Most businesses require a physical location, it may be a warehouse, an office, a manufacturing building or even a store front. A physical location or your base of business may start from home, especially for startups. Eventually, one would have to move the business operations from the house to a more suitable location.

This happens whenever business starts to grow. The need for a building facility whether as a whole or in part, is indeed a necessity when business starts to grow. Since it is already part in the growth of the business, the building facilities have to kept in top shape. It is in this field that facility maintenance will play a very significant role.

What is Facility Maintenance?

Facility refers to the fact that something is constructed or installed. This thing that is installed must be essential to the operation of the business, which means it is an asset to the business and it is tangible. While maintenance refers to the process of preserving something.

Facility maintenance deals with the preserving of something that is installed and essential to the business or operation thereof. This could be a real estate property, equipment or machinery. Facility maintenance does not only deal with the maintenance or management of huge equipment it also deals with the small things like light bulbs and signages, to begin with.

Facility maintenance is not an as need basis service, rather it is a regular service that is provided to business to keep equipment in top shape. This is why regular preventive maintenance is considered part of facility maintenance. Moreover, facility maintenance was developed in order to not only maintain your property assets but also to optimize such assets. This way, your facilities will be able to function without a flaw and deliver the best results that you need in your day-to-day operations.

The Need for Facility Maintenance

Property assets such as buildings, equipment and even a simple signage are always subject to wear and tear. When an equipment bogged down, production or the performance of your daily operation will be affected. If a building becomes a hazard to its occupants due to natural or man-made causes, the business suffers. Thousands if not millions of dollars are lost each day when a business stops operating because of building or equipment repairs.

This is why facility maintenance service are essential to the business. Facility maintenance is not only called upon when something breaks, the best part about facility maintenance is the regular preventive maintenance work. By doing this, you are assured that your operation will be at its optimum, continuous and repairs will be reduced to a minimum.

Scope of Facility Maintenance

Facility maintenance commonly covers two aspects and these are infrastructure and space.

Infrastructure – this is defined as the physical facilities, which could be a building, equipment or any installation essential to the business. In terms of facility maintenance, this could refer to the cleaning of equipment, occupancy of the building, maintenance of the building or installations, or even the planning of the installation or construction of the equipment or building.

Therefore when we talk about facility maintenance based on infrastructure, it has something to do with maintaining structures that are necessary to the business. Where structures do not only refer to buildings but all other installations that are necessary to the operation of the business.

Space – space, on the other hand, refers to an available expanse.

Although there is no installation as of yet, space could be better represented by the company assets such as real estate properties without any structure. An empty lot owned by the company can be considered a space in facility maintenance. Facility maintenance could provide such service in company space through planning, design, and cleaning. By maintaining such space, the company will be able to optimize the use of these assets instead of having to leave them idle and wither away.

Facility Maintenance Core Competencies

Facility maintenance, although defined to be something in relation or dealing with that of the physical structure, it also deals with the maintenance of the people in the business. More specifically dealing with the work psychology of the people involved in the business.

Facility maintenance also deals with both the people and the organization as a whole. This is because the installations, building or facility as a whole will be operated by, occupied by or used by the people involved in the business. This is why facility maintenance also has something to do especially in the integration of the people into the workplace. Facility maintenance, therefore, requires several core competencies that the personnel should have and these are:

Quality Check – business involved in manufacturing must not only rely on or trust in the ability of their machines to make or produce the products. Companies must rely first and foremost on their people on the ground who are keeping an eye on the quality of the products made. Facility maintenance comes in by designing an occupational physiology for those who will be given such duty.

Emergency preparedness – machines and other installations may malfunction and endanger the life of the people in the building. This is why facility maintenance also deals with the planning and training of personnel who will be responsible for emergency preparedness for when there are disasters that may be natural or man-made while in the building.

Maintenance and Operations – facility maintenance will also deal with the integration of personnel who will be in-charge of operations and maintenance of the installations or equipment. Training the machine operators is part of facility maintenance because they will also be the first responders when the equipment encounters a problem.

In addition, they will also be the ones responsible for the upkeep of the facilities or equipment under their care. Full knowledge in the operation of the equipment and its role in the business as a whole is necessary for every personnel.

Leadership – every person in the business should show a certain degree of leadership. This way, they are able to make several decisions necessary to the preservation or maintenance of the facility.

There are more core competencies that every personnel must have because everyone in the business plays an important role in the conduct of facility maintenance to make sure that every nut and bolt? in the company are working at an optimum level.