Understanding the contributions, complexity and impact of the many assets contained within modern facilities and infrastructure portfolios is key to innovating and enhancing valuations. It is also at the heart of objective-based maintenance.
Numerous studies show that investing in the right maintenance strategy is critical to maintaining the value of existing building stocks and infrastructure. Setting clear, measurable objectives aligned with organisational goals allows facility and field teams and operators to plan specific maintenance activities, track progress and prove successes.
The successful implementation of objective-based maintenance is based on five principles:
- Setting objectives
- Aligning desired outcomes
- Defining activities
- Automating processes
- Proving successes
Setting objectives
Establishing well-defined targets allows organisations to identify specific actions and priorities, ensuring their maintenance strategy yields tangible benefits and drives continuous improvement. With a roadmap outlining how their actions contribute to organisational success, facility and maintenance teams are no longer left jumping from one emergency to the next. They move beyond reactive maintenance into more value driven and proactive maintenance activities.
Aligning desired outcomes
Organisations need a clear view of how strategic goals translate into actionable targets. Whether compliance, fire safety, sustainability, occupancy satisfaction levels or financial performance, the connection between asset maintenance and organisational goals is clear. While it may not be possible to align every organisational objective, pursuing a deeper level of collaboration will unlock unforeseen synergies and solutions.
Defining activities
Setting objectives and aligning desired outcomes is only the start. It’s then time to define and prioritise the activities that will result in those outcomes. It’s important that these activities can be captured in a digital solution, like a CMMS, FSM or IWMS, that allows maintenance and field service teams to manage data from installation to decommissioning.
Automating processes
Although manual maintenance activities will always be necessary, a range of automation solutions, including connected platforms, generative AI and system response automation, now exist to augment the capabilities of both experienced and inexperienced maintenance workforces alike. These automation tools optimise maintenance schedules, allow for the more effective allocation of resources, and predict future maintenance needs.
Proving successes
Adding an objective-based focus to asset and maintenance management processes helps to address broad facility-wide challenges like data collection and communication gaps, but what about the maintenance teams themselves? Make sure you can recognise and verify their impact using a connected, digital platform, like a CMMS, FSM or IWMS, that integrates data from across a portfolio of equipment and buildings. With all your data in one place, facilities and field services teams can break down organisational silos, maintain focus and create compelling reports that demonstrate the value being delivered.
More than just maintenance
The alignment of technology and strategy creates a more cohesive and efficient approach to asset and maintenance management, delivering a boost for all stakeholders — maintenance teams included. Ultimately, this could change how organisations approach the entire life cycle of building and asset management. When pursuing truly objective-based operational processes leads to the closer integration of siloed information, the impact on facility management could be truly profound.
Read more about Derrek’s insights on objective-based maintenance in his recent IFMA article.