“Patience My Young Padawan,” the wise and famous Obi Wan Kenobi said to his apprentice, Anakin Skywalker. Although we know how that story ended, it does not mean that the words are not wise, especially when it comes to Preventative Maintenance (PM).
Each year, I hear in more client conversations that in addition to wanting to get a handle on their Deferred Capital Renewal and Maintenance (DCRM) Backlog, clients are expressing a desire to start or improve on their PM program. In some cases, the impetus is the licensing of a new Computerized Maintenance Management System. Sometimes it is a new leader that takes over within an organization and in some cases, it is just because they know PM is the right thing to do in the long run.
The end goal of PM is and has always been the reduction in reactive work orders as well as the extension of the useful life of the equipment on which you are performing the PM tasks. However, one of the main reasons why more organizations don’t do more PM is that they simply do not have qualified resources, or the budget to hire third party contractors to do it.
The challenge arises when, in the early days of your PM program, you have to invest the additional staff resources and money with nothing to show for it. You see starting a PM program is like going to the gym after a long absence. The first day after you return to the gym you feel terrible. Everything hurts, you can barely move, and you just want to quit. However, if you push through and keep it up, eventually you will start to feel better and see results. Slowly, but surely over time you will start to transform your body and become stronger and healthier.
The same is true for PM. In the early days, you will be trying to do more with less. Your staff may feel overworked, and your clients/occupants/tenants probably won’t notice any change. The value in PM and the pay off of reduced reactive maintenance takes time and patience. As you start to see a reduction in reactive maintenance, you can reassign your staff to more PM which accelerates the reduction in reactive maintenance, which also allows you to reassign more staff to PM and so on.
Unfortunately, I don’t think anyone will ever be able to eliminate reactive maintenance, as there will always be issues that occupants will bring up that require attention and even with the best PM, equipment will always periodically have issues and fail, requiring a reactive response. That doesn’t mean that we should not “put in the time” and do our PMs.
The challenge is that we are living in an instant gratification world. “What Have You Done for Me Lately!”. It can take years for material benefits of PM to start to become noticeable. In that time, stakeholders can lose interest and shift resources. Leadership (and the vision of a team) can change and/or an increase in reactive maintenance needs can sidetrack a PM program. The hardest thing to do is to continue to push through and know that the payday will come.
Investing in PM is not a “get rich quick” scheme, rather it is more like taking the long view and getting the benefit of compound interest over time. The best time to have started (like the best time to plant a tree) is 20 years ago. The second-best time is today. What are you waiting for?