Post-pandemic, there has been a paradigm shift in general trends across geographies and sectors. Businesses prefer predictive strategies over reactive strategies to enhance their processes and operations, whether in the pharmaceutical, healthcare, or IT industry. And facilities management is no exception. Why? The new normal has compelled people to embrace digital transformation like never before, which leaves reactive maintenance strategies one down compared to predictive maintenance. 

Many companies still prefer reactive maintenance as it is a straightforward process, and digitising their business processes is time-consuming. This is primarily seen in traditional companies due to the complexity of establishing a predictive maintenance strategy. Whereas digitally born or digitally active companies prefer predictive maintenance, as it helps them save time, effort, and money. 

But first, let’s understand why facility maintenance is a necessity.

Regular maintenance at your facility is like a health checkup for a body. Just like neglecting your health can make your body prone to many problems, untimely or poor maintenance can increase the cost of repair and adversely affect your business’s productivity. Facility management helps companies keep track of their assets, ensure smooth operations, and increase productivity. 

Facility management has changed across industries over time. It has improved in ways beyond imagination. Thanks to the wave of digital transformation that washed all the obsolete strategies and surfaced intelligent ones. Now let’s understand the two most common strategies- reactive and predictive maintenance.

What is Reactive maintenance?

Reactive maintenance is a facility maintenance strategy that promotes action after the asset starts underperforming. Many businesses find it feasible because it will enable them to utilise an asset to its fullest potential. 

Challenges faced by businesses with this strategy include:

• Unplanned downtime
• Potential for further damage to the asset
• Higher maintenance costs

For some businesses, reactive maintenance works the best. But as the world changes, it is essential to look for modern and profitable strategies that allow seamless business operations. 

Predictive maintenance

Predictive maintenance uses advanced technologies that help monitor their facility services to run normally and predict any possible failures. This strategy allows the maintenance squad to predict breakdowns, associated downtime, and repair costs and perform adequate maintenance to prevent them from occurring. Predictive maintenance increases assets’ longevity, increases productivity, enhances overall efficiency and reduces repair costs. 

Challenges faced by businesses with this strategy include:

• Increased upfront infrastructural management costs
• Complex system integration requirements

The concept of predictive maintenance is not new, but the pandemic has brought it to light. Many traditional businesses are still sceptical about embracing this strategy. Still, many digitally-born companies are leveraging it to the fullest to offer their employees better customer service and enhanced working experience. 

What are the various benefits of Predictive Maintenance?

Today’s world is agile and resilient, meaning there is no time to leave the errors to marinate. Therefore, businesses prefer everything smart that helps them stay one step ahead of everything that can go wrong. 

Compliances & Licensing 

For instance, if you are a startup owner, you’d know the importance of ESG compliance. The much-needed funding to scale your business can go for a toss if your facilities management company isn’t aligned with the ESG guidelines. A reactive maintenance strategy can hamper your chances of getting your business’s funding, whereas predictive maintenance can enhance it. It helps you rule out error possibilities beforehand.

Enhanced Productivity

Another benefit is resource optimisation. Productivity is one of the most important driving factors of a business. Without proper resource optimisation, your business won’t be able to utilise its resources efficiently and effectively. With reactive maintenance strategies, you’d fill in the loss of productivity after resource burnout. But with predictive maintenance, you’d know about the problem areas before happening and be better equipped to prevent them.

Employee Well-being

The post-pandemic world is more concerned about its surroundings, which calls for increased focus on the health and safety of employees and customers. Offering them a hygienic, clean, and affluent working environment will not only help boost productivity but also better your business relationships. Imagine an issue with your air conditioning system during peak summers that cause tremendous discomfort to your employees. Reactive maintenance means acting on this issue after this has happened, whereas predictive maintenance would help you foresee this issue and prevent it from happening in the very first place.

What makes predictive maintenance a facility management strategy of the future?

Businesses need to change the way they function to optimise their operations. That’s why keeping an eye on the latest technology innovations is the best way to keep yourself updated. If you plan to leverage predictive maintenance, you must hunt for a company that offers you a modern facility management experience. Businesses should partner with facility management service providers that help them unlock the true potential of their workspace by enabling conscious infrastructure and predictive maintenance. 

One company that has done this groundwork is vrLocal. It brings you tried and tested ways to ensure your business is always thriving. 

vrLocal’s predictive maintenance helps businesses stay on top of their game with curated facility maintenance services. This strategy provides free facility audits to help you understand the improvement areas and how to avoid downtime. Additionally, with features like visibility dashboards, curated payments, audit-ready reports, customised budgets and contract length, and single-window convenience, vrLocal gives valuable insights about every little thing in your business.