How does changing a 9-volt battery save a facility hundreds of dollars later?

A national retailer needed a systematic inspection of their facilities.  During these visits, it was determined including a procedure to check the battery in the exit door alarm system could prevent a more costly on-demand work ticket when the battery failed.

Scope of the Work

1.  Technicians should carry a supply of 9-volt batteries when conducting preventative maintenance at each location. 

2.  Attach piece of masking tape labeled with date onto battery.

3.  Open battery case for exit alarm system and inspect battery.  Batteries older than a set timeframe should be exchanged. 

Challenges 

1.  Typically a project meets obstacles during preparation or in delivery.  However, in this instance, the challenge of how to cut costs was the issue. This project became a solution to a client need.       

Solutions

1. The solution relied on company differentiators to make the project a success.  
2. Accountability – The client set the standard for at what interval the battery should be changed.  
3. Structure – The procedure was incorporated into the existing Preventative Maintenance Plan so the battery swap was not overlooked.  Checklist documentation ensures that details of systematic inspections are not forgotten.  
4. Communication – A simple piece of tape with the date communicates when to replace saving the client hundreds per location

Summary

By simply checking the shelf life of a battery, the client was protected against a more costly on-demand repair.  When the 9-volt battery fails, the system emits an alarm that must be turned off by an electrician.  This on-demand service cost approximately $200.  Being proactive during PM’s and having a checklist of items to inspect saves the client aggravation and expense.

Humans have always pursued improved solutions to their problems. Think of the transformations we have experienced in transportation between 1900 and 1970. We witnessed the transformation from horse and rail transport, to automobile, then flight, and eventually rocket propelled space exploration. It should be normal to… take everyday challenges and opportunities, and create extraordinary solutions.

Guard your time like it is a valuable asset. People know when you quit listening. You cannot fake it. Good listening takes commitment. Be careful of how many people you commit to listen to. Otherwise your time will disappear and you will become ineffective. It should be normal to filter out the white noise and focus fully on the things you choose.

How can an auto dealership showroom replace the entire tile floor without closing its doors?

In the competitive auto dealership environment, it makes sense to maintain optimal conditions and inviting appearances.   A client decided to overhaul their showroom with new floor tiles to maintain appearance standards.  What made the situation unique is that the client wanted the project completed within an expedited deadline that would require working during normal business hours.

Scope of Work

1. Map out grid of showroom floor.  Coordinate day-by-day action plan and schedule to rearrange cars.
2. Control sectioned work area with plastic Visqueen zip barriers.
3. Keep supplies in separate area to minimize clutter on showroom floor.  Tile is transported to sectioned areas as needed.
4. Remove existing flooring, install tile and grout.  Clean area and begin on new section.

Challenges and Solutions

1. Work needs to be completed during normal business hours.
   • Work areas were sectioned off with Visqueen zip walls to minimize dust and disruption.
2. Client requested that cars remain on showroom floor during project execution.
   • Resicom worked in a specific pattern so that demolition and installation occurred in small sections making shifting of cars easier.

Project Summary

Coordination is key when executing a demolition/installation project during normal business hours.  Allowances technicians normally have such as room to layout tools and supplies is greatly curtailed.  Technicians working systematically behind a plastic screen, importing materials to the work area as needed was an added challenge.  Although set/grouted tile was secure enough to walk upon the following day, it was not ready to be driven upon.  This required detailed project management of shuffling cars on the showroom floor.

Lemont, IL

Traditionally, many people choose to spend their Valentine’s Day celebration at a favorite restaurant.

This upcoming 2010 Valentine’s weekend, Resicom Solution Team Members are choosing to spend time with favorite restaurants at the annual RFMA (Restaurant Facility Management Association) conference in Dallas.

Much of 2009 has been spent cultivating new partnerships with national restaurant facility management.  Resicom has been actively demonstrating our ability to help busy facility maintenance managers experience normalcy during specialty project rollouts, overall renovations, and of course preventative and on-demand maintenance for their restaurant facilities.  Two particular case studies, Finding New Homes for Nemo and Do You Want The Cherry or Cola-Flavored ICEE?, highlight Resicom’s ability to orchestrate and execute comprehensive restaurant projects.

