Construction and Facility Management firm Polyteck by Yiannakis Polycarpou Says More Buildings Need Planned Preventive Maintenance (PPM)

Polyteck, a construction and FM business led by Yiannakis Polycarpou, has been awarded a contract.

This is to provide planned preventative maintenance (PPM) at the Lillie Square development in West London. This follows from other FM deals with The Stratford at Manhattan Loft Gardens, a development in Stratford, London, and the Beach Tower, a 34-storey residential tower in Doha, Qatar.

Mr Polycarpou believes that more buildings need PPM and states that a well-planned strategy will be cheaper in the long run and much better for the property being managed.

It is trite that buildings need care and maintenance to retain their value and remain safe and habitable.

Property owners can take one of three approaches to property maintenance. First, they can decide to not do maintenance (at the peril of their investment). Second, they can decide to do reactive maintenance or third, they can elect to do planned preventive maintenance.

Let’s see why planned preventive maintenance is by far the best approach.

1. No Maintenance

We will not cover this as an option as it is not a realistic option at all.

2. Reactive Maintenance

Reactive maintenance involves an approach that only seeks to perform maintenance on failed items. If it ain’t broke, don’t fix it.

Although many property owners believe that this is the cheapest way to manage their properties, this is not the case.

Murphy’s law dictates that equipment failure happens at the most inconvenient time. Failures often happen outside of working hours, which leaves people scrabbling during overtime hours to fix the problem. The overtime charged adds significantly to the cost.

Since the failure has not been planned for, reaction teams do not often have all the tools and equipment they need, so numerous trips to the hardware are made to procure the right tools and the items to repair. This results in a lot of wasted time, and we all know that time wasted is money wasted.

Constant emergency repairs to your building will result in your tenants or occupiers changing their perception of your property. In addition, they will make them more likely to bounce when other attractive property options present themselves.

Reactive maintenance is much riskier, and failures prove to be highly disruptive to all operations as they have not been scheduled and thus accommodated.

3. Preventive Planned Maintenance

Preventive maintenance is maintenance designed to prevent breakdowns. Preventive planned maintenance achieves this goal using a systematic, methodical, structured approach.

This includes routine audits of the building’s infrastructure. The idea is to identify and then mitigate risks.

4. Retain or Increase the Value of Your Property

PPM increases the value of your property.

If it is leased, the property’s value is consistently increased through the appearance of the building. Therefore, PPM seeks to ensure that the building always looks and functions at its best. In addition, higher rentals are possible when the property is in a good state of repair.

If the property is owned, when it is time to sell, the state of repair of the building translates directly into a higher selling price. It will easily offset any expenses incurred through a well-designed PPM strategy.

5. PPM Saves Money And Effort

Unlike reactionary maintenance, planned maintenance allows you to effect repairs according to your timetable. Your teams know what they need to repair and will arrive at the scene with the correct tooling and spare parts, leading to efficiencies. No unnecessary trips to buy or obtain tools and buy parts. Saving time is saving money.

It is far cheaper to prevent breakdowns than it is to effect emergency repairs in the long run.

6. PPM And Litigation

Litigation relating to inadequate safety in buildings is commonplace. Your ppm records provide reasonable evidence of compliance with safety issues.

7. Seasonal Preparedness

PPM Schedules allow you to prepare in advance for seasonal changes. For example, HVAC systems can be serviced before summer. Likewise, heating systems can be prepared for winter.

In Summary

Some things in life just make good sense. PPM is one of these. So if you are a property owner performing reactive maintenance, switch to PPM. It will pay dividends in the long run.