.
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Management Services Limited
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