Sustainable and cost-effective property management requires a well-balanced and integrated approach between ongoing supervision and management and planned maintenance. By taking a more strategic approach to the overall management process, you can avoid unforeseen events and create a good long-term property economy.
Planned maintenance, ongoing supervision and care, and case management are three critical elements that interact to ensure that a property is kept in good condition over time. A lack of planning and coordination between long-term and short-term property maintenance can have several consequences, including inefficient processes and unclear communication.
The purpose of planned maintenance is to create foresight and better cost control with a plan and budget forecast for long-term maintenance, based on expected life cycle and estimated costs over time. The aim is to prevent damage and wear and tear to buildings and components. The challenge, however, is that in practice it is how well the ongoing supervision and maintenance is planned and carried out that will determine how well the calculations and forecasts hold up.
Risks of lack of coordination in property work
It is not uncommon to have separate business processes and to work in silos, where much of the work is done on the basis of a separate plan, conditions and objectives. Property work is no exception.
When planned maintenance is not coordinated with ongoing supervision and management, it can affect financial planning and lead to inefficient use of resources. Some examples of consequences that can be avoided with better coordination are:
Cost increases
Poor supervision and maintenance can lead to fewer small problems developing into larger and more costly repairs that may need to be brought forward or occur more frequently than planned. Temporary solutions and emergency repairs are often more expensive than planned actions and preventive maintenance of buildings and components.
Depreciation
Without regular maintenance, supervision and care, the building’s structure and systems can deteriorate faster than expected. Poor quality can lead to a decrease in the value of the property, with a shorter lifespan and less attractiveness. This in turn can lead to reduced rental income, or that, for example, a production facility can no longer be utilised as planned, which can have a negative impact on revenue in the longer term.
Increased load on fault reports
With lagging maintenance or more ad-hoc supervision and care, it is easy to fall behind. More time and resources then need to be spent on case management and on rectifying faults reported by the organisation. A growing proportion of acute faults and unplanned interventions require extra resources, which can easily be at the expense of the more preventive maintenance that inspection and maintenance entail. Once you have reached the point where the backpack of fault reports becomes too heavy, it can be difficult to adjust the balance of what you spend time and resources on. This in turn risks affecting the conditions for being able to follow the forecast for planned maintenance.
Work preventively with supervision and care
Therefore, coordination between planned maintenance and short-term supervision, care and case management is crucial if you want to optimise resources. It is also important to ensure good cost-effectiveness and maintain a safe, comfortable environment in the building.
By taking a more strategic approach to preventive maintenance, the value of the overall property work increases for property owners, tenants and users. This increases the chances of keeping the property in good condition, where small problems are detected and addressed more efficiently and less expensively. For example, more regular inspection and maintenance of a roof, where individual gutters or tiles are replaced, could help minimise the risk of moisture damage and extend the life of the whole roof.
Good coordination of both processes and systems is a prerequisite for effective planning and monitoring. A benchmark for ‘good balance’ in property management is to plan the work so that about 70 per cent of the time can be spent on preventive, proactive supervision and maintenance. This also helps to ensure that people working and living in the building feel safer, more secure and more comfortable when everything is working properly. At the same time, management can count on better cost control and resource allocation to ensure more sustainable property management in the long term.
How do you ensure effective preventive and ongoing maintenance for your properties? Pythagoras meets many management organisations that need to create a more proactive and coordinated maintenance process. Are you curious about how a digital property system can contribute to your technical management? Read more here
