Facilities As Assets - Effective Building Maintenance: Protection of Capital Assets - page 10

responsibility for managing the work order or maintenance man-
agement system. Two people means the phones in the maintenance
department will be “manned” for at least 10-12 hours/day by using
staggered work and break schedules.
Too often, the maintenance department becomes the “construction
department,” assigned responsibility by management for replacement/
renovation projects or even construction of new facilities. When this hap-
pens, programmed maintenance always suffers!
There is no easy solution to this problem once a maintenance de-
partment begins to perform construction work. The best approach is to
head-off the problem before it becomes one by making it clear to manage-
ment that current staffing levels are predicated on maintenance needs and
assigning staff to renovation or new construction projects is very much a
game of “robbing Peter to pay Paul.” There are two potential negative
results from this problem:
1. If current staffing levels are maintained, some programmed mainte-
nance will be deferred.
2. If additional maintenance staff is hired to offset personnel losses to
renovation or new construction projects, when these projects are
completed, the maintenance department is then over-staffed, add-
ing unnecessary cost to the department's operating budget.
Thebestsolutionistokeepmaintenancepeopleperformingmaintenance
proceduresandtohireoutsidecontractorstoperformrenovationornewcon-
structionprojects.
TARGETED MAINTENANCE TRAINING
Thedevelopmentandimplementationofamaintenanceskillstraining
programmustbepartofawell-developedmaintenancemanagementprogram .
Training for the sake of training is a waste since skill increases that are not
utilized properly will result in no changes. Once an individual is trained
in a skill, he must be provided with the time and tools to perform this skill
and must be held accountable for his actions.
To implement an effective training program, the first step to per-