Five Reasons to Choose a Facility Maintenance Program Over a Project

Ensur­ing the ongo­ing pro­duc­tion and safe­ty of an indus­tri­al facil­i­ty requires reg­u­lar inspec­tions, adjust­ments, repairs, replace­ments, and improve­ments. Gen­er­al­ly speak­ing, a busi­ness can approach this main­te­nance in two ways: by invest­ing in an over­ar­ch­ing pro­gram or tack­ling indi­vid­ual projects when the time comes. A pro­gram in this sense refers to a holis­tic oper­a­tional strat­e­gy that’s meant to stream­line all of a facility’s process­es and needs; a project, on the oth­er hand, refers to a sin­gle task per­formed by an out­sourced con­trac­tor. Here are five rea­sons to choose a facil­i­ty main­te­nance pro­gram over a project.

Why Facil­i­ty Main­te­nance Pro­grams Are Bet­ter Than Projects

1. Redis­cov­er Key Main­te­nance Protocols

For a facil­i­ty to oper­ate and com­ply with all rel­e­vant reg­u­la­tions (i.e. OSHA, FDA, and GMP reg­u­la­tions), it must under­go cer­tain types of rou­tine main­te­nance. How­ev­er, some main­te­nance tasks may get neglect­ed or mis­han­dled with­out the aid of an expert. By invest­ing in a facil­i­ty main­te­nance pro­gram, busi­ness­es can dis­cov­er or redis­cov­er par­tic­u­lar meth­ods and strate­gies that improve their facil­i­ty and oper­a­tions over­all. Con­verse­ly, by going with a project every time an issue aris­es, a facil­i­ty might con­tin­ue to miss key details, even­tu­al­ly result­ing in fur­ther com­pli­ca­tions and costs.

2. Keep It in the System

Any­one who oper­ates a facil­i­ty knows what a pain con­trac­tor onboard­ing can be. After all, every facil­i­ty has its unique char­ac­ter­is­tics and chal­lenges — intro­duc­ing brand new eyes to said idio­syn­crasies is time-con­sum­ing and laden with risk. A facil­i­ty main­te­nance pro­gram is all about estab­lish­ing and grow­ing rela­tion­ships. When a con­trac­tor and client work togeth­er for a long time, a foun­da­tion of trust can be built so the con­trac­tor becomes an inte­gral part of the client’s sys­tem. Over time, then, a trust­ed facil­i­ty main­te­nance pro­gram provider might have secu­ri­ty clear­ances, pre­vi­ous­ly-cleared back­ground checks, etc. that stream­line every process. Com­pare this effi­cien­cy with the slow process of clear­ing an unproven con­trac­tor and the advan­tage of a pro­gram over a project becomes crys­tal clear.

3. Min­i­mize Downtime

This ben­e­fit stems direct­ly from the pre­vi­ous two — when a main­te­nance provider spends enough time in a par­tic­u­lar facil­i­ty, they begin to under­stand the nuances of said facility’s pro­duc­tion process­es and sched­ul­ing needs. By being a part of the sys­tem in this way, said con­trac­tor will know best how to oper­ate dur­ing a shut­down, how to address par­tic­u­lar set­backs, how to boost safe­ty mea­sures, and so on, all with­out the client need­ing to spend time seek­ing par­tic­u­lar ser­vices or com­pare prices. All of this trans­lates to less down­time (and there­fore cost sav­ings) for your facility.

4. Max­i­mize Productivity

Hav­ing a reli­able facil­i­ty main­te­nance pro­gram in your sys­tem also means that you can focus more on your bot­tom line and spend less time wor­ry­ing about the state of your facil­i­ty. These mat­ters are inex­tri­ca­bly linked, of course, but the facil­i­ty main­te­nance pro­gram will take care of the impor­tant details so noth­ing gets in the way of your pro­duc­tion sched­ule. Indeed, the best pro­grams enhance a facility’s productivity.

5. Receive Cus­tomized Care

A facil­i­ty main­te­nance pro­gram is designed to grow with you to work toward improv­ing your oper­a­tions, while a sin­gle project is sim­ply meant to address a par­tic­u­lar con­cern when it comes up. In this way, the best pro­grams are con­stant­ly respond­ing and adapt­ing to cus­tomer needs over time as opposed to mere­ly react­ing to a sud­den devel­op­ment. Put anoth­er way, a facil­i­ty main­te­nance pro­gram is cus­tomized for a facility’s unique needs and chal­lenges — there is no one-size-fits-all pro­ce­dure, but rather a sys­tem that is con­stant­ly evolv­ing for the bet­ter­ment of the client.

Pro­gram Over Project: The Kaloutas Way

On a gran­u­lar lev­el, hav­ing a facil­i­ty main­te­nance pro­gram allows facil­i­ty man­agers to struc­ture their pric­ing, com­mu­ni­ca­tion, and work­flow details, estab­lish sched­ules, pri­or­i­tize tasks, doc­u­ment stan­dards, expec­ta­tions, and safe­ty mea­sures, set review agen­das, and more. Broad­ly speak­ing, then, a pro­gram max­i­mizes effi­cien­cy and cuts costs in vir­tu­al­ly every way. This is why at Kaloutas, we focus on devel­op­ing pro­grams, not projects, for our clients across var­i­ous indus­tries. To learn more about us and all that we do, con­tact us online or give us a call at 978−532−1414.