Dan Hounsell

Technician Recruitment: Reaching into High Schools

Dan Hounsell — Mon, 10 Aug 2009 15:39:00 GMT

High school students have no idea you exist.

OK, let’s put that more accurately: Many of the most promising candidates for vacant technician jobs in maintenance and engineering departments know little or nothing about the maintenance profession or its specific jobs. Given that blind spot, it is no wonder managers in institutional and commercial facilities struggle year after year to find applicants interested in filling jobs in the skilled trades.

Here is the reality managers face: Only 6 percent of high school students hope to have a future in the skilled trades, defined as: plumbers; carpenters; electricians; heating, ventilation, air-conditioning and refrigeration (HVACR) technicians; and repair people, according to study done on behalf of RIDGID released earlier this year.

What keeps high schoolers from the trades? Many students simply aren’t interested or do not consider themselves mechanically inclined, according to the study. That’s understandable.

But the study also found students avoid the trades because:
• 21 percent do not know enough about the profession
• 15 percent do not believe opportunities exist
• 11 percent do not think the jobs are cool
• 10 percent say skilled the jobs are not high-tech enough.

If ever a situation cried out for some education and myth-busting, this is it. Somehow, managers — either individually or working with other interested parties — need to get in front of high schoolers to let them know skilled trades jobs are available, achievable, rewarding, and even cool.

Some students who know the facts still will choose to look elsewhere. But managers and their organizations cannot afford to let a vast pool of potential applicants pass by without setting the record straight, answering questions, and demonstrating the long-term promise the profession can offer.

Workplace Safety: What Next for OSHA?

Dan Hounsell — Fri, 15 May 2009 19:41:00 GMT

The change in administrations in Washington, D.C., is likely to mean many changes in the way federal agencies and departments operate, and the Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) probably is no exception.
OSHA’s aggressiveness in enforcing workplace safety laws tends to vary by administration, sometimes stepping up inspections and coming down harder on violators, other times acting as more of an advisor and information provider. The agency also tends to reorder its priorities every so often, enforcing certain areas of compliance more forcefully than others.
What might the new Obama administration mean for the way OSHA monitors compliance in institutional and commercial facilities? Steven Rupkey with Bureau Veritas Group, a health, safety and environmental consulting firm, offered his views on OSHA’s possible future at the April meeting of the National Security Council’s Chicago chapter. Rupkey made these observations:
• OSHA is not likely to be a high priority for the first two years of the Obama administration, given the economic crisis and military commitments in Afghanistan and Iraq.
• The general tone of OSHA’s approach is likely to shift to enforcement from its current one of collaboration with businesses.
• OSHA will push for greater accountability for violators beyond just the work site and into organizations’ higher levels.
• OSHA will need to reassert its role in enforcing compliance with workplace safety regulations or risk ceding some of its power to state agencies that seek to protect workers.
Facility managers might want to keep a close eye on the changes in OSHA’s priorities and activities, but they also might want to strengthen relationships with state agencies monitoring workplace conditions. Once the new administration comes to terms with the national economy, it seems likely that, given the pace of changes it has enacted so far, new priorities and approaches are coming for workplace safety, no matter which level of government ends up being the driving force.

Rethinking Maintenance

Dan Hounsell — Fri, 20 Mar 2009 19:58:00 GMT

Something is going on here. I can't quite figure out if it's a growing appreciation of building maintenance and the trades or if it's just a series of nice coincidences. Whatever it is, it's worth a closer look.

A comment from myFacilitiesnet member ieqwoman on one of my previous blogs leads me to note several recent events related to the maintenance management profession. The events aren't directly linked, but they all seem to point in the same direction about the way organizations and the general public think of — and support — maintenance and engineering. The events:

• Maintain to Sustain. ieqwoman noted the comments of William A. Harrison, ASHRAE's president. Among his points is that organizations will not be able to deliver on the promise of sustainable facilities without considering the long-term maintenance and operation of a facility during the planning and design phases. One quote from Harrison: "We are introducing new and innovative sustainable products and systems every week. We must accept the task of educating the people who operate these sophisticated systems in the technical fundamentals that will enable them to make good decisions." You can read his comments here.

