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Improve the efficiency and effectiveness of your maintenance operation
ACT RATHER THAN REACT — By Steven S. Plumb All of us, individually and professionally, are being affected by today's economic situation. Most leisure service agencies are beginning to feel the pinch as expenses continue to rise while revenues remain the same or decline. As park and recreation managers, we are increasingly being asked to make decisions which have not had to be made in the past, about such things as service priorities and cutbacks. If leisure service agencies are to continue to provide a high level of quality parks, facilities, and programs, it is essential that managers seek ways to provide such services more efficiently and effectively. Park maintenance management has been the slowest of all leisure service components in the application of modern management principles. Even today, most leisure service agencies operate with no systematic maintenance plan. These agencies spend much of their maintenance time putting out "fires" — reacting to maintenance problems rather than aggressively acting to prevent such occurrences. It is particularly ironic that the management approach to park maintenance remains relatively unsophisticated. When compared to other leisure service components, maintenance usually: (1) employs the greatest number of people; (2) requires the greatest part of the agency tax dollar; and (3) has the greatest potential for maximizing efficiency and effectiveness when the correct management tools are applied.1 The development of a Park Maintenance Management System (PMMS) is one means of insuring that the maintenance department is functioning at maximum efficiency and effectiveness.
What is a PMMS? A PMMS is a tool for planning, problem-solving, and decision-making that allows the maintenance manager to deploy human, physical, and financial resources to best advantage, and to evaluate the performance of the department. As with any tool, a PMMS provides data on which effective decisions can be made; it does not make decisions. What Can a PMMS Do for You? A well-formulated PMMS can significantly improve the efficiency and effectiveness of the maintenance department. In general, a PMMS can: 1. provide the department with information regarding labor, equipment, and materials both necessary and utilized; 2. enable the department to justify services in terms of cost; 3. improve the departmental image both inside and outside the agency; 4. assist managers in deploying personnel more effectively; and 5. help managers to better utilize equipment and materials. How to Establish a PMMS The task of developing a PMMS is difficult and time-consuming, although well worth the effort. It has been estimated that $5 in subsequent expenditures can be saved for every $1 spent on effective maintenance planning.2 One of the first things that a prudent maintenance manager must realize before initiating the development process is that a Park Maintenance Management System is valid and will function effectively only when it is developed to reflect local conditions and circumstances, agency objectives, available resources, and agency capabilities. Many steps in the PMMS development process have been identified and described, and most have universal application. For example, Richard Harris identified nine basic steps to employ when developing a Park Maintenance Management System.3 In describing a similar management system, Robert Sternloff and Roger Warren discussed six steps in the development process.4 A well-formulated PMMS should include most, if not all, of the steps outlined in the following development process. Step 1: Involve all departmental staff members in the planning process. Without employee support and cooperation, the PMMS is doomed to failure. Employee understanding and support is essential to the development of a successful management
