The physical assets of your business are tangible items of value that are used to generate revenue. Even if you are not using machinery or heavy equipment to produce manufactured goods, assets such as the furniture, flooring, lights, landscaping, HVAC systems, etc. all contribute value in terms of the services you deliver to your clients. They also provide a safe, healthy and comfortable working environment for your employees.

How are you both preserving and extending the life of your building’s physical assets? A standard cleaning or janitorial services program may be keeping everything looking well cared for and clean, but a professional commercial cleaning service, that includes facility maintenance, is critical when it comes to working with your operations’ team to protect physical assets.

What assets are we talking about?

Physical assets vary according to the kind of facility. The following are just a sample of what you may need to keep maintained, and why:

  • First, there are the assets you see, such as carpets, flooring, upholstery, counter tops, panelling, etc. A huge investment goes into procuring such items, and all are prone to wear and tear. For example, the cost of industrial flooring is high; so are the materials that go into wall paneling and counter tops, or the fabric that covers chairs. However, when it comes to the overall appearance, nothing makes a bigger impact than such assets!
  • Then there are systems such as HVAC that deliver air conditioning, air filtration, and heating. Not only are these assets costly to replace. If they are not working properly, or break down, they cause serious health and safety issues to customers and employees. Faulty systems also can have a negative environmental impact, calling into question your company’s commitment to sustainability.
  • Commercial buildings include electronics such as computers, printers, routers, wireless devices, etc., all of which are “dirt” magnets. Dust and grime that acts a conductor, or prevents conduction of electricity can cause serious damage to the internal workings of such sensitive electronics, not to mention disruption because of down time.
  • Industrial equipment and machinery all require specialized cleaning and maintenance to keep everything running efficiently, prolong the life of such equipment, and meet health and safety guidelines.
  • Add in anything that needs maintenance and cleaning, such as office kitchenettes (and related appliances), entrance ways, windows and doors, light fixtures, outdoor furniture, etc.

What are two kinds of maintenance when it comes to extending the life of your assets?

When looking at the above assets, there are two major categories of maintenance to consider:

Reactive maintenance is exactly as it sounds. One day you notice that the lobby of your residential building or office looks shabby because the carpet is badly stained or worn through in places. At this point, the carpet cannot even be restored —which means a costly replacement. Or in the middle of a heat wave, your air conditioning system breaks down because the filters are clogged. There’s no time to get competitive pricing, which means fixing the system, or replacing parts, is going to cost more than the allocated budget.

Neither of these examples are ideal—and both could have been avoided through preventative maintenance, that is, addressing wear and tear on these assets before they have to be repaired or replaced. For instance, the best way to increase the life expectancy of floor surfaces, such as rugs, is to vacuum regularly and do periodic deep cleaning. The same for your air conditioning units. You want regular cleaning in addition to tune-ups, filter replacement and maintenance checks, such as looking for leaks.

The economic case for preventative maintenance on assets

There are no shortages of examples that demonstrate the cost savings of preventative maintenance. In one study, buildings owned by a telecom company conducted preventive maintenance at industry-recommended standards, and realized a 545% return-on investment (ROI) compared to not doing any preventive maintenance!

The primary reason for such high ROI was the increase in service life of equipment, which allowed the company to use their existing equipment longer and defer investments. The other reason is that capital costs for infrastructure and equipment are very high, while annual maintenance costs are comparatively low.

The above is a telling example of why a small investment in maintenance can have large implications for capital investments when the lifecycle of an asset is extended through maintenance activities and new capital investments are deferred.

Partner with a commercial cleaning company that provides KPIs for tracking

If you are responsible for operations, you have a heavy and complex workload. Handling proactive maintenance internally can be a challenge. You also are faced with the reality that maintenance disruptions can cause loss of sales, decreased productivity, and add to labour costs.

Maybe it’s time to bring in a partner to share the burden for you!

Increasingly, those responsible for operations are partnering with professional commercial cleaning companies that include the services of regular building maintenance. A company such as Kleenway, for example, include a quality control system to properly track various metrics, including work performed on the asset such as cleaning: why it was done, what was done, and when it needs to be looked at again.

The use of such key performance indicators, or KPIs, means that Kleenway can gives its customers a whole picture of their contract’s management, not just the quality of cleaning. By working together with your operation’s team, the data provided by Kleenway’s Facility Maintenance Program is particularly valuable when making decisions about optimizing maintenance and the timing of asset renewal, replacement, or decommissioning. This requires tracking maintenance information – including costs.

Through our quality management software, for example, Kleenway tracks performance and project progress, upload detailed inspections, schedule work orders, and much more – all of which clients can access at any time via a personal online account.

In addition, our clients are assured that if there is a maintenance issue, we can dispatch trusted, certified service providers to service immediate problems during, before, or after normal business hours.

Partnering with operations for facility maintenance and asset management

Regular and proactive maintenance is key to maximizing service life and minimizing service disruptions. Neglecting the maintenance of infrastructure by deferring it to future years may be an easy option in the short term, but this creates a false economy.

Protect your assets, and you protect your business, your customers, and your people.