Home > Operations & Maintenance

Facilities Operations & Maintenance

by Don Sapp, Plexus Scientific

Last updated: 04-21-2008

Introduction

The operations and maintenance (O&M) of facilities covers all that broad spectrum of services required to assure the built environment is available to and will perform the functions for which they were designed and constructed. O&M is comprised of the day-to-day activities necessary for the built entities to perform their intended function. Operations and maintenance are combined into the one term O&M because an entity cannot operate without being maintained; therefore the two are discussed as one.

At this time the Operations and Maintenance section offers guidance in the following areas:

Future updates to the Operations and Maintenance section will provide additional guidance in the areas described below.

The scope of O&M includes the activities required to keep the entire built environment as contained in the organization's Real Property Inventory of buildings and structures and their supporting facilities such as utility systems, parking lots, roads, drainage structures and grounds in condition to be used to meet their intended function during their life cycle. These activities include routine and breakdown maintenance and repairs, operations of utility systems and grounds care. It varies from O&M of a single building to a complex of many buildings and structures or groups of complexes. As the number of buildings and structures increases, the organization performing the O&M increases in size and complexity. In all cases it requires knowledgeable and skilled management and skilled and trained technical personnel to perform the many varied O&M functions.

Major Resources

A. Planning and Design Phase

O&M activities start with the planning and design of a facility and continue through its life cycle. During the planning and design phases, O&M personnel should be involved and should identify maintenance requirements for inclusion in the design, such as equipment access, built-in condition monitoring, sensor connections, and other O&M requirements that will aid in their operations and maintenance when the built facility is turned over to the O&M organization.

B. Construction Phase

During the construction phase and prior to turnover of the facility for O&M operations and maintenance manuals are provided to the O&M organization and O&M organization personnel are provided training required for their O&M of the new facility. Assurance that the manuals and training are provided is a part of the Building Commissioning process.

C. Life Cycle O&M

O&M of the elements included in buildings, structures and supporting facilities is complex and requires a knowledgeable, well-organized management team and a skilled, well-trained work force. The objective of the O&M organization should be to operate, maintain, and improve the facilities to provide reliable, safe, healthful, energy efficient, and effective performance of the facilities to meet their designated purpose throughout their life cycle. To accomplish these objectives, the O&M management must manage, direct, and evaluate the day-to-day O&M activities and budget for the funds to support the organization's requirements.

D. O&M Approach

The O&M organization is normally responsible for operating the utility systems and for maintenance of all of the built entities. In accomplishing these responsibilities, the O&M organization must operate the entities responsibly and maintain them properly. The utility systems may be simple supply lines/systems or may be complete production and supply systems. The maintenance work may include preventative and programmed maintenance, repairs, trouble calls, (e.g., a room is too cold,) replacement of obsolete items, predictive testing & inspection, and grounds care. Many O&M organizations are now utilizing a Reliability-Centered Maintenance (RCM) program that includes "the optimum mix of reactive, time- or interval-based, condition-based, and proactive maintenance practices… These principal maintenance strategies, rather than being applied independently, are integrated to take advantage of their respective strengths in order to maximize facility and equipment reliability, while minimizing life-cycle costs." The O&M organization is also normally responsible for maintaining records on deferred maintenance (DM), i.e. maintenance work that has not been accomplished because of some reason—usually lack of funds.

E. Computerized Maintenance Management Systems

In today's computer age, O&M organizations utilize Computerized Maintenance Management Systems (CMMS) to manage their day-to-day operations and to track the status of maintenance work and monitor the associated costs of that work. These systems are vital tools to not only manage the day-to-day activities, but also to provide valuable information for preparing facilities key performance indicators (KPIs)/metrics to use in evaluating the effectiveness of the current operations and for making organizational and personnel decisions.

F. Non O&M Work

Most O&M organizations also perform work that is not O&M, but is so often performed by facilities maintenance organizations they become a part of their baseline. This work is facilities related work that is new in nature, and as such should not be funded with O&M funds but funded by the requesting organization. Examples of the work includes installation of an outlet to support a new copier machine, providing a compressed air outlet to a new test bench, and other minor facilities work of like nature.

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