Tricks Of The Trade: Maintenance Manuals

By James C. Elledge, IFMA Fellow, CFM, FMA, RPA, RIAQM
Published in the February 2006 issue of Today’s Facility Manager

Q What resources are there for the creation of a facilities maintenance manual, including consultants who can do this for us?

Marcus Rowell
CEO
Pacific Palisades, CA

A The facility you have will make a difference in the type and detail level of a maintenance manual. Generally, an HVAC or EMP engineering firm can help with this task.

If you opt to undertake this project on your own, make sure you check with the manufacturers of the equipment you have in your facility. Each piece of equipment will have recommended maintenance and service requirements. These requirements should help you create a baseline of the minimum maintenance schedule recommended for each major component.

Additional resources include:

  • 15 O&M Best Practices (pdf)
  • Guidelines for Obtaining Best Practice Contracts for Commercial Buildings Operation and Maintenance Service Contracts (pdf)
  • Operations & Maintenance Best Practices Guide

These tools should provide assistance in the creation, organization, and relevant material required for your manual.

Elledge,facility/office services manager for Dallas, TX-based Summit AllianceCompanies, is the recipient of the Distinguished Author Award from theInternational Facility Management Association (IFMA), is an IFMA Fellow, and isa member of TFM’sEditorial Advisory Board. All questions have been submitted via the “Ask TheExpert” portion of the magazine’s Web site. To pose a question, visit this link.