The New School in Facility Management
Managing work orders and work order systems requires a modern approach. The old-school method of using sticky notes or spreadsheets to keep track of preventative or reactive maintenance work for your facilities is a surefire recipe for wasting money and disappointing your customers. Today we look at work order management systems (“WMS”) like Simple FM and four things they can do that your old-school sticky note system can’t.
Benefits of Using a WMS
Automated Prioritization of Work Orders
Let’s face it – you have more maintenance work to do than your budget will allow. Which means that you have to prioritize between tasks. Facility managers must consider the urgency of the service to be performed and criticality of the associated equipment. With facility maintenance software like SimpleFM, you can set criteria for prioritizing upfront and program them directly into the system for each type of repair as well as each piece of equipment. Then, as things come up, SimpleFM will reorder the work based on your criteria. With a sticky note system, you have to manually reshuffle the deck and hand-calculate how it all fits in the budget.
Streamlined Communication
Work order systems also serve as a central repository for communication between the tenant, the facility manager, and the contractor. Systems like SimpleFM can incorporate information on resource availability, time, safety and site/equipment requirements, insurance, and compliance tracking. With full transparency, each party can stay informed as the work progresses. This history also helps provide clarity if progress on the job lags – without having to dig through your email trash or folders. With a sticky-note system, communication is entirely manual and you can be sure that at some point things will slip through the cracks.
Maximizing Preventative Maintenance Plans
As we discussed in previous blogs, facilities that have comprehensive preventative maintenance programs can reduce total facility operating costs by up to 50% compared to organizations that maintain their equipment after problems arise. A “comprehensive” system is one that maximizes your chances of actually getting the scheduled work done on time – which is exactly what a WMS does. When the ball gets dropped with your sticky-note system, you wind up in “fix it when it’s broken” mode, which means much higher costs, lower asset uptime, and safety risks.
Maintaining Records to Enable Good Decisions
Let’s say your gut tells you that your HVAC unit is a money pit and that you’d be better off replacing it with a higher-efficiency unit. With just a few clicks, the data from your WMS can tell you how much money has been invested in each of your assets from a maintenance or repair perspective, making it easier to see when it may be time to pull the trigger on a replacement. With a sticky-note system, you either have to keep all of your sticky notes and hunt through them or enter the information in a separate archive system like a spreadsheet. Don’t waste time doing things twice – have what you need at your fingertips with a WMS.
WMS that is right for YOU
SimpleFM’s software and experienced team help organizations manage, monitor, and control maintenance including: equipment, resources, and regulatory compliance. Let’s work together to up your work management game and help your organization save time and money. Interested to see how easy facilities can be? Sign up for a Demo or email us at sales@simplefm.com.