Already known as the nationwide maintenance company for retailers, Resicom is looking forward to the opportunity to further introduce our disciplined structure and display what makes Resicom unique to restaurant clients.

“We are excited to bring the Resicom approach to the organizations attending RFMA.  Our clients nationwide value our insight and experience, looking to us to offer options to solve their facility maintenance challenges,” says National Business Development Manager Steven Rosendahl.

The Restaurant Facility Management Association, in which Resicom has enjoyed active membership and participation, brings together top restaurants and service providers to network and discuss key trends in the facility maintenance industry.

Caulk Talk

Caulk is one of those versatile substances that has a myriad of uses in both facility maintenance and general construction.  When sealing joints and seams, it can be difficult knowing which caulk to use given the variety of material available.  The most commonly used types of caulk for facility maintenance, residential and commercial construction are water based acrylic, silicone, and urethane.

Water based acrylic is often selected because of excellent adhesion, flexibility, and the fact this caulk is paintable.   Primarily used for carpentry and interior finishing, it easily fills the gaps between molding and walls, and can be used to fill the seams at the molding joints themselves.  When the caulk is applied to molding that is to be painted, it helps to give the facility an aesthetically appealing and “finished” look.

Water, water everywhere and not a drop that seeps…

Silicone caulk has all the beneficial properties of the water based acrylic, but it is not paintable.  The benefit is that this caulk repels water much more readily.  Often used to protect protect kitchens, bathrooms, and any other interior areas at risk from high levels of moisture and damaging effects of water, this caulk acts as a barrier to water seepage.

In kitchens, caulk is applied where the counter top meets the back-splash, where the back-splash meets the wall, and where the sink meets the counter top.  The same holds true for bathrooms, but expanded uses include the seal around toilets, bathtubs, sinks, and stalls. In these areas, it is possible to create a water tight barrier that is still visually attractive.

Down in the corner

Urethane caulk is commonly used on building exteriors to prevent water from seeping into the joints in concrete, or where pavement meets the edge of the building.  Caulking seams and cracks in concrete is imperative to prevent further separation, which is an eyesore.  The caulk prevents water from entering these gaps, freezing, then expanding which radiates cracks.  Using urethane caulk against the base of a building deters water from being directed towards the foundation and causing problems.  The downside of this type of caulk is that it can take several days to cure completely, so maintenance must be scheduled accordingly.  Anyone using urethane caulk should take precaution when applying as it is extremely difficult to remove from clothing and bare skin.

Seamingly Simple

Caulk is a necessary, versatile product to help maintain a facility.  However, one application of caulk is not a permanent solution.  Over time, depending on the type of caulk, it does need to be reapplied.  Caulk eventually will lose its elasticity, and crack due to the expanding and contracting of the structure where applied.  In high moisture areas, the caulk may show signs of discoloration and mold if not properly dried after prolonged exposure to water.  Re-application of caulk is part of any routine, preventative maintenance.   A small price to pay for having the right product for the right circumstances.

Lemont, IL

Known as the nationwide company that returns normalcy to the lives of facility managers through preventative and on-demand maintenance, Resicom is always looking to add great people to its team. We are pleased to announce the addition of Cindy Copeland to our Operations Maintenance Team at our corporate headquarters in Lemont.  Cindy will be responsible for providing project support to our facility partners requesting preventative maintenance work orders.    

Cindy brings proven project management and customer service experience, drawing upon her tenure in the communications industry and most recently with a national parking lot management company.   

Cindy is another example of how employees in sync with Resicom’s business structure are happy to refer employment opportunities to associates and networking colleagues.   Cindy and National Business Development new hire Marty Durkin are former co-workers who recently had an opportunity to reconnect via Linked-In web-media.  During a conversation about Resicom, Cindy expressed her interest in learning more about the company.   

