Lift Portfolio Management

We were approached by a well-known care provider in the South-West whose lift portfolio consisted of some 60 units of various makes and configurations spread across 19 locations county-wide.

They had been in a contract with their maintenance provider for some years and were concerned that their annual spend was increasing while their portfolio was ageing and becoming less reliable. Having approached another consultancy and found their approach to be prescriptive and of little help in tackling their requirements, we were recommended to them by another of our clients.

As expected, the discovery phase of our engagement with this client was based around the gathering of information regarding the operational requirements of the client, then balancing this against the physical realities of their portfolio taking into consideration constraints and balancing this against available and planned budgets with three primary aims:

LIFT CONDITION SURVEYS

A detailed investigation of historical breakdown records highlighted areas of immediate concern with some units across the portfolio.

In this case, while the physical age of the equipment was playing a part in some extreme cases, there were also some fairly new units on the portfolio which were presenting an inordinate amount of breakdowns relative to their age.

This uncovered an issue with several units from a single manufacturer which while only being under 5 years old were regularly breaking down. (In this case we worked closely with the manufacturer who provided technical support and personnel backup and the incoming new maintenance contractor to establish the cause of the breakdowns, make detailed adjustments and set out a preventative maintenance regime specifically for these units which included the regular replacement of some minor relays etc. pre-failure, which resulted in the reliability of these units then coming into line with expectations – thus saving the client down-time and additional call-out costs by tackling the matter pro-actively during maintenance.

Lift Maintenance Contract Analysis and Re-Tender

The maintenance contract in place was a standard contract provided some years previously by their incumbent maintenance contractor and offered very little in the way of SLA and measurable KPI. This also effectively took the client out of the driving seat and made them reactive with regard to their modernisation/refurbishment spend often resulting in extended downtimes when equipment failed rather than preventative maintenance and planned refurbishment.

Our first recommendation to the client was therefore for us to re-tender the maintenance arrangements basing the new contract on a form which was more in-line with their requirements, and provided them with more control, whilst still being realistic for a maintenance contractor to work with.

We provided the client with a form of contract to fit the above and successfully tendered this to 5 local lift contractors who were best placed both geographically and technically to provide the services, and who also had adequate resources to cover a portfolio of this size, particularly out of hours where due to the nature of the portfolio having several single lifted buildings and the nature of the premises being care homes which heavily relied on their lifts.

The tender exercise resulted in a new local contractor being appointed.

Lift Maintenance Management and Reporting

We then proceeded onto the implementation phase, working with both the client and the new contractor to begin to steer the portfolio into a healthier condition. This took the form of:

· Our detailed survey and report to a cross section of units which were earlier identified as “rogue” units – This enabled us to tailor the clients’ available modernisation budget and target this in a way which was going to benefit the client rather than a “scatter-gun” approach to modernisation.

· Monthly reporting on various metrics by the new contractor to ourselves, their interpretation and a monthly report from ourselves to the client.

· Quarterly meetings to review performance and direction.

Our structured approach soon began to provide results for the client and the number of breakdowns steadily reduced, saving the client both the operational issues of repetitive (and sometimes extended) downtime, and the resultant additional callout costs.

Lift Modernisation Planning

A few months into the engagement we then entered the preventative phase of our works, working with the client to target their available modernisation budgets. In this case planned modernisations were based around some metrics specific to the client’s industry;

· Whether the site was single lifted.

· The number of residents at the site and whether alternative arrangements in the event of lift breakdown were available. This was balanced against the historical breakdown rate of the equipment.

· The medical urgency of the lift central to the occupancy of the building.

As well as of course the age of the equipment and timely availability of spares.

A planned modernisation programme of three lifts per annum was therefore implemented.

We provided the client with a detailed specification of works for each of the modernisations which covered their reliability and compliance requirements, and also tendered these works not only to the incumbent new maintenance provider, but also to alternate contractors.

This enabled the client to show a “best practice” audit trail throughout the process both in financial terms and in care provision relative to the needs of their residents.

Over the period of two years, the results speak for themselves:

Breakdowns per annum – A reduction of 65% from initial 327 to 117 across portfolio.

Breakdown and unscheduled repair Costs per annum – A reduction of 43% in cost.

In this case, the cost savings on breakdown/unscheduled repairs in year two alone equated to the cost of major modernisation of one of the client’s lifts which the savings effectively paid for, even after our consultancy fees had been factored into the equation.

· Improving Reliability.

· Ensuring Compliance.

· Reducing Cost and targeting available budgets efficiently.

To find out how we can assist you with inspection, condition surveys, design, maintenance management and all other aspects of lift and Escalator consultancy services please contact us via our office or website at www.consultalift.co.uk