The handover from the planning, design and construction (PDC) phase to day-to-day operations is among the most critical junctures in the life of any facility.
The reality is that many of the core assets with a facility — emergency power, chillers, boilers, etc. — are already starting to depreciate the very minute you take up occupancy of the space.
To create resiliency on day one, you must have a reliable asset lifecycle management (ALM) system in place to conduct preventive maintenance, track parts inventory and stay on top of compliance to help protect your investment long-term. The later in the game you start this process, the more difficult, expensive and risky it becomes.
Getting started
In a recent webinar, Mark Mochel, an advisory board member at the American Society for Health Care Engineering (ASHE), provided insights into the relationship between PDC and facilities management teams, highlighting the importance of working together to future-proof maintenance and operations.
As he noted, the key to a successful operational handover is having asset lifecycle management capability through a computerized maintenance management system (CMMS) configured and deployed from the start.
When an asset is installed, logging all information into a CMMS is a low-cost measure to help protect your ROI. Enabling the right preventive maintenance from day one can significantly extend the lifecycle of many assets, a very minor investment in comparison to the cost to construct the building itself.
The benefits of a data-driven framework
A data-driven approach to asset management can set up facilities operations for long-term success. When up-to-date asset data informs planning and decision-making, teams gain clear visibility into equipment conditions and can accurately predict maintenance, costs and capital investment needs.
The key is to establish a business process that defines operational handover and leverages digital maintenance management and enterprise asset management (EAM) technology to make it work.
Among the benefits of having a functioning CMMS on day one:
- Digitized data in a central system with real-time asset tracking and mobile access
- Accurate parts inventory data to support productivity and continuous asset uptime
- Asset maintenance history documentation to forecast performance, risk and cost
- Streamlined maintenance workflow and preventive maintenance procedures
- Solutions to track and manage compliance tasks according to industry
The risks of putting off asset lifecycle management
During the webinar, Mochel shared the story of a Midwest hospital that spent hundreds of millions on a major expansion but operated for nearly two years without any inventory or maintenance management system. In that time, they struggled to track compliance, perform preventive maintenance and manage daily work.
When an upcoming compliance survey forced urgent action, Brightly (now a part of Siemens) quickly mobilized a team to help, but the hospital still faced costly inefficiencies, lost data and missed maintenance opportunities. “So we’ve got a $250 million investment,” Mochel notes, “but no focus on doing everything possible to protect that investment and bring it online efficiently.”
While leadership turnover, poor data transparency and unclear task ownership all played a role, the gap between construction completion and operational readiness underscored just how critical strong handover practices are to protect assets and build day-one resiliency.
Conclusion
A smooth operational handover from PDC to facilities management takes upfront planning, clear accountability and thorough documentation starting early in the construction process. By following best practices, facilities teams can enable day-one resiliency and maintain efficient operations across their entire asset lifecycles.
Siemens Asset Management is here to help. We've worked with hospitals and healthcare systems across the country, including partnering with Foundation Health Partners to streamline work order management and provide access to clear, data-driven reports that helped them justify investment requests so they could secure $3.5 million in funding for deferred maintenance projects.
Read their full story to see the power of tracking and documenting asset and facilities histories and watch the full Strategic Asset Management and PDC: Operational Handover Best Practices webinar on demand.
