The Preventative Maintenance Concept

By Lynn Fletcher, Preventative Maintenance Supervisor
University of Colorado Boulder

The Scenario

The year was 2005, the place was the University of Colorado Boulder (UCB), and the experiment was the creation of a first-time preventative maintenance (PM) shop. Never before had the University made such a bold move as to re-allocate, transfer and re-classify a large portion of its Trades and Maintenance Services employees to create and staff such a shop.

Guided by a detailed report/study from Jack Hug (President, Hug Consulting and Management Services) and full support from the department leaders, Facilities Management took the leap and founded the PM shop in December, 2005 with 12 existing employees. I was hired from outside the University to provide a fresh perspective, supervise and transform the shop into an innovative approach to campus-wide preventative maintenance.

Over the years, Facilities Management has seen shrinking budgets, hiring freezes, limited personnel, and more square footage than ever before. This suggests unique challenges to new and old buildings alike. Do more with less and extend the life of the buildings are common themes in universities as old as UCB. Several buildings are beyond their life expectancy and our job in Facilities is to make them function to meet the demanding requirements of our students, faculty and staff.

The Challenge

Like any other major organizational change this was certainly not without controversy; and met with initial resistance and challenges from both staff and customers. After all, we would have to change our entire work management process to incorporate PM’s. Previously, the Mechanical/Electrical Trades group had functioned as six major repair shops, which were often so busy with customer repair calls that any type of preventative maintenance was pushed aside in an attempt to keep the buildings running. This repeating activity cultured a “run to failure” mentality and was certainly not in-line with extending the life of existing equipment.

The department was spending large amounts of money repairing or replacing equipment that was not being properly maintained. The single biggest challenge in the development of this shop was to get those 6 repair shops to “buy into” letting the PM shop touch and maintain their equipment. The PM shop was staffed by level I employees (deemed apprentices); whereas the repair shops were almost exclusively level II employees (deemed journeyman). This culturally developed stereotype had to be broken and the acceptance of level I employees needed to become paramount in all mechanical/electrical maintenance applications.

The Approach

A large contributing factor to the success of the PM program is that the PM shop does not receive service requests or trouble calls. Our job is to work behind the scenes maintaining mechanical/electrical equipment. This uninterrupted time allowed us to thoroughly learn campus systems and develop an understanding for root cause analysis that would ultimately define our goals. Rather than operating in a reactive mode, I split the shop into six separate zones, each having two employees and approximately 18 to 22 buildings. That being said, I developed detailed, but simplistic PM procedures that were generalized and applicable to most PM specific equipment. The goal of this was to enable anyone, even the newest employee to follow the procedures from start to finish.

Every PM shop employee received the same relevant and high quality training applicable to our systems. This best management practice ensured that the PM workforce would be equally cross trained and, should the need arise, any employee could be sent to any building on campus to perform preventative maintenance. This gathering of knowledge rapidly increased the shops visibility; as well as, their capacity to streamline PM’s, incorporate themselves into the “repair shops”, and take on additional responsibilities.

Evolution

In its infancy the PM shop was staffed with Structural Trades level I employees. As their knowledge and training increased, the scope of mechanical PM’s also increased; resulting in an inevitable switch from structural PM’s like classroom lighting, fixed seating, and fire and life safety to lubrication of pumps and motors, belts and drive systems, condensers, compressed air systems and chemical treatment. In the end, this was a strategic move that proved to reduce those “repair” costs and greatly extend the life of UCB’s mechanical systems.

These efforts had an added benefit of a major reduction in “too hot/too cold” calls. A snapshot of the shop today shows that it now has 15 employees (all Pipe Mechanical Trades employees) and 3 specialized Journeyman. The focus has switched to incorporate level II PM’s like chiller maintenance, CRAC units, condensers, air filtration, AHU’s and a host of other highly technical preventative maintenance. The single greatest area of cost was HVAC equipment, therefore the focus has been emphasized on this trade in the last year. Proactive maintenance and comprehensive procedures have reduced backlogged work from months to days.

Our data trending over the last 5 years has shown that a PM program can significantly lessen repair costs and impressively extended the life of equipment; while increasing sustainability efforts and providing an enhanced environment for our building users. In these problematic times of budget cuts and hiring freezes the development and employment of a PM program has proven to be a formula for success. Additionally, a very important side effect of having these 18 preventative maintenance technicians in the field is that they are in the buildings daily. They can trend equipment, look, listen and feel for other potential problems.

Now, fully staffed and trained, the shop consistently enjoys high morale, initiative and teamwork all generated by their continued success, diversity of work and personal ownership of those 18-22 buildings. So, with a little vision, the willingness to incorporate change and an excellent training regiment, this proactive approach to maintenance has allowed UCB to stay ahead of the repair curve rather than reacting to it.