Keep Your Facilities Winter Ready with Software for Facility Professionals

ARC Facilities
4 min readOct 11, 2022

--

Fall is here, and the weather is turning crisp and chilly. The official start of winter is just around the corner. In the event of short days and adverse weather, businesses, schools, or organizations should take precautions to remain safe. This short guide talks about the specific checks to do, and how a manager can ensure that his building is winter ready.

If anyone is using facility management software, this article will introduce you to simple software for facility professionals that can help a facility become winter-ready and secure.

But first,

Tips to Keep Your Facility Winter-Ready,

with Software for Facility Professionals

1. Security & Asset Checks

Improper execution of asset management plans can often lead to compromising the facility’s safety. Therefore, even if you have conducted a security or asset maintenance plan in spring, ensure to check it before winter.

The main reason behind this is that winter brings adverse conditions, snow, smog, and other natural events that can weaken doors, windows, and locks or clog up garages.

Apart from these, HVAC systems, water leakage, and other aspects can also occur and damage the facility. For example,

Suppose freezing temperature leads to a pipe bursting in a facility. You need immediate access to shut-off information on the go, or else, your facility assets like laptops, electrical wires, and other things can get compromised. Fixing these would hamper productivity and lead to added costs on repairs.

You can avoid this using smart building technology, which is basically a facility management app in your pockets.

Using this software for facility professionals, anyone can access instant asset data on the go and stop the burst pipe from causing excessive damage inside a building. Besides that, managers or workers must also check padlocks, locks, doors, and windows and check for any signs of internal or external damage. This will ensure optimal security in a building.

2. Emergency Preparedness

“There’s no harm in hoping for the best, as long as you’re prepared for the worst.”

― Stephen King, Different Seasons

The simple quotes bring people back to the reality that emergencies have no time, space, or reasoning. While the winter season is a time to celebrate with one’s best suit, managers should take precautions to avoid bad circumstances or dangers.

As an example, if a snowstorm hits or someone calls and informs of a bomb threat, instead of panicking more, use the software for facility professionals, the not-so-typical facility management mobile app.

A combination of artificial intelligence, contextual search, and machine learning powers this one. It flaunts a smart and simple interface and harnesses data from the cloud, like emergency plans. The best part, this tool is mobile and anyone can use it. With just a few swipes, one can access emergency plans like fire extinguishers, contact details, refuge rooms, emergency exits, police stations, and more.

So, by having instant access to these plans, operation managers can make smarter contingencies in the face of a disaster.

3. Building Checks

Often facility management field workers do not finish their daily work orders assigned in the facility management software. The primary reason behind this is that they lack access to relevant facility data, which will hasten their work orders.

For example, suppose a technician is asked to fix an AC in a building that is 20 acres. He has to check 6 ACs for scheduled maintenance, but it takes him 2 hours of his work time to locate the specific AC maintenance details, which ends up with him failing to finish his work orders within time.

If he had access to all asset data, which he can simply scan and find on the go, he will easily be able to fix all the ACs and keep the winter facility running optimally. Using the modern facility management app, he can instantly get any asset data required with a QR code scanning system.

Apart from these tips, here are some other tips to follow to secure a facility for winter:

  1. Check the lighting and upgrade the ones that are necessary
  2. Clean the facility, and check for moss, dampness, water clogging, and asbestos congestion.
  3. Keep the security boards updated, so that no one goes inside chemically sensitive rooms
  4. Keep CCTV systems and alarms updated
  5. Check roofs, elevators, fire systems, chimneys, and more for flaws and repair these
  6. Ensure to row out snow congestion, and keep garages checked for snow accumulation
  7. Make sure to wear the right kind of apparel for tackling natural emergencies like snow storms and others.
  8. Keep shovels and other winter utilities in top-notch conditions to mow away snow, and mud.

Summing it all up:

The article points out the necessary things to do for safeguarding your facility in winter. Ensure to use software for facility professionals, like a facility management mobile app, which will give managers and field workers instant access to data. With this tool, anyone can finish their daily productivity goals and reduce facility management bottlenecks optimally.

--

--

ARC Facilities
ARC Facilities

Written by ARC Facilities

0 Followers

ARC Facilities has pioneered an entirely new category of facility management software: Building Plans and Information Management.

No responses yet