• Maintenance and ARRA. The enactment of the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009 (ARRA) signals a change. Public discussions of ways to address K-12 deferred maintenance were rare before the end of 2008. And the general public rarely gave much thought to the benefits energy efficiency in institutional and commercial buildings. The ARRA put money where those discussions should have been, and it threw a national spotlight on the national benefits of properly maintaining schools.

• Trades Talk. I attended an event in January that featured lots of discussion about the need to re-establish the building trades as a viable career option — not a Plan B or C — for a new generation of workers. Mike Lowe, host of "Dirty Jobs" on the Discovery Channel, spoke to the attendees of the national meeting for Grainger, the MRO supply company. Rowe and Grainger have teamed up to raise the public's awareness of and appreciation of maintenance. Rowe also had launched www.mikeroweworks.com to deliver that message.

As I said, something is going on here.

But maybe it's less important to figure out exactly what it is than to figure out how to keep it going and build on whatever momentum we have going.

Inventory Management: The Lowest of Low-Hanging Fruit

Dan Hounsell — Wed, 11 Mar 2009 18:32:00 GMT

As institutional and commercial facilites struggle under the weight of a sagging economy, managers understandably look to new products and technology to help their organizations lower their costs. But how about a no-cost source of savings? It seems to good to be true, but it is.

Maintenance and engineering departments rely on a reliable supply of spare parts and equipment to keep facilities running smoothly. But in many facilities, these inventories are managed inefficiently, resulting in unneeded costs related to out-of-stock situations, valuable space taken up by obsolote parts, and productivity problems caused by technicians having to search too long for needed parts.

Speaking at the National Facilities Management and Technology Conference, Frank Murphy, president of Inventory Management Services, encouraged attendees to look first at their practices related to storing and tracking these materials to find much-needed savings. Two examples from Murphy's presentation:

* Managers can gather and get rid of the numerous pieces of e-waste taking up valuable space in many store rooms and warehouses. Recyclers will pay for discarded printers, CPUs, monitors and the like, so managers can free up space for inventory, generate income for the organization, and properly handle potential hazardous waste -- all with one move.

* Reorganizing and consolidating inventories of maintenance parts and equipment can produce several bottom-line benefits. The department will have fewer parts to store and track. The overall value of the inventory will decrease. And technicians will be more productive because they will spend less time searching for parts.

So as managers continue their search for savings, a closer look at their inventory management practices can generate bottom-line benefits with little or no cost involved. In this economy, it doesn't get much better than that.

Maintenance Is Now Cool. Discuss.

Dan Hounsell — Fri, 06 Feb 2009 19:41:00 GMT

Admit it. Maintenance and engineering management generally hasn’t been considered a trendy profession. And the shortage of front-line technicians that has plagued maintenance and engineering departments for years is pretty strong evidence people generally don’t see jobs in facilities maintenance as attractive employment options.

Is that attitude about to change? I ask for one big reason.

The federal stimulus package contains, among its many provisions, billions of dollars for modernization of K-12 schools, colleges and universities, as well as energy-efficiency upgrades to a host of government buildings. The goal of all this spending is to create jobs.

Doesn’t it stand to reason that skilled workers looking for employment will gravitate to maintenance, engineering and operations departments in these facilities, seeking employment that will help them tap into the new pool of money flowing into education facilities?

This big development, along with several smaller developments, leads me to believe it might be time to rethink the stereotypes surrounding jobs in maintenance and engineering departments.

So are we entering the Era of Maintenance in this country? What’s your opinion?

Deferred Maintenance: A Reason To Hope?

Dan Hounsell — Tue, 16 Dec 2008 14:00:00 GMT

Presidential candidates make a lot of promises. It’s part of the game, so nobody believes they’ll keep most of them. Presidents-elect do the same thing, but maybe there’s a difference. Maybe — given they’ve already won election — there is reason to hope a president-elect actually will follow through.

Man, do I hope Barack Obama follows through on this promise.

In his Dec. 6 address to the nation posted on YouTube, the president-elect announced his plan for “the most sweeping effort to modernize and upgrade school buildings that this country has ever seen. We’ll repair broken schools (and) make them energy efficient.”

