Primer: No.1 maintenance strategy

Open-access content Friday 3rd October 2014 — updated 1.53pm, Tuesday 5th May 2020

This is the first of a regular series of articles on building services to support FMs managing buildings. It focuses on developing a maintenance strategy for managing the building and its engineering services.

25 September 2014

Overview
Best practice for buildings within a property portfolio is to have a defined asset management and building maintenance strategy, defining policy and approach to keep the building and its services operation safe, maintain asset value and keep people safe.

CIBSE Guide M Maintenance Engineering and Management provides an overview to develop a strategy. The approach selected for implementation could be planned, reactive, or a combination of strategies.

Common faults and fixes

There may be an in-house client engineering function, service contractor or a variation of both responsible for maintenance. There may not be a defined approach to maintenance or a known engineering asset list to base an implementation plan on.
An initial asset and maintenance requirement survey could be carried out by an engineering/asset surveyor.
Problems occur when the plan is not aligned to the real needs of the core function of the buildings.
Over-complex designs and systems, cause difficulties and skills/ability to operate/maintain.
Fix by using best practice guides, codes of practice and competent skills to develop plans and manage maintenance.

Compliance concerns
Managing risks and compliance is the most important aspect of building management. This can be reduced at design stage, with engagement of FM/systems thinking and information flow through the BIM philosophy. Data/records and management systems are important in managing compliance. There must be clear procedures with designated people that are monitored and recorded regularly.

Particular priorities are:

Lifts and escalators (LOLER Regs 1997)
Lightning protection
Pressure systems safety regulations
Fire safety BS 5839 detection and alarm systems
Gas safety
Water quality
Ventilation hygiene and local exhaust ventilation

Maintenance considerations
A maintenance strategy can be developed using CIBSE Guide M as an overarching best practice approach. Once the baseline of buildings and assets to be considered are established, a progressive method can be used to categorise the buildings and critical engineering services that support core functions. Typically:

Category A sites - Core business function, priority sites, severe operational/reputational damage on failure of any critical engineering services.
Category B sites- Core business function, may contain some critical areas, but duplicated in other sites.
Category C sites- Common type and replicated elsewhere. Impact would be managed on an individual site basis and supported by business continuity/alternative arrangements. Following the defined priorities, then existing information, topped up by surveys to establish the condition of the buildings. Bringing this together with the priorities and standard maintenance specification (B&ES SFG 20), gives a consistent approach to be tuned to the needs of the operation.

Examples being:

Priority 1 Maintenance - Statutory maintenance.
Priority 2 Maintenance - Essential maintenance-fit for function business focused assets/systems only.
Priority 3 Discretionary Maintenance - Priority of need, resources and return on investment.

The life cycle costing element can be applied using BS 8544:2013 guide for life cycle costing of maintenance during the in-use phases of buildings and RICS NRM3 New rules of measurement, order of cost estimating and cost planning for building maintenance works.

The final stage of developing a strategy will be selecting the method of management and delivery - in-house, outsourced, a combination of resourcing from specialist, single skill contracts through to bundling and TFM contracts. The FM will have a robust strategy to prioritise against budget discussions and availability to maintain the building well, supporting the customer core business against operational risk.

Technological developments
Technology continues to evolve, driving more dynamic analysis and real-time reporting. The SFG 20 spec allows customisation to suit particular assets and priorities. Life cycle costing databases continue to progress, but systems organisations are developing end-to-end planning, management and operational tools to engage design philosophy, building/engineering system design decisions information through to construction operation and maintenance, also linking CAFM, BMS and security/fire systems. True BIM?

Geoff Prudence is Chair of CIBSE FM, the BIM4FM cross industry workgroup and also BIFM Building Services, Data Centre and Critical Services Network.

Reference sources
www.CIBSE.org