With another year and peak season over with, it means the time for a New Year’s maintenance review and a look at the year’s facilities management budget is now.. There are many tools management can utilize to save money and reduce facilities maintenance costs. Knowing the state of the facility assets, using analytics to understand cost distribution, and accessing necessary tools remains an important step for facilities management to evaluate the budget for the coming year.
Why the Facilities Maintenance Budget Is Subject to Cuts
Between the rising cost of strictly doing business, disruption in the supply chain, and higher demand of skilled trades, a facilities maintenance budget needs to be reevaluated. The added pressure of consumer uncertainty in these unprecedented times also affects a budget. While doing a New Year’s Maintenance review, following the best practices and trends in facilities management will help reduce costs for the routine maintenance needed to operate.
1. Know the Status of Your Facility Assets.
While reviewing a budget for the upcoming year means evaluating facility assets, management must know the status of all facility assets across their distributed portfolio. To maximize spending while working through a New Year’s maintenance review, make note of all outsourced functions, any materials and equipment used to run the business, and any other programs that help the business.
2. Use Analytics to Understand Internal Versus External Costs of Maintenance
One avenue to understand the totality of the costs for a facilities maintenance budget is to use analytics to gain an understanding of both internal and external costs. Analytics and the “actionable data” that is produced can help track labor costs, run and diagnose bad equipment, track different charges for transportation, find overspending when outsourcing, and many other facets. When understood properly, better capital decisions are made and will greatly help management monitor spending both internally and externally.
3. Avoid Run-to-Fail Maintenance, Relying on Preventive Programs
Running a business comes at a high price when not done properly. For management to reduce the risk of commercial property damage, increase preventative maintenance by improving the skills of the team or outsourcing the work. Outsourcing trades and services can be useful if there is room in the facilities maintenance budget. Avoid putting all confidence in preventative programs. There must be monitoring for early intervention, or the cost will outweigh the benefit of them.
4. Hold Outsourced Services Accountable With Data
Utilizing third-party services can be extremely beneficial and allows management to use less labor for upkeep and streamlines many actions needed for proprietors. According to McKinsey & Company, ”Before they [facilities managers] outsource facility management to third parties, however, they [facilities managers should] review the appropriate mix of insourcing and outsourcing based on capability, cost, and coverage.” That begins with research and using data analytics to track field service vendor performance. Research local and national providers in facility management for the best services to avoid issues down the road and maximize the year’s forecast. Also, use analytics to know your typical costs per asset and per vendor.
5. Retrofit Facility Assets With IoT-Enabled or “Smart” Devices to Collect Energy Use and Maintenance Data Too
If there is room in a facilities maintenance budget to transition assets to loT-enabled devices, do it. By retrofitting these assets, management can track energy usage and other maintenance-related data becomes “actionable” and can help reduce costs and help project costs for the upcoming year.
6. Use Analytics to Further Refine Your Maintenance Needs Around-the-Clock
Analytics also help fine-tune the needs of facilities maintenance even when no one is present. The gap between business hours does not stop the need for maintenance. With these tools, preventative measures can be taken to ensure the failure of systems or equipment is reduced. Allow for room in the budget while conducting the New Year’s maintenance review.
7. Automate the Maintenance Scheduling and Completion Process
As well as preventive maintenance, the use of loT-enabled or “smart” devices and other services will assist finance budgeting by automating processes like scheduling, watching work order averages, completion of orders, paperwork for trip charges, and other daily operational functions. The less back-office work, the more management can be of more use to their teams and their businesses.
Choose SMG Facility Services to Stretch Your Budget in 2022
Reducing costs among businesses is paramount to success in this tumultuous and volatile market. If you are considering outsourcing a portion or the entirety of your facilities management in an effort to improve efficiencies and extend your facilities maintenance budget, contact SMG Facilities Services today.
