Designing the programme

Building a Preventive Maintenance Schedule

Procedure

Start with a dozen assets rather than the whole estate, define the task list rather than the interval, and expect the first version to be wrong.

Priorities and Response Times

Reference

Without a written scale everything becomes an emergency, emergency rates get paid for routine work, and real emergencies queue behind door handles.

Repair or Replace

Procedure

The decision is made repeatedly under pressure with no data, and the default is always repair. A threshold set in advance works better.

Warranty Tracking That Saves Money

Procedure

Operators pay for covered repairs routinely because nobody checks before dispatching. One register field and one process step fix it.

Parts: What to Hold and What Not To

Reference

Most restaurant operators should hold almost no parts. The exceptions are cheap, small, and prevent expensive downtime — and they are usually not stocked.

Choosing and Managing Vendors

Procedure

For most operators maintenance is vendor management. Fewer vendors with real agreements beat a long list of numbers.

Service Agreements That Are Worth Signing

Reference

Most contracts guarantee an arrival rather than working equipment. The clauses that make the difference are specific and usually absent.

Rolling a Maintenance Programme Across Sites

Procedure

Programmes fail at rollout rather than at design. Sequencing, site manager buy-in and a pilot that is allowed to fail are what separate the two.

Budgeting Maintenance

Analysis

Budgets set from last year's spend encode last year's neglect. A build from the asset register produces a defensible number.