A maintenance schedule need to be created and maintained. The schedule should, at a minimum:
- Be coordinated with all departments involved or at risk when maintenance is being performed.
- Be coordinated between vendors to avoid conflict of maintenance activities.
- Be executed to conform to local regulations (e.g., noise restrictions).
- Include compulsory compliance testing (e.g. testing for legionnaire contamination, CO2 emissions, etc.).
- Take into account the equipment manufacturers recommendations and restrictions.
- Ensure that qualified personnel (e.g. in-house staff, vendor, contractor) including appointed roles as well as tools and parts are available.
- Coordinated with external parties (e.g. fire department) where required.
The schedule should be published on a need-to-know basis. Upcoming events should be communicated well in advance to ensure that feedback can be solicited on the planned activity. Potential rescheduling should be communicated in a timely manner to all parties involved.
The organization should keep track of scheduled events and their actual date and time of execution in order to monitor how well the schedule is executed and to discover potential maintenance gaps which could increase risk. Delays should be documented and taken into account, where required, for the upcoming schedule or next year’s schedule.
A CMMS – Computerized Maintenance Management System could assist in supporting, tracking and automating maintenance tasks.
