The countdown to the holiday clocks are starting to pop up everywhere; it seems everyone’s getting ready for Thanksgiving and Christmas—especially facility managers. The holidays are a valuable time for facility managers, employees, and vendors to get caught up on all the maintenance and cleaning they can’t tackle when employees are on the floor and production schedules are at peak.
The months before Thanksgiving and the holidays are just as important; they’re a strategic time when facility managers can order supplies for maintenance, schedule vendors for cleaning and maintenance, and start compiling a facility cleaning and maintenance checklist specific to their facilities. We’ve assisted with cleaning and maintenance at numerous commercial facilities, and we’ve given you a complete list that you can use to compile your holiday shut-down to-do list.
Facility Remodeling
If your company has renovations or remodeling that’s been on the ‘to do’ list but can’t be tackled while employees are on the floor or in the office, take advantage of an empty building and parking lot—or contact a vendor that can complete a light remodeling project on deadline. Removing and replacing ceiling tiles, fixing drywall patches, painting walls, fixing and repairing HVAC units, building inner offices, restroom repairs, and installing new interior and exterior doors can all be started and finished without aggravating any allergies or interrupting employee productivity.
Building Maintenance
Even with our severe winter weather, the holidays are an ideal time for interior and exterior maintenance that couldn’t be performed while employees and machines are running. Parking lot maintenance, pruning trees damaged by ice and snow, swapping filters, and other building maintenance can be done while you have easy access and don’t have to worry about employee and vehicle traffic.
Machine Maintenance
If you have machines in your production areas or warehouses, now is the time to flush and change fluids, lubricate parts, and perform any other preventative maintenance without interrupting production schedules. Order parts and fluids now so you are ready to start and finish your preventative maintenance before the machine needs to run.
Fleet Maintenance
For companies with delivery vehicles, cars, trucks and other company vehicles, the holidays are ideal for oil changes, brake replacement, and other fleet maintenance that needs to be done. If you haven’t had time, the holidays are also an ideal time to allocate staff time to winterizing lawn mowers and other vehicles stored for the winter.
Floor Cleaning
Schedule a floor cleaning and wax of your production floor while your shop is still during the holidays. Send out a request to your office employees to clean items off the floor before they leave for vacation or during shutdown so carpet cleaning, rug cleaning, and hard floor cleaning can be completed before they return.
IT Maintenance
Most businesses have (or should have) a regular back-up system for electronic files. The holidays are an ideal time for server maintenance, upgrades and comprehensive back-ups when you don’t have a lot of online users affected by the down time. If your IT crew has any new software to download or upgrade, now is the time to take advantage of an empty office and production floor.
Inventory
For facility maintenance, holiday shutdown is an ideal time to inventory machine and vehicle parts, lubricants, and other supplies needed for regular repairs and maintenance. For shipping and production, an empty floor is an opportunity to double check inventory numbers and ready for a busy new year.
Building Cleaning
To keep your employees safe and productive, coordinate deep cleanings of your office, kitchen, restrooms and production space. If you don’t want to incur overtime costs for employees, contact a cleaning service for those deep cleaning tasks that you don’t have time for when the office, warehouses, and shop floor are busy and productive.