Anyone who reads Maintenance Solutions or this blog knows I’ve written often in the last decade about the crying need to address deferred maintenance in the nation’s public schools. A 2002 estimate published in School Business Affairs totalled unmet needs for K-12 school infrastructure, including deferred maintenance, new construction, renovation, retrofits, additions and major grounds improvements.

The total: $226 billion. And that was six years ago.

Obama’s statement has raised the issue of deferred maintenance to the highest level it has ever reached in the public’s mind. It also finally might have given real hope to facility managers in K-12 public schools who have battled this problem for decades. Finally, someone with the means to make something happen has noticed schools are falling down around students.

It’s not realistic to believe Obama or anyone else can eliminate deferred maintenance. But it will be important that he take measurable steps to at least try.

For now, simply being included in the discussion of the nation’s most urgent needs is a huge step. At least the issue is now out in the open, where everyone can see just how bad the condition of schools has become.

Deferred Maintenance: The Bottom Line

Dan Hounsell — Wed, 19 Nov 2008 14:00:00 GMT

Why does deferred maintenance matter, anyway?

After all, buildings have operated for decades and even centuries in less-then-ideal conditions. Despite a few complaints from occupants and the occasional visitor about leaky plumbing, drafty doors and windows, water-stained ceilings, or peeling paint, many buildings seem to operate just fine.

Well, many organizations could use another reminder about the perils of ignoring deferred maintenance. And given the nation’s current economic crisis, that “hands off, blinders on” approach to deferred maintenance is about to face a stiff test.

Companies looking to cut costs often look to maintenance and engineering departments, especially the funds budgeted for deferred maintenance. Top-level executives often view this budget line item as expendable, preferring to redirect scarce funds to more immediate problems.

The problem with this approach is that not only does the original problem not go away (that roof doesn’t stop leaking on its own) it gets worse the longer it sits unattended. So as that unrepaired roof continues to leak, it damages more roof components, ceiling tiles, walls, etc.
And there’s a financial toll from that attitude that too few executives take into account: A repair that would have cost X last year will cost 20X five years from now, when top management deems it worthy of their attention — or when a crisis forces them to find the funds quickly.

Given the current state of the economy, it’s not popular to get stubborn or territorial about budget cuts. But when it comes to deferred maintenance, defending funding isn’t just defending the maintenance departments. It’s defending the organization’s bottom line.

Managers have a duty to point out that cutting funding for deferred maintenance is perhaps the most fiscally irresponsible move any organization can make.

Good News on Deferred Maintenance

Dan Hounsell — Mon, 10 Nov 2008 14:00:00 GMT

Every so often, good news about deferred maintenance surfaces. Because these instances are so rare, I think it’s important to recognize this one.

Here’s the news: The Boston Red Sox are adding more seats to 96-year-old Fenway Park.

The team is working on adding 560 seats to Major League Baseball's oldest and smallest ballpark. Workers are using jackhammers in the lower deck and cranes on the field as part of the off-season renovations. The work also includes waterproofing and repairing the lower deck, fixing the roof beyond third base, and adding seats to the upper deck beyond the first-base line.

The team’s decision to address the stadium’s maintenance backlog in such a volatile economy obviously can serve as a good example for owners and managers in all types of facilities seeking any kind of justification for investing in an organization’s in-place assets.

Beyond that, however, is the fact that the owners decided to put money into such an old facility — old by American standards, at least — instead of tearing it down to make room for a new stadium. That is yet another reason to celebrate the news.

As any manager in charge of a 96-year old building knows, such maintenance and repair work is delicate, complicated and often frustrating. But it also is a welcome development at a time when those who own and manage facilities need good news.

Green Shift: Chicago Unveils Climate Action Plan

Dan Hounsell — Wed, 24 Sep 2008 13:00:00 GMT

Many a step in the march of sustainability within facilities has occurred in California. The state has been a cauldron of developments, both regulatory and technological, that have helped organizations operate more efficiently and minimize their impacts on the environment. As they say, “As goes California, so goes the nation.”

But managers and owners watching the green movement for to determine how it might affect their facilities also should keep an eye on Chicago. The city has become something of a model for large metropolitan areas seeking to make commercial and institutional facilities greener through the use of vegetative roofs, as just one example.

Now, the city has rolled out the Chicago Climate Action Plan. It calls for updating the city’s building code to promote energy efficiency in facilities, as well as installing photovoltaic systems on municipal facilities, among other measures.