“I decided to join Resicom because of the growth potential and the national goals explained to me,” says Cindy.  

“Cindy has a lot of drive and enthusiasm to learn new things and accept new challenges, which makes her a great fit for the operations team,” says Resicom Project Manager Kristine Bromberek. “Her personality and past experience will help her grow quickly in this company.”

Outside of work, Cindy is passionate about experimenting with new recipes, signing and free-style writing/blogging.

At Resicom, we are committed to delivering world class service. We embrace our role of protecting retail brands through facility maintenance and repair nationwide. Our self performance helps us provide insight and experience that our clients depend on to help solve challenges. 

Lemont, IL

Known as the nationwide company to return normalcy to the lives of facility managers through preventative and on-demand maintenance, Resicom is always looking to add great people to its team.

We are pleased to announce the addition of Mike Healy to our Chicago-based operations crew.  Mike brings tremendous trade experience in painting, electrical along with general carpentry/remodeling, and seemed the ideal fit as Resciom’s newest technician.      

“Resicom is fortunate to bring Mike onboard as part of the Resi-Crew,” says Team Development Manager Laurie Ledonne. “Mike has a great can-do attitude with a willingness to challenge himself to learn new techniques that benefit our facility partners.  Plus he’s a fantastic painter.  Mike mentioned that he’s not just looking for a job, but a career with a company- He’ll find that here at Resicom.”

CASE STUDY

To get life back to normal for our facility maintenance manager partners sometimes means not working normal hours.  Resicom often completes retail preventative maintenance overnight to limit disruption to guests and staff.  However, gaining access to a retail facility after hours needs to be thoroughly coordinated with the client and often a security third party.  Store managers are anxious to head home after a full day’s work, but Resicom is just beginning ours.    

Scope

The scope of work needed to execute the project includes:

1. Scope of preventative maintenance work is scheduled for after-hours execution. 
2. Third party security is coordinated within 48 hours of the scheduled job.
3. Resicon crew & security must be onsite 15 minutes prior to store closing to meet store manager. 
4. Security must remain on premises with Resicom crew until morning opening manager returns to facility.  

Challenges

The constraints of the project include:

1. Coordinating security to arrive on set date of project schedule. 
2. Security fails to show up prior to store closing time. 

Solution

In order to effectively execute the work order, Resicom technicians need to be assured that home support has procured necessary security and is effectively managing the project.   We can not allow our clients to be inconvenienced waiting for tardy security.  Resicom relies on our tried and true process when obstacles present themselves. 

Our solution to this project included:

1. Project Manager confirms security with client approved company via email within 48 hour window of scheduled maintenance.
2. Crews are instructed to call Resicom emergency phone by store closing time if guard has not arrived onsite.  
3. Resicom home office employee on-call status maintains master list of all after hours jobs, including pertinent information on which security company/crew is scheduled per site. 
4. On-Call Employee will call the security company to ascertain guard’s expected arrival time to coordinate prior to store manager leaving as that project does not need to be rescheduled. 

Summary

Resicom delivers normalcy, but there is nothing normal about a client who works a full day at a retail facility only to have to remain even longer waiting for security to arrive for the overnight maintenance crew.  Therefore, Resicom simply refuses to allow our clients to be inconvenienced waiting for security running late.  By having set procedures in place to account for hiccups when scheduling third party security, Resicom can rely on the necessary process to keep the project running smoothly.

CASE STUDY

As part of our preventative maintenance plans with national retailers, Resicom must stock speciality paints that can be efficiently delivered to various job site throughout the country without disrupting project deadlines.  To ensure that our crews are not without the necessary materials, Resicom developed a process to maximize our inventory levels without incurring added cost.

Scope

The scope of work needed to complete this project:

1. Create an assessment form to track rotating inventory and amount of paint required for projects. 
2. Create schedule where paint is ordered from supplier with enough lead time for delivery. 
3. Transfer paint to smaller container for cost effective shipping, and to minimize waste.  
4. Finalize shipment of paint to scheduled job site.  

