Negosentro|Why Maintaining Your Business Facility is Crucial to Success|To operate successfully, a business must maintain its facilities. Whether they are used for production, warehousing, retail or office space, proper maintenance can encompass a host of tasks and responsibilities.
Proactive Vs. Reactive Maintenance
When facilities maintenance is discussed, the conversation often goes to repairs and general upkeep. That negates the importance of strategic planning for facilities needs. Facilities upkeep generally falls into one of two categories: reactive or proactive. Understanding the difference can help you run a more successful and efficient business.
Organizations that adopt a proactive maintenance strategy tend to plan for routine upkeep, updates to equipment, and future upgrades that could help reduce long-term costs and repairs. They are forward thinking enough to dedicate a portion of their budget to needs that have not yet come up. When you adopt a proactive maintenance plan, you are investing in your business’ physical infrastructure.
Reactive maintenance, on the other hand, refers to a wait and see policy that repairs things when they break. This can be a sign of poor planning, or it may be an indicator of financial concerns within a business. Reactive maintenance programs do not plan for improvements over time, and they may leave you struggling to manage the costs of necessary repairs or upgrades.
4 Benefits of Proper Facility Maintenance
There are numerous benefits to having a well-planned and properly funded facilities maintenance plan. Consider these perks to keeping your building running in top shape.
Increased Efficiency
By thinking toward the future, you can plan to make efficiency upgrades as needed. That could be simple upgrades like swapping out fluorescent lightbulbs for energy-efficient LEDs. Or, you could opt to upgrade the entire facility to a renewable power source.
Sometimes efficiency is a byproduct of performing regular maintenance. Stopping small water leaks can help cut back on waste. Clean filters on HVAC systems reduce the strain on them and allow easier, more efficient operation. Sensors to monitor temperatures and automatically adjust around operating schedules will also reduce energy usage.
Efficiency can also be achieved by adopting automation strategies for maintenance processes. Streamlining work requests and having alerts to notify you of new issues can ensure they are resolved quickly. That alone can help stop small problems from becoming much larger, and potentially more expensive and disruptive, ones down the road.
Improved Health of Staff
Facilities maintenance that takes the wellbeing of other staff into consideration can lead to a healthier workforce. When a building is properly maintained, workers will benefit from the cleaner, more healthful environment.
Addressing concerns like dirty carpets, leaks, and mold growth can promote a healthier physical workplace. Increased lighting, reduced clutter, and removal of environmental hazards can mean fewer injuries among employees. Air purification systems may offer additional benefits, especially if you have any production facilities that produce fumes or dust in the building.
Contracts with appropriate specialty businesses can ensure that preventative actions are taken as necessary. Exterminators can utilize barriers and traps to ensure that rodents and other small animals stay outside. They can also work to remove insects like the smokey brown cockroach from interior spaces. Since they are known to trigger allergy and asthma symptoms, this will directly impact the health of staff.
Enhanced Productivity
Because it allows you to plan for projects instead of reacting to emergency situations, reactive maintenance enhances productivity. You are better able to focus on preventative maintenance and upkeep instead of constantly struggling to keep up with breakdowns and repairs.
Additionally, the staff understands that their needs and concerns will be addressed, so they are able to perform their jobs without worrying about mechanical failures or interruptions due to unexpected downtime.
Optimized Use of Space
Buildings that operate smoothly will have less wasted space. Proper organization, routine cleaning, and a proactive strategy can maximize useable space for virtually every use, whether that is offices, storage, or production space.
Whether you are a business owner or a facilities manager, it is important to understand the value that proactive maintenance brings to your business. A properly maintained facility can be the difference between its success and failure.
