Facilities As Assets - Effective Building Maintenance: Protection of Capital Assets - page 15

Outsourcing of preventative maintenance has serious potential risks
that must be considered:
1. How will you deal with the divided loyalties of the contractor's
staff? While they have an obligation to meet the contract require-
ments, the need to reduce costs imposed on their employer may re-
sult in maintenance objectives not being met.
2. How will the contractor protect you from being responsible for
workplace safety and liability? The contractor's staff will be work-
ing in your facilities and you may be held accountable for work-
place safety.
3. How will the requirements of applicable standards for indoor air
quality, noise, energy, etc. be met and that compliance be document-
ed? Without that being clearing defined, the facility owner may be
responsible for health problems, etc. created by the contractor's fail-
ure to comply with applicable standards.
Thus,whilecontractmaintenancemayhaveaspecialplaceinanymainte-
nanceprogram,itwillrarelybethetotalmaintenanceanswerformostowners .
Once the need for some aspect of contract maintenance is identified,
the contract for outsourced maintenance must define the following:
1. The level of maintenance required, specific maintenance proce-
dures, and the method(s) of evaluating the service(s) provided by
the contractor.
2. The contractor will be held responsible for not only the value of
maintenance not done, or done poorly, but will be held responsible
for the cost of the resulting degradation of building components and
their shortened service life.
All maintenance contracts must be based on a fixed price, not man-
hour rates. If the contract is based on technician rates, there is no incentive
for the contractor to perform better since the more hours they sell, the
more money that make.
A maintenance contract should be long term, not less than five
years. Two reasons for this are incorporated in what Dr. Deming called