Your operation’s performance is the result of your leadership.
You define your operation.
But the job is not always easy.
That’s why we believed writing this article is necessary.
It’s critical to the longevity of your career and property.
We get it; you work your tail off to ensure your facility is up to compliance standards.
That requires a lot of work and management.
You might even be laughing at this article.
But, when is the last time you took a step back to grasp your reality?
It has probably been a while, right?
We all get caught up in the minutiae of our day-to-day tasks.
It makes it easy to miss the global strategy.
In fact, a proactive facility manager would tell you that it’s vital to your operation’s health to take a step back and look at your strengths and weaknesses.
Why?
You might catch something to fix that you’ve been spinning your wheels on for a while.
Well, today we’re telling you to hit the pause button and take a moment of your year to focus on being proactive.
What do you say?
PROACTIVE FACILITY MANAGERS ALWAYS PLAN
You might think planning is common sense.
But, planning is often a missed practice when managing facility maintenance.
When you’re always doing work on your property, planning can easily get missed.
You know what a ‘necessary evil’ is, right?
It’s a universal concept, and many managers conduct maintenance activities this way.
How?
They wait for the next piece of equipment to break.
Then, they use valuable resources to fix the equipment.
What’s the effectiveness in that?
But, with a little focus and an understanding of the small yet powerful actions you can take to achieve operational effectiveness - you’ll become a proactive facility manager fast.
Here’s what you need to do today.
- Plan your recurring daily, weekly, monthly, and annual tasks.
- Decrease your operational and equipment downtime.
- Reduce costs associated with completing your maintenance activities and tasks
- Review reports and analyze the data to keep your facility ahead of potential interruptions.
It’s simple, really, and it affects your overall production.
Now that you understand the importance of necessary effectiveness, we’re going to share several tactics we believe you must you to be a proactive facility manager.
They’re not tough to put in place, which is a good thing.
But, you do need to execute and keep these things on track at all times.
FOLLOW THESE SEVEN PROACTIVE TACTICS
The following tactics will help you jumpstart your property’s proactive facility operations initiative with efficiency and effectiveness as the outcome.
- Automate Your Work Orders
- Create Digital Checklists for Completing All Work
- Rely on Modernized Material Inventory Tracking
- Create Schedules for Work to Be Completed
- Proactively Complete Scheduled Work
- Proactively Inspect Equipment for Additional Work
- Digitally Document Work Information for Future Analysis
Automate Your Work Orders
You remove human error associated with it when you automate the work order process.
You’re taking the people out of the process and ensuring nothing gets missed or overlooked.
It allows you to create, track, edit, and automatically communicate work orders for your property’s facility operation.
We started with this tactic because it’s one of our favorites and arguably the most important.
What do you think?
Don’t let problems with employees slow down your operation or increase workplace stress for others.
Automate your work orders immediately.
Create Digital Checklists for Completing All Work
Start introducing lean management strategies into your process.
Begin by integrating specific checklists for work into your operation.
It’ll help eliminate unnecessary steps and reduce your team’s error rates.
This also gives you ultimate control and consistency of maintenance activities.
Do you have life safety equipment inspections to be done?
Your checklist might start like this:
- Easy to see when needed?
- Easy to access?
- Are there signs of wear and tear?
- Check for physical damage. Are parts damaged?
If you make each step easy to follow for your team, how difficult would it be to miss something now?
You can use checklists for something as common as a life safety equipment inspection or as complex as an internal compliant audit that takes several days to complete.
All we know is, the most proactive managers use them.
Rely on Modernized Material Inventory Tracking
Do you like not knowing what’s available in inventory? (Rhetorical question)
Proactive managers maintain a streamlined inventory tracking system via their CMMS software.
Time to reorder material or equipment?
If you have a system in place, it’ll alert you.
You’ll never run out of what you need, and you can buy it at the best price.
We can’t stress enough how valuable this is.
But, you’ll have to watch your numbers and tell us the real results.
Create Schedules for Work to Be Completed
Preventive maintenance scheduling changes everything - everything.
With the availability of these software solutions, the presence of proactive facility managers throughout the industry is multiplying.
Your operation has tons of moving parts. Agree?
So, how do you ensure your maintenance efforts are proactive?
You use preventive maintenance software solutions to create, track, and manage facility maintenance schedules. (We are back to automation.)
Creating a purposeful scheduling process puts you at the top of your game.
You’ll have a global view of routine maintenance, and all associated materials and equipment.
Now, you can see who’s doing what, and make necessary changes as needed.
Proactively Complete Scheduled Work
Does this tactic need an explanation?
Of course not, but we’re going to do it anyway.
Put your preventive maintenance solution in place and automate your work order system.
This system will quickly make your facility operations easy.
It’ll become stress-free because you’ll already have created an environment conducive to completing work on time and as scheduled.
How does that sound?
Having the appropriate processes in place will certainly help too.
Proactively Inspect Equipment for Additional Work
Checking equipment may very well be a part of your preventive maintenance efforts.
But, it goes further when you’re in the practice of being proactive.
Systems for conducting equipment inspections allow you to institute a process for keeping an eye on things.
Are you walking near a fire extinguisher that you haven’t passed in a week or two?
You know the scheduled maintenance is coming up soon, but why not check it out now?
Look at that; the filter is ready to be changed.
You’ve had some construction near that location, so some additional dust made its way into the equipment.
It’s a good thing you took the time to check it out a few days sooner.
You might have even identified a broken piece of material that needs to be fixed today.
You never know, right?
Here’s the thing: being proactive is how you reduce downtime and keep your facility humming.
Digitally Document Work Information for Future Analysis
It goes without question: you can’t manage what you don’t measure.
Why? If it ‘doesn’t exist’ you can do anything about it.
You have access to the most progressive software solutions in the marketplace.
These systems offer extensive and robust reporting for your specific needs.
Why not get all the valuable info you need to be a proactive manager?
Access to comprehensive statistics and maintenance data gives you all the information you need.
Use the insight to increase your operational efficiency, effectiveness as a manager, and to maintain a proactive facility operation.
OVER TO YOU
Taking the time to get back to planning and focus on the proactive tactics that could improve your operation is an essential characteristic of a proactive manager.
There’s no question that it’s critical to your property’s facility operation and your job. We’re confident you know that by now.
But, sometimes we need to pull you back in and tell you today might be the day to evaluate your operation more than the day before.
So, is today the day you become a proactive facility manager?
Editor's note: This post was originally published in September 2017 and has been updated for comprehensiveness and freshness.
