What is a Planned Preventative Maintenance (PPM) Plan?
Responsibility for a building means being responsible for something physical. Like all physical things, they sometimes need repairs or treatments to ensure they function correctly and to ensure that contractual and statutory obligations are being met.
Planned preventative maintenance plans are often drawn up to forward plan maintenance works to ensure as far as practically possible, a straight line cost is achieved over a number of years. Poor planning can lead to cost spikes when several expensive repairs are needed at the same time. Forward planning can also ensure that the building is well maintained and reduces the risk of catastrophic sudden failure of particular elements, which can reduce or stop the building’s ability to function as an operable building, and has adverse impacts on the building occupiers.
Why it is important to use a Chartered Building Surveyor
Careful planning of certain works can also reduce the costs of the maintenance of a building over a period of years by grouping certain works together to take advantage of planned shut-downs or maximising the use of specific access equipment to reduce set-up costs.
Maintenance plans show which work is to be carried out during each year and places costs against those works to illustrate how expenditure is to be budgeted for. This is often a very important tool for properties managed with a service charge, specifically if the service charges are capped.
In order to achieve the above, the plan needs to be assembled by somebody who has experience of life expectancy of building components and services installations, replacement costs, access costs, contract costs and a strategic view of lease documents to understand the service charge mechanisms.
Why use DW Building Consultancy?
Throughout my career, I have advised on all different types and ages of properties. This has led to a breadth and depth of knowledge of building components and the costs involved in repairing and maintaining them, as well as the analysis of service charge mechanisms.
The planned preventative maintenance plans I produce are dynamic documents that can be updated throughout the life of the building. I give priority codes to each item which will highlight whether these are immediate items (safety or statutory items), or perhaps optional items that could be deferred until later. This is vital as it allows the building manager more flexibility in financial planning and can be adapted year on year.
This type of work sometimes requires the additional advice of a services consultant, but I am able to co-ordinate this, review and sanity check the services consultant’s work and include this within the overall maintenance plan.
I am also able to specify and implement works packages as identified in the plan (please refer to my Project Management / Contract Administration services).