California might have earned the reputation as a hotbed of new ideas when it comes to sustainability. But more and more, Chicago is proving to be the place where ideas go to become reality.

ASHRAE Pushes Building Operators to be More Efficient

Dan Hounsell — Mon, 04 Aug 2008 13:00:00 GMT

What good is technology if people don’t know how to use it? More specifically, what good are high-performance buildings if maintenance and engineering departments can’t maintain them properly?

Managers have struggled for years to find and keep qualified front-line technicians, and their frustrations grow with each new technology advance.

Now it appears that the design community is taking note of the problem and making a solution for it a top priority. Consider this quote:

“The unfortunate truth is that many buildings with great designs fade from green to grey when building operators don’t understand how to realize the full potential of the energy-conserving systems they manage.”

That’s from William Harrison, president of the American Society of Heating, Refrigeration and Air-Conditioning Engineers (ASHRAE). His presidential theme is, Maintain to Sustain: Delivering ASHRAE’s Sustainability Promise. Harrison also wrote to ASHRAE members, “We must accept the task of educating the people who operate these sophisticated systems in the technical fundamentals that will enable them to make good decisions.”

Specifically, Harrison is asking members to focus on the energy-efficient operation of high-performance buildings. Here a few other interesting quotes on the subject from Harrison:

• “We are introducing new and innovative sustainable products and systems every week. We must accept the task of educating the people who operate these sophisticated systems in the technical fundamentals that will enable them to make good decisions.”

• “I also advocate that design engineers develop a comprehensive narrative describing how building systems function and how they should be operated for maximum efficiency.”

• “I am asking that work be accelerated on a guideline explaining in layman terms the high-efficiency features used in high-performing buildings and the operating and maintenance procedures necessary to protect the performance of those systems.”

Harrison’s welcome remarks echo what managers have said for years. Now only time will tell if his words will result in resources that can benefit both technicians and their organizations.

Data Centers: Who's Minding the Store?

Dan Hounsell — Wed, 02 Jul 2008 13:00:00 GMT

Who, exactly, is managing all these data centers?

This question hit me as I read article after article about the expansion of data centers in response to organizations' growing reliance on Internet computing. Data centers use vast amounts of energy to run the servers they house. But they also use energy to keep servers cool and operating.

While some were designed with energy efficiency in mind, many others are converted schools, warehouses and office buildings and feature reconfigured HVAC systems. Either way, given the rising cost of energy, energy efficiency in data centers has quickly become even more critical.

So in data centers more than many other types of facilities, the person responsible for the reliable, energy-efficient operation of HVAC and electrical-distribution systems is among the most important people in the organization.

Where are these managers coming from, and are there enough to meet the demand for their skills? It's not as though maintenance and engineering departments have too many skilled technicians these days. In fact, it's the opposite. Managers generally have problems finding enough qualified technicians to monitor, test, and maintain the advanced HVAC and electrical-distribution systems in today's facilities.

More often, they find people interested in learning about maintenance and engineering, then train them once they're hired. So I have to imagine it's tough to find a manager with the experience and skills to properly oversee these complex facilities. And it's only going to get harder as more data centers come on line.

For organizations building a new data center or expanding an existing center, the most important question now might not be about capacity or location. It might be, "Who's going to manage this thing?"

More information on data centers is available from Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory.

Fixing the Deadliest Sin of Design

Dan Hounsell — Wed, 25 Jun 2008 13:00:00 GMT

One day, facility designers will learn it pays to listen to maintenance early in process of designing a facility. Unfortunately, that day still seems far away for many organizations.

Chris Matt, the associate editor of Maintenance Solutions, recounted a recent conversation he’d had with a maintenance manager with a large Eastern health care organization: The manager expressed his frustration as he described the retrocommissioning process has was overseeing for a four-year-old facility.

Why retrocommission such a new facility? Because it had been designed and constructed so poorly that the manager and his staff were burdened with operating and maintaining a building that leaked energy, sucked up valuable time and money that should have been available for other projects, and generally created frustration at every turn.

No doubt, many managers have similar stories.

