By Christopher Burns
Back-to-school season is approaching, and K-12 facilities teams are gearing up to tackle a long list of projects, including issues from the past school year and necessary improvements for the year ahead.
When done right, facilities management can be transformative for K-12 schools. It can cut costs, prolong equipment lifespan, reduce unexpected failures, and keep students and staff comfortable and productive throughout the academic year. But a lot goes into good building management, and the schedule is tight, so the question is: How can schools organize all the work that needs to be done?
While each facility management strategy must be tailored to its school’s budget, size, and age, most K-12 schools can benefit from the following three best practices.
Use Technology To Effectively Manage Facilities Projects
Leveraging a computerized maintenance management system (CMMS) can simplify complex projects that must be completed on a tight schedule. These systems can ease facilities and asset management tasks by using automation to complete repetitive jobs. CMMS technology can also streamline processes by automatically routing requests and work orders and balancing workloads. This, in turn, can boost collaboration and increase team productivity.
With a CMMS, facilities management leaders can identify inefficient work silos and pinpoint frequently encountered issues, using the technology to break issues down by location. And with the use of cloud-based technology, employees can access needed information from anywhere, including from their mobile devices. The impact of CMMS technology can be game-changing, increasing efficiency and streamlining workflows across all facilities management functions.
Cut Costs With Preventive Maintenance
Preventive maintenance can help to reduce repairs, extend equipment lifespan, and prevent equipment downtime. Catching problems early and fixing them before they become critical failures enables facility managers to cut costs and keep equipment and systems performing at optimal levels for longer.
Key tasks for preventive maintenance include equipment cleaning, on-time parts replacement, timely lubrication and fluid replacement, and safety and alarm system testing. Regular inspections can help establish a preventive maintenance schedule that allows maintenance and facilities teams to reduce wasteful downtime. Instead of waiting until something breaks, they can conduct routine maintenance work to extend uptime and catch issues before they become crises. Preventive maintenance keeps facility equipment in good working order and building operations running smoothly.
Maintain Transparent And Timely Communication To Stakeholders
A third best practice for improved facilities management is to provide stakeholders with comprehensive and timely information. Effective communication helps to ensure greater transparency across teams, more collaboration between groups, and improved decision-making for all. Sharing options include cloud-based file systems, emails, school or school board websites, and auto-generated and auto-sent reports, which some CMMS provide. At a minimum, maintenance reports, analytics, and performance metrics should be shared on a regular basis. With these types of reports and data, leaders can be better positioned to make informed decisions and plan ahead.
Back-to-school facilities management can be a massive undertaking packed into very little time. With so many areas of K-12 schools to consider, it can be easy for facilities managers to lose track of important tasks, run out of time, and deplete their budgets. School facilities software can help them to manage and organize tasks, schedules, and reports in a single place. With the right equipment and these best practices, education leaders can start the new school year with clean, safe, and updated facilities that are ready to welcome teaching and learning.
Burns has been a Product Manager at Incident IQ since 2022. Prior to that, they worked at VMware Workspace ONE, starting as a Software Consultant in 2013 and progressing to various roles including Product Manager, Education Support & Services Manager, and Senior Product Manager. Burns attended the Georgia Institute of Technology, where they pursued a Bachelor of Science degree in Industrial Engineering.
