GOVERNMENT TECHNOLOGY/Computer system tracks costs in lean times

The Orange County, Calif., Public Facilities and Resources Department (PFRD) has implemented a computerized maintenance management system (CMMS) to track service requests and costs. The system has increased the department’s efficiency and accountability to county management.

PFRD’s management introduced the computer system following a departmental restructuring that was prompted by the county’s bankruptcy in 1994. During the restructuring, the PFRD was assigned a host of responsibilities, including design, construction, maintenance and repair of roads, dams, harbors, parks, bridges, facilities and beaches. The maintenance responsibilities included 120 facilities (approximately 4.3 million square feet), yet the department only had 130 staff members.

The PFRD had a lean budget and an outdated, expensive-to-maintain management system. For example, records management and maintenance scheduling were done manually, as were service calls. Cost accounting and status reporting were computerized, but the system was outdated.

Administrative directives to perform more preventive maintenance encouraged the department to scrutinize, control and optimize expenditures, and to increase efficiency. After evaluating expenditures, the department decided that a new computer system could help reduce costs over the long term, and it formed a committee of supervisory and shop personnel to establish requirements for a CMMS.

Key requirements included:

• A library of preventive maintenance procedures that would establish original equipment manufacturer (OEM) and/or industry standard levels and frequency of preventive maintenance;

• A library of OEM and/or industry time standards for each preventive maintenance procedure to help identify total manpower requirements per shop;

• A library of standard and customized cost accounting and status reports;

• The ability to transfer cost information for material/part purchases and purchase order contracts from the county’s cost accounting system database to the CMMS work order records;

• Handheld devices for each worker to help manage daily and weekly work assignments and to automatically log work time into the CMMS database; and

• The ability to initiate service calls and work requests via the county’s Web page.

• In December 1998, the county contracted with Plano, Texas-based Caver-Morehead Systems to implement the company’s Innovus FM1 CMMS. The system was installed in three phases. First, the department began a pilot program in which it identified all equipment, barcoded each item and built a database of equipment information for eight buildings. (By using a coding system, and by tagging each piece of equipment and associated systems with a barcode label, the county reduces chances for error in managing both corrective and preventive maintenance. The department scans the barcodes and matches them to the equipment information in the CMMS database.)

  Also in phase one, the department began using the new computer system to initiate service calls and maintenance requests, and to track labor and material costs. In the second phase, the department continued the CMMS installation in the remaining 112 county buildings. The final phase, which will be completed this month, includes the integration of handheld devices and the creation of a Web page.

  The CMMS is helping the department achieve its goal of increasing the amount of time dedicated to preventive maintenance while keeping staffing levels consistent. As the department shifts to doing mostly preventive maintenance, it will increase the life of its equipment by 50 to 75 percent.

  The author is chief of facility maintenance for Orange County, Calif.