In any form of operation, mechanical components can fail unexpectedly, creating costly and time consuming business problems. 

Being prepared is the key to prevention in the form of planned or re-active maintenance support. Reactive maintenance solutions are perfect for organisations that cannot plan work due to the nature of the industry but need a quick response when problems arise. This kind of solution fits perfectly with businesses who are likely to have minor maintenance issues, where a business can run as usual if a problem arises. However, this is far from optimal, for example in a manufacturing environment, where critical machinery needs to be operating continuously. For this environment, prevention is key through planned maintenance solutions, to help avoid any unscheduled breakdown and down-time.

If you are a manufacturer without a planned maintenance solution, then you need to make sure you have a support in place to react quickly and with quality, should you need it.

Quick and effective reactive support can save a business valuable time and money. The benefits can be seen in this recent example at an American owned coffee manufacturing facility in South Wales. Their machines needed to be constantly operational to meet the production quotas, and to utilise production staff time. The fault occurred with the main coffee roaster. The initial response by the company was to buy a new part and call in an engineering specialist from overseas, as directed by the American management team.

Luckily, the manufacturer had used local outsourced facilities maintenance before. After identifying the main root cause of the problem, we were able to quickly identify a solution. We were called and onsite at 8am, had the broken machine parts repaired and fitted, and working again by 16:15 the same day.

As can be seen by this example, to keep operations running like clockwork, having an outsourced facilities company can prove to benefit a company in many ways:

Technical Support: Outsourcing to a larger specialised business can remove the pressure of responsibility and resource and lack of internal knowledge to get the job done by experienced engineers.

24 Hour/ 7 Days a Week Support: Every business has the potential of something happening out of hours. Having reassurance that there is round the clock support means the business will operate effectively with minimal disruption to the customer and employees.

Bespoke Approach: Having a flexible, reliable and dependable service working for you will mean that you are more likely to be happy with the service provided because there’s an assurance you’ll get what you expect, when you expect it, in the way you expect it.

Health & Safety: Businesses need to ensure that Health & Safety is a priority for their employees, and outsourcing facilities management can take the risk out of faults not spotted or faults not repaired properly. Organisations can rest assured that there is a duty of care from good, quality contractors.  This also supports risk management, whereby the facilities company can identify potential risks before they become an issue. This is particularly appropriate to the planned maintenance programme.

Sustainability: If your business has a sustainability program, it’s likely that from a strategic perspective, the businesses planned maintenance solution will tie in with the sustainability plans in terms of performance and profitability. When forward planning, businesses with a focus on sustainability may wish to implement a structured facilities program and coordinate this with the business plan as a way of improving and achieving the best performance.

Editors notes: Ayjay Group offers a comprehensive range of professional facilities maintenance solutions to businesses across the UK, with maintenance teams ready to respond 24/7. Providing planned and re-active support to all types of businesses, the service includes mechanical maintenance and repair, which involves fixing all kinds of mechanical or electrical issues, where we can adapt to all maintenance requirements.