Shadowing tradespeople: Inefficiency in maintenance fieldwork

a r t i c l e i n f o This research investigates current practices in Operations and Maintenance (O&M), from the initial phase of assigning maintenance requests through the completion of the requests, in order to identify types of inefficiency and their causes. Fifty-eight real maintenance cases have been shadowed; and maintenance activities performed by the tradespeople have been recorded with time data corresponding to each activity. O&M inefficiencies categorized into two groups, Structural and Individual, are demonstrated through specific cases. A statistical analysis is used to show how O&M tasks, activities, and categories impact overall O&M performance. The results show that tradespeople vastly underutilize maintenance data in the field due to problems with data accessibility and reliability. Based on the shadowing activity results, we observed 12+% potential for improvement in maintenance time efficiency by providing proper information support. There is significant potential for improvement in the performance of building equipment and facilities maintenance fieldwork. Operations and Maintenance (O&M) occurs throughout the lifecycle of a building. Not surprisingly, the majority of expenses are incurred during O&M. Many strategies have been developed to enhance the O&M environment. However, it is well-known that the maintenance industry adopts new technologies more slowly than other industries. Although the industry's tools and maintenance support systems have been enhanced considerably, for decades, its overall style of maintenance fieldwork has remained essentially unchanged. Furthermore, tradespeople vastly underutilize maintenance data in the field due to problems with data accessibility and reliability. This research investigates current practices from the initial phase of assigning maintenance requests through the completion of the requests in order to identify inefficiency in maintenance fieldwork and to develop strategies to improve the O&M environment with information support. The Federal Energy Management Program (FEMP) [1] defines O&M as " the activities related to the performance of routine, preventive, predictive, scheduled, and unscheduled actions aimed at preventing equipment failure or decline with the goal of increasing efficiency, reliability, and safety. " Mann [2] defines facility maintenance as " the activities required to keep a facility in as-built condition, continuing to have its original productive capacity. " Chanter and Swallow [3] see it as " work which enables the building to continue to efficiently perform the functions for which it was designed, " and Cotts and Lee [4] define it as " the work necessary to maintain the original anticipated useful life of a fixed asset; …