Ideally, their organizations would have involved the maintenance and engineering departments in every step of the facility’s design and construction process to prevent this type of fiasco.
Until that strategy is more widely accepted, maybe it would help to talk about it.

If you just need to get it off your chest, feel free to post a comment.

Cybernetics: Building Automation on Steroids

Dan Hounsell — Thu, 29 May 2008 13:00:00 GMT

The arrival of BACnet in the mid-1990s took building automation from concept to reality by allowing managers and operators to integrate the control of separate HVAC systems and components. Now, building automation for new construction and existing facilities is about to make the next technological leap.

Cybernetic building systems will enable organizations to control HVAC system operations, as well as energy management, fire, security, transportation, fault detection, diagnostics, and real-time electricity purchases.

The Building and Fire Research Laboratory (BRFL) is working with manufacturers, building professionals, ASHRAE, trade organizations, researchers and other government agencies to develop and demonstrate cybernetic building systems.

The National Institute of Standards and Technology has built an operational test facility and is running simulations with a range of systems and components. And the first commercial products for HVAC system fault detection developed at the facility already are entering the marketplace.

Are institutional and commercial facilities ready for the leap? Few, if any. A BRFL announcement about its efforts questions how efficiently cybernetic systems “can be operated by a limited and poorly trained staff.” Ouch.

Still, as many owners and managers might admit, staff training remains a challenge, even for some existing systems and technology.

A new level of building automation would be a monumental undertaking. But cybernetic technology is promising, and it’s likely to arrive in facilities sooner rather than later. So the challenge for managers and their staffs is figuring out a strategy for making the organization’s technology pay off.

WiMAX: A Giant Leap into Facilities

Dan Hounsell — Wed, 21 May 2008 13:00:00 GMT

Technology never rests, and wireless, or wi-fi, technology is hardly an exception.

In health care facilities, for example, it’s now more common for wireless systems to transport signals to and from a host of devices — computers, refrigeration-monitoring devices, pagers, medical-telemetry systems, supply-order entry systems, physician bedside devices, patient-wandering systems, and bedside equipment.

But just as building managers and owners start to get their arms around wi-fi applications and installations, the technology leaps ahead.

The next challenge for managers is WiMAx, new wireless broadband technology with a range of up to 80 kilometers and a bandwith of up to 75 bits per second (bps). Developers are billing WiMAX as an alternative to wi-fi.

Among its promised benefits are: the ability to provide fixed, portable, and mobile non-line-of-sight transmission from a base station; a cell radius of up to 6 miles point to multipoint, non-line-of-sight transmission; and 40 megabits per second (Mbps) per channel for fixed and portable access applications.

Developers are working on facility-based applications for WiMAX, and consultants undoubtedly will begin incorporating the technology into their offerings.

By anticipating these changes and understanding at least the basics of WiMAX technology, managers will be in a better position to help their organizations make smarter specification decisions that lead to smoother installations and more reliable system operation.

Valuable Maintenance Links

Dan Hounsell — Tue, 22 Apr 2008 13:00:00 GMT

In some form or fashion, all information seems to be on the Internet. For more than a decade now, managers have been able to tap into its power and find information on solving nearly any problem that arose in their facilities.

One problem with this information explosion — finding exactly the information you need in the fewest possible steps. As many managers can attest, far too many searches spiral down to dead-end sites, wasting managers’ time and increasing stress.

One solution: links pages. I’m in the process of updating the upcoming Maintenance Solutions 2008 Buyer’s Resource Guide to include more industry resources to complement the product information. In the process, I’ve come to realize that, thankfully, all kinds of associations, manufacturers and government agencies have done a big chunk of the work for me, sifting and winnowing thousands of potentially helpful Web sites to produce links pages with only the most relevant sources.

Looking for the latest on environmentally preferable purchasing? The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency offers lists of federal, state and local web sites, as well as non-governmental sites

Considering recommissioning some of your buildings? Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory helps you cut to the chase with its list of 24 — count ‘em, 24 — links on commissioning. Then it throws in another 17 links to sites on energy benchmarking.

Questions on plumbing? The Plumbing Manufacturers Institute offers links grouped into associations, codes and standards, government information, industry, legislation, and statistics.

In the ongoing age of information overload, bookmarking links pages makes the ever-expanding Internet far more manageable.