An unanticipated facility disruption can have staggering costs and take a severe toll on property stakeholders. By prioritizing disruption prevention and implementing proactive strategies, you can significantly mitigate the risk of such events, making them less inevitable and more manageable.

Easy-to-implement strategies to prevent facility disruptions range from regular maintenance checks to advanced planning and emergency protocols and other often overlooked elements of a facilities management toolkit.

However, before covering these strategies that are vital for the safety and integrity of a property, let’s consider the impact of such disruptions in a little more depth.

Why Preventing Disruptions Is Essential for Financial and Organizational Stability

Unexpected disruptions are bound to happen no matter the type of real property—whether it’s a business, university, medical complex, or even a government facility. These can occur for many reasons, such as poor maintenance, insufficient funding, staff shortages, or failure to plan for future repairs and upgrades. Disruptions can range from minor annoyances to complete halts in operations, which can throw off an organization’s financial planning and shift focus away from other important activities.

Consider a compelling example from the U.S. Air Force. In 2007, the Air Force changed its approach from just dealing with emergencies to a proactive asset management culture that prioritized preventative maintenance. This shift, supported by research and data, showed that preventative measures are more cost-effective than reacting to emergencies. The Air Force implemented a policy that required high-level approval to prioritize preventative maintenance, ensuring a 90% completion rate for these crucial tasks. This significantly reduced the risk of expensive, major system failures that could impact budgets, mission readiness, and the well-being of personnel.

By taking this proactive approach, the Air Force was able to prevent a chain reaction of failures that could have major operational and mission impacts. This example highlights the importance of smooth, uninterrupted operations and the need to prepare for potential disruptions before they occur.

Disruptions Are Inevitable in the Absence of Proactive Strategies

Disruptions in facilities and infrastructure are often inevitable when proactive strategies are not in place. Building systems, composed of various materials and equipment, are susceptible to failure due to environmental conditions, mechanical wear and tear, and parts that deteriorate faster than the system or building. Such vulnerabilities set the stage for potential disruptions.

Neglecting facility sustainment, maintenance, and repair can hasten the arrival of these disruptions, making them a matter of “when” rather than “if.” For example, a roof that hasn’t been maintained on an older building might suddenly start leaking extensively during heavy rain, causing widespread disruptions and significant damage throughout the facility.

Easy-to-Implement Strategies to Prevent Disruption

Considering the challenges highlighted above, the value of preventative maintenance becomes clear. By investing in proactive measures, leaders can significantly reduce the time, costs, and stress of managing disruptions. Preparing strategies to address potential issues before they occur allows organizations to navigate challenges more smoothly rather than scrambling to mitigate problems as they arise.

To assist leaders in this proactive approach, here are four best practices to prevent disruptions effectively:

1. Factor in Staff Training and Emergency Protocols

The scale and function of a facility significantly influence the need for a workforce skilled in professional building trades. Such expertise is crucial for swiftly addressing disruptions, whether they originate from human error, equipment failures, or natural disasters. Enhancing staff capabilities through additional training and certifications can be a wise investment. Moreover, establishing a centralized control center, either permanently or as required, can ensure coordinated and effective management during emergencies.

2. Establish an Equipment Modernization or Replacement Plan

Keeping equipment up to date is essential for the safety and structural integrity of a property and preventing major disruptions. For instance, HVAC systems have a finite lifespan that needs to be monitored within a preventative maintenance schedule, and their condition should be periodically evaluated through facility condition assessments. Utilizing a comprehensive strategic planning tool allows leaders to schedule necessary servicing or replacements before the situation becomes critical.

Similarly, the regular inspection and monitoring of lighting or fire detection/alarm systems are vital for maintaining safety and operational integrity. Proactively planning for maintenance, budgeting, procurement, and implementing replacements before equipment fails is crucial. Additionally, it’s important to anticipate potential delays due to the unavailability of parts or the need for custom-ordered components.

3. Practice Preventative Maintenance

Making preventative maintenance a priority reduces the chances of disruptions. Regular maintenance checks, which should be established based on industry best practices or manufacturers’ recommendations and should be tracked and summarized in monthly reports, play a significant role in this practice. Utilizing work management software or a computerized maintenance management system (CMMS) is also instrumental in efficiently organizing emergency and routine maintenance tasks. These systems are essential for facilitating the creation of inspection schedules and maintenance plans and provide insightful metrics.

Ultimately, elevating preventative maintenance to a key performance metric for facilities management teams and securing an endorsement from senior corporate levels can yield significant benefits. This approach helps safeguard against disruptions that could adversely affect the company’s objectives, people, and customers.

4. Leverage New Technologies

The shift from older systems to CMMS has revolutionized how facility leaders access and use data. These tools offer robust analytics, graphic visualizations, and dashboards that support informed, data-driven decisions for maintenance. Enhanced by real-time information from Internet of Things (IoT) sensors on critical equipment, CMMS can incorporate facility condition assessments to help managers proactively identify and address issues before they become costly disruptions.

These maintenance software systems compile data on costs, budgets, and future projections, facilitating the strategic allocation of resources across properties. They enable scoring systems for entire buildings and key subcomponents, making equipment data a pivotal factor in budgeting decisions. For instance, data might reveal the need for significant investment over the next three years to modernize infrastructure and prevent equipment failures.

Organizations can leverage these insights to conduct cost-benefit analyses comparing preventative maintenance expenses against the costs and impacts of emergency repairs. The findings typically underscore that the ramifications of unexpected disruptions are much more extensive and carry broader implications for an organization’s mission or bottom line than the costs associated with these simple preventative strategies.

With a background serving as an Air Force civil engineer officer and over 30 years of leadership experience in facility planning, portfolio management, and construction, Arno Bischoff is the director of real property services at R&K Solutions.

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