Facility Management: Functions, Delegation, Maintenance Programs, External Services, and Preventive Maintenance Strategies

This article discusses the feasible facility management team functions and responsibilities, how the facility manager will be delegating the tasks and responsibilities, maintenance programs allocated to the FM at the factory, external services required to cater for the equipment in the factory, relationship between the FM department and other departments, and preventive maintenance strategies. It also covers the pros and cons of delegation, advantages and disadvantages of external services to internal services, and references.

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a) Feasible facility management team functions and responsibilities.
A management team in the facility AHU room has different management responsibilities and
functions. The first function of the facility manager is to ;
1. Upkeep and maintenance of the AHU room and the whole facility
2. To make sure that the facility runs smoothly
3. Managing the systems in the operation room including the IT and office equipment
4. Managing of budgets to be used in the facility
5. Delegating duties to the junior workers and subordinates.
Here is the organizational structure in the facility operations room

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Source data; http://askinyathelo.org.za
b) How the facility manager will be delegating the tasks and responsibilities.
Delegation is the transfer to a subordinate of a task or action that a leader must carry out,
together with the necessary powers for that. Delegation is an absolutely necessary action (Atkin
and Brooks, 2014). The leader wants or does not want, whether he likes it or not, whether he
knows how or not he knows how to delegate makes life. We can say that this is an objective
necessity. If the leader is able to distribute specific tasks among the subordinates, then he has
mastered one of the main commandments of the manager: "I do not have to obey the work, but
the work must obey me. He will be delegating all the operations in the AHU department to the
supervisors in charge of engineering, quality and operations
Pros and Cons
Why is delegation necessary?
1. The daily amount of work to be done by the manager always exceeds his physical and
temporal capabilities: (Cossins and Celeritas Works, 2015).
2. Naturally, a subordinate is able to do some work or cope with a task better than the boss. This
should not be feared, but should be encouraged and cultivated. A good manager is not someone
who can do any work better than his subordinates, but he who manages so that each subordinate
does his job best (Steinberg, 2016).
Cons
1. The manager can overwork some people

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2. Where it is his time to take personal responsibility, the manager may not take the blame
3. Delegation can be time consuming
4. Some managers may delegate work to people who are not really conversant with it or not
in their job description.
c) Maintenance programs allocated to the FM at the factory
There are various types of maintenance in a factory setting. The FM may be tasked to undertake
1) Corrective maintenance –when different sets of equipment is found to have defects, the
FM is responsible for collective maintenance of the entire equipment of the factory.
2) Periodic maintenance- it is also known as time based maintenance, which is not an
extensive program. It may involve clean ups, lubrications, visual inspections, collecting
of data and tightening of screws.
3) Overhaul- this is the most elaborate maintenance program by the FM. It involves
reviewing equipment schedule intervals leaving it to zero hours of maintenance. It is also
called zero hour’s maintenance (Drees and Johnson, 2015).
4) Preventive maintenance- done to maintain a certain level of service.
5) Predictive maintenance- once the FM has predicted a certain default, the repairs,
servicing and maintenance may start.
d) Externals services required to cater for the equipment in the factory
There are various services that may be used. They include;

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1. Equipment installation- where the facility staff may not be aware of installing certain
equipment, they may require external services.
2. Repair and maintenance- where it is so hard and the equipment requires only a specialist,
they may be required to outsource external services.
3. Where it is a new machine that requires the seller to have an input.
4. Construction of new factory halls to place the equipment.
5. Transporting and translocation of an equipment from one position to another which may
require folk lifts and cranes to lift the equipment.
e) Relationship between the FM department and other departments inorder for ther to
be a good flow of operations
All the department should work together. Delegation is getting rid of unnecessary uninteresting
work. In any case, the head of the department is responsible for the state of affairs in the
division, and when responsibility is delegated, his responsibility is not reduced, but increases. Al
departments should work together in planning, coordinating, control and delegation of duties to
ensure that there is efficiency and effectiveness in work done (Laudon and Laudon, 2016).
f) Preventive maintenance strategies
This is regular and routine maintenance aimed at preventing frequent breaking. It is based on a
time -used trigger system for prevention. The servicing can be done once an equipment hits a
certain millage as indicated in meter reading of the equipment. Servicing and repair of worn out
parts can also be done after a certain duration of time, for example after 6 weeks of uninterrupted
functioning. Lubrication and inspection is also necessary in the maintainace strategies (Nielsen
and Farr, 2014).

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g) Advantages and disadvantages of external services to internal services
Advantages
There are various advantages
1. Swiftness and expertise in the area of operation
2. They concentrate on the core service rather than the supporting services that may emerge
3. There is risk sharing with the company
4. It leads to reduced recruitment and operational costs
Disadvantages
1. More expensive than internal services
2. A lot of hidden costs
3. Risk of exposing confidential data or information
4. Sometimes may lack customer focus.

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References
Atkin, B. and Brooks, A., 2014. Total facility management. John Wiley & Sons.
Cossins, R.N. and Evans, S.A., Celeritas Works, LLC, 2015. Geographic management system.
U.S. Patent 9,118,579.
Drees, K.H. and Kummer, J.P., Johnson Controls Technology Co, 2015. Systems and methods
for statistical control and fault detection in a building management system. U.S. Patent
9,069,338.
Laudon, K.C. and Laudon, J.P., 2016. Management information system. Pearson Education
India.
Nielsen, S., Chambers, C. and Farr, J., CertusView Tech LLC, 2014. Management system, and
associated methods and apparatus, for providing improved visibility, quality control and audit
capability for underground facility locate and/or marking operations. U.S. Patent 8,731,999.
Steinberg, J.D., EcoFactor Inc, 2016. System and method for using a wireless device as a sensor
for an energy management system. U.S. Patent 9,244,470.