Maintenance
Maintenance operations
Maintenance protects safety, habitability, asset value, and resident satisfaction. Know work-order intake, prioritization, dispatch, completion, follow-up, preventive maintenance, inventory, vendor management, make-ready turns, deferred maintenance, and capital versus operating classification. A CMMS or work-order log should capture location, problem, priority, assignment, parts, labor, cost, and completion. KPIs include response time, completion time, backlog, repeat calls, PM completion rate, and cost per work order.
Traps
The biggest trap is treating all work orders as equal. Life-safety and habitability issues come first. Other traps: deferring preventive maintenance to save current expense, capitalizing routine repairs, failing to verify vendor insurance, closing tickets without resident confirmation, and using lowest bid without checking scope and quality. Documentation matters for liability, warranty claims, and capital planning.
Worked example
A property receives 300 work orders in a month; 30 are emergency, 90 are urgent, and 180 are routine. If only 240 are completed, the backlog is 60. If 12 of the 30 emergencies missed the target response time, the emergency compliance rate is 18/30 = 60%, which demands immediate review. Rule of thumb: triage by life safety, security, habitability, then convenience; schedule PM before reactive work fills the calendar.