Maintenance Benchmarks Implementing a plan the right way. By: Bill Hayden The Benefits Of W FacilitySource (www.facilitysource.com), the leading facility mainte-nance and management service provider, has a wide variety of customers, including retailers, shop-ping centers, restaurants, auto parts stores and other companies with geographi-cally disperse real estate portfolios. With more than 50,000 locations served and a database of more than 10,000 vendors, FacilitySource provides web-based transaction management software, vendor management and research, statistical analysis and reporting and paperless invoicing. With the current economic downturn driving intense budget scrutiny and belt tightening, com-panies are trying to better understand spending patterns in an effort to uncover areas of possible savings. An often overlooked area where savings can be realized is facility maintenance. And one of the best ways to gain a better understanding of maintenance spending and help uncover and acquire savings is through the imple-mentation of benchmarks. A good benchmarking program allows access to various aspects of your operations and industry best practices. It will also help you identify those categories where your spending is higher than it should be, based on industry or market averages. In those cases where you deem your spending is too high, you are then better equipped to nego-tiate rates with your current providers or release a formal request for proposal (RFP) to obtain a lower cost. Understanding Benefits Of Maintenance Benchmarks The International Facility Management Association (IFMA) points out that the term “benchmarking” is widely used in todayʼs busi-ness environment, but is often misunderstood. In an effort to clear up any confusion, the asso-ciation defines benchmarking as “a continuous and systematic management process that meas-ures work processes, protocols and services for the purpose of organizational comparison and improvement.” A good maintenance benchmark program will allow you to assess various aspects of your oper-ations in relation to similar organizations, as well as industry best practices. When properly applied, it will allow you to gain control and insight into your maintenance spend-ing by helping you identify costly or inefficient processes. It will give you an increased ability to make smarter and more strategic decisions regarding spending and develop plans designed to help you make improvements or adopt best practices. When you implement a maintenance bench-mark program, you will quickly learn if the level of your maintenance spending is on par with the quality level — perceived and real — of your facil-ity and the expectations of your tenants. Implementing A Maintenance Benchmark Program Before implementing a maintenance benchmark program there are a few key decisions you need to consider. The first step is to choose the specific cate-gories within your maintenance operations that you would like to benchmark. Along with identifying such factors as service levels, in-house productivity or processes, you can also look at maintenance, janitorial and even utili-ty costs. Once you have identified the categories, you then need to establish clear objectives for your benchmark program. What do you want to accomplish? Do you want to: Lower your maintenance costs; increase pro-ductivity; justify increasing your costs to reach a perceived level of service; renegotiate service contracts; or simply gain a greater understanding of how and where your budget is being spent? Finally, you need to identify available resources and decide whether you will conduct the bench-marking process independently or seek out an industry partner to implement and manage the program. There are a number of industry groups and organizations that conduct research and gather industry benchmarking information. for more info Visit www.cmmonline.com and type in search keyword: Benchmarking . For more information on related products, visit www.cmmonline.com , select SUPPLIER SEARCH from the main navigation bar, and enter keyword: Software . 28 CM/Cleaning & Maintenance Management ® • August 2009
CMM – Archives Aug 2009: 28