Challenges

The challenges of this project included:

1. If paint is ordered too close to project start time, lead time on delivery can be upwards of a week pushing back entire project deadline.
2. Having paint shipped directly from supplier to job-site adds significant costs.   
3. Amount of paint required must be estimated accurately to avoid financial waste of paint that is discarded at the end of a project.   

Solution

Creating a process by which we can meet our material demands without disrupting project deadlines was critical to efficient and cost effective project management.  Our solution to this project included:

1. Preemptively order required speciality paint in bulk so it is on hand at home office/warehouse.
2. Creating a planned schedule so that costs are minimized by not having to ship last minute, and shipping in bulk.   
3. Transferring paint into smaller containers than five gallon buckets.  

Resicom is a process driven company.  By having an organized, established process for how we handle our material needs, Resicom is able to boost overall project management efficiency and transfer cost savings onto our clients.

CASE STUDY

In response to a difficult economic outlook, a retailer that we consistently service needed to revise their maintenance strategy.  Our client’s emphasis on brand protection and customer shopping experience remained a priority, but their restricted maintenance budget was now also a factor.   Resicom helped devised a solution to orchestrate bundled preventative maintenance work orders or  “Mini-PMs” to drive down costs for the client.  

Scope

The scope of work needed to execute this project included:

1. Client identified 100 flagship stores that would continue to receive preventative maintenance as usual without disruption.
2. Second tier stores were identified together by region and client supervisors would provide PM assessment rather than incur the cost of having our technicians complete the walk-through.
3. Complete specified Mini PM work provided from client to standard. 
4. Take before and after pictures of all the completed items for the client. 

Challenges

The constraints of this project included:

1. All work needed to be completed by the second week of August.
2. Security needed to be coordinated with some of the projects.
3. Some of the projects being completed coincided with other projects previously scheduled.
4. Materials for Mini-PMs were shipped directly from client to store and were often difficult to track.  

Solution

Understanding that the client was trying to keep their stores up to standard with a limited budget, we came up with multiple ways to complete the work within monetary constraints. 

Our solution to this project included:

1. Setting a schedule that made sure that the projects were completed by the set deadline.
2. Stores were grouped together by region to effectively coordinate Mini-PMs to several stores, or several work orders were grouped together for one specific store.
3. We contacted all the correct personnel, store and mall, to make sure that everyone was informed and the projects ran smoothly.
4. Using the pictures taken both before the project was started and after, we were able to audit the work completed and confirm that it was up to the standard of the client.
5. We followed up with the managers of the stores the day after all scheduled projects to confirm that they were content with all work completed.   
6. Our home office support played an important role in coordinating material tracking and acting as liaison between stores and technicians.

Summary

Resicom is a company that provides options to our clients.  A budget for the execution of full-scale Preventative Maintenance work orders at every store was simply no longer feasible for our client.  Resicom was willing to work with our client to create a solution that kept their stores still looking their best within a restricted budget.  Resicom executed the work orders within the time frame that was given to us by our client. And, even though we were on a such tight deadline, the high quality of work that is our standard was not compromised in anyway.  

CASE STUDY

Retailers depend on planned maintenance to keep their facility appearance up to standard, thereby protecting their brand. A national retailer contracted Resicom to perform a broad spectrum of overnight maintenance projects including painting, staining, and general carpentry at multiple locations. The proposed schedule included 110 stores across 12 states, many with multiple facilities in a particular city.

Scope

The scope of work needed to complete this conversion:

1. Conduct site visits 3 to 6 weeks prior to create the scope of work for each store.
2. Execute all work as designated by the project scope created during the initial site visit.
3. Alert mall and store management of our scheduled work one week prior to the start of work, verifying mall has all current insurance information.
4. Schedule overnight security for each location.
5. Conduct audit of all project execution no later than the day following completion.

