Planned Preventative Maintenance: prevention is the best cure

At PMC we provide Planned Preventative Maintenance (PPM) as well as reactive maintenance services to the commercial property sector, but which is the best solution for your business? Proactive or reactive? In this article, we discuss the long term trends we’ve seen and what might work best for your business.

Reactive maintenance

I’m sure most of us have been there, whether in our personal or professional lives, you wake up to an emergency that needs fixing URGENTLY. Perhaps it’s a burst pipe, a blocked drain, a leaking roof or a malfunctioning air conditioning system on a hot Summer day like today.

In a commercial setting this could be a big deal. An issue like those discussed above could mean you can’t trade or customers may be put off visiting your premises, causing loss of revenue until it’s fixed and the associated reputation damage.

You need the issue fixing quickly and effectively, so you pick up the phone and get on the internet to find a solution…Cue reactive maintenance solutions.

But could the issue have been prevented with effective planned maintenance?

Planned Preventative Maintenance

The objective of PPM is to reduce the incidence of such emergencies and the requirement for reactive maintenance with its associated costs by putting a schedule of regular checks and work in place to help keep your property in optimum condition.

Can planned preventative maintenance make reactive maintenance a thing of the past?

Obviously, some issues are unforeseen and cannot be predicted but in our experience many of the issues we deal with on a reactive basis could have been avoided through scheduled maintenance checks throughout the year. For example, Quarterly or Bi-Annual Gutter Clearance- If a PPM schedule is in place this reduces the risk of issues such as blockages and overflow. We are then able to anticipate any major problems that could arise.

Taking a long term view?

The issue arises when companies believe a planned maintenance service is not cost effective because no issue has occurred, but it is exactly the opposite. These services are more than cost effective because the issues have been prevented before they could happen.

As a testament to this fact we have had feedback from numerous clients noticing the savings in their budgets because of our comprehensive, affordable and efficient PPM services.

The Royal Institute of Chartered Surveyors (RICS) recommends a ratio of 70:30 Planned to reactive maintenance for effective property maintenance. So, once your preventative maintenance plan is in place, it is well worth adding in budget for reactive maintenance on that basis.

Budgeted reactive maintenance = budgeted planned maintenance *(3/7)

Conclusions

Although investing in PPM and having a planned maintenance contract in place can never fully replace the need for reactive maintenance, what it can do is:

• Reduce long term costs of maintenance.
• Smooth the long term cash flow for maintenance costs and reduce the occurrence of unbudgeted, potentially expensive reactive maintenance costs.
• Help you budget for reactive maintenance costs.
• Reduce business stoppage time and associated loss of revenue and reputation damage.
• Give you peace of mind for your business and help you sleep at night.