1. Stephen Harrell, "Today's Need for a Management System for Park Maintenance", Unpublished, 1977.
2. John Heintzelman, The Complete Handbook of Maintenance Management, Prentice-Hall, 1976.
3. Richard Harris, "A Management Approach to Park Maintenance", Parks and Recreation, December, 1977.
4. Robert E. Sternloff and Roger Warren, Park and Recreation Maintenance Management, Holbrook Press, 1977.
Illinois Parks and Recreation 10 March/April 1983 system for several reasons. First, employees generally know their jobs better than management does, and can provide valuable information when determining time standards, task frequencies, and task descriptions. Second, employees are responsible for putting information into the completed system on a daily basis. Without a basic understanding of the process, the accuracy of that input may be open to question. Finally, involvement of the entire staff serves as a system of checks and balances while the PMMS takes shape. Step 2: Establish departmental goals and objectives. Make certain that goals and objectives are clear, realistic, and achievable. Focus on problems and priorities that are of particular interest to the department. Communicate the goals and objectives freely, both inside and outside the department. Finally, be prepared to modify goals and objectives after further analysis. Step 3: Inventory all resources and facilities for which the department is responsible. All components must be quantified and described precisely, including such things as number of ballfields, acres of turf mowed, linear feet of fencing maintained, square footage of building space, etc. Make extensive use of aerial photographs, maps, and plans. This background data must be retained and updated continually as improvements and changes are made to existing resources and facilities. Great care must be made to develop an accurate inventory of all resources. Without an accurate inventory, the following steps are difficult to accomplish. Step 4: Using the completed resource inventory information, identify and list all maintenance tasks for which the department is responsible. This process is both difficult and time-consuming, and will need regular revision and refinement. Of necessity, this listing should primarily involve those recurring tasks that are performed on a routine basis. At this point in the development process, the maintenance manager must begin narrowing the scope of the end result. Management decisions regarding task categories should be brought into focus. Tasks are combined and grouped into categories according to agency and departmental objectives. The end result of this step in the process should be an approximation of the total routine workload of the department.
Step 5: Describe each task identified in Step 4. Task descriptions should provide enough detail so that any staff person can understand how the task is performed, and should include the minimum level to which those tasks should be accomplished. Step 6: Determine the frequency at which each task should be completed. Tasks should be reduced to their simplest component, and task frequencies should be established at a minimum level (annually, bi-annually, quarterly, monthly, weekly, daily, etc.). Step 7: Establish the number of man-hours necessary to complete each task once. Although the number of man-hours necessary to complete many tasks can be greatly affected by variables such as weather, equipment breakdowns, vandalism, etc., accurate estimates which reflect conditions as they generally exist are possible. Several acceptable techniques for measuring work performance have been developed, including technical estimates, statistical standards, and engineered standards. Step 8: Develop a quantitative standard for each task. This can be accomplished by multiplying the number of units involved in a particular task times the frequency times the number of man-hours necessary to accomplish that task once (ie. dragging and lining ballfields — 10 ball-fields x weekly for 12 weeks x 2 man-hours per ballfield per week. The quantitative standard is 240 man-hours). For each task, the quantitative standard represents the total number of man-hours needed to accomplish that task system-wide over a given time period (usually one year). When the quantitative standards for all recurring tasks are added together, the end result is the total number of man-hours needed to accomplish the entire recurring departmental workload for the year. Step 9: Organize all recurring tasks by month or week. Project that period when each task should ideally be completed. Many modifications are necessary before this step is complete since all tasks cannot be completed at the ideal time. The end result of this step is a monthly or weekly calendar onto which the necessary man-hours for each task has been charted. The recurring departmental workload is now in manageable and scheduleable segments of time. Step 10: Analyze available manpower in light of projections completed in Step 9. All available full-time, part-time, seasonal, and federally-funded manpower must be included in the analysis. If available manpower exceeds the total recurring departmental workload, all routine tasks can conceivably be accomplished with time available for one-time projects and improvements. If, however, available manpower is determined to be less than that needed to accomplish all identifiable
Illinois Parks and Recreation 11 March/April 1983
recurring tasks, then additional manpower must be found or service levels reduced. Step 11: Assuming that available manpower exceeds the man-hours needed to perform all recurring tasks, the next step is to identify and prioritize all projects or one-time improvements. Estimates of man-hours needed for each project must also be developed and incorporated into the monthly or weekly schedule. Step 12: Implement the developed system. Data regarding location of work performed, costs, and man-hours utilized should be gathered and maintained on a daily basis. Depending on departmental goals and objectives, all data generated should be analyzed regularly. Obviously, mechanical or electronic data processing is easier, however, manual systems in a more-simplified context are feasible.
Step 13: Evaluate the system. Any Park Maintenance Management System must change continuously as demands, objectives, resources, and conditions vary. A well-formulated PMMS must be flexible for it to be effective. Development of a Park Maintenance Management System requires the maintenance manager to make a substantial commitment of time and resources. Upon implementation, a well-planned PMMS can assist the maintenance manager in planning, problem-solving, and decision-making. The end result is a more efficient and effective department and agency — from which everyone, both inside and outside the organization benefits. ABOUT THE AUTHOR: Steven S. Plumb has been employed for the past three years as Superintendent of Parks and Planning of the Elmhurst Park