Challenges

The challenges of this project included:

1. All work needed to be completed within the fiscal month (28 nights.)
2. All work needed to be completed overnight to minimize disruption to sales staff and guests.
3. Several locations were conducting internal overnight inventories or other maintenance services in progress that prohibited us from scheduling maintenance the same night.
4. The projects at certain stores would require more specialized work that required specifically skilled tradesmen.
5. Several locations were located at outdoor malls, which introduced weather related issues and limitations.

Solution

We created our maintenance schedule taking into account the overall needs of the client, deadlines, time and weather constraints, and the necessity to be flexible in scheduling ourselves around other activities being conducted overnight in the stores. The one month deadline was inflexible as we were scheduled to begin service to an entirely new set of stores the following month, and any delay would only create a domino effect of missed deadlines. Our solution for the project included:

1. Grouping stores in certain regions together to allow for schedule “runs” to maximize our workforce and reduce waste in travel time.
2. Utilizing multiple crews working simultaneously throughout the country to ensure that all deadlines are met.
3. Organizing each crew to contain the required specialized tradesmen for each run to ensure all work would be executed to exact specifications.
4. Cross-referencing our schedule against all other maintenance services, blackout dates, and inventories that were being conducted at stores to prevent conflicts.
5.  Purposely scheduling an extra day in each run allowed us to anticipate any problems that could be caused by inclement weather.

Summary

We were able to complete project scopes for all 110 stores within the 28 day window requested by the client. Only three visits needed an adjusted schedule, but those changes did not impact any other stores nor effect our overall deadline as we had built in the extra days anticipating inclement weather. We also needed to adjust 2 dates due to an unforeseen inventory date change, but we were able to accommodate the clients’ last minute request with ease. By remaining flexible and communicating clearly with the client we were able to successfully meet our client’s needs.

CASE STUDY

A retailer has a structured schedule monthly preventive maintenance (PM) program in place that require up to six visit per year per location. The scope of work consist primary of carpentry, painting, and janitorial services.

Scope
The scope of work needed to meet this client’s needs includes:

1. Visit and assess each store that is scheduled for PM services in each specified month. The scope of work for these PM’s are generated by our inspections, with recommendations on the severity of each issue.
   
2. Propose all repairs in a proper format that allows for easy approval by client.
3. Review all approved scopes after they are received from client then schedule scope completion within specified time frame.
4. Inform mall and store and of our scheduled work one week prior to the start of work, ensuring mall has all current insurance information.
5. Audit the work completed the day after it was done.

Challenges
The constraints of this structured work include:

1. All work needs to be completed overnight.
2. Surveying the store becomes much more difficult as foot traffic increases in the store.
3. Scheduling overnight work to accommodate other vendors, including third party security guards for both the store and the mall.

Solution
We understood that all surveying and PM services had to be completed in the designated time frame to coincide with the clients fiscal months due to meet their budgets. Since all work was to be completed overnight it was imperative that all work needed to be fully completed prior to the store opening the next morning. Proper communication between the store management and mall personal was important as to not “surprise” any parties upon are arrival.

1. Plan all store visits, trying to visit them times when they are generally slower.
2. Utilize technology to speed up the surveying process.
3. Build our schedule, with consideration given to clients other projects and floor-set/inventory schedule.
4. We established procedures that required our home office to contact each store three times during the whole PM cycle. A phone call is placed 1 week prior to work commencing, another phone call is placed the day of scheduled work, and the third and final call is placed the morning after the work. This ensured that store is constantly aware of what is happening at the store and gives them a opportunity to relay any concerns with the upcoming or completed work. The mall receives similar reminders.
5. Schedule crew to arrive before the store closes to ensure that the security is on-site or in transit. This enables our after hours personnel sufficient time to find a replacement guard to help keep the projects on schedule.
6. Establish training procedures for common items at our training facility, where these items can be perfected.
7. Create a tracking system that internally rates our performance, helping us learn how to improve.
8. Update our project managers daily with any new or emergency items that our client has relayed to us since the approved scope was given to us.

Summary
Turning work into a repeatable process fosters consistent performance. Establishing the correct training of the processes helps us deliver a consistently high level of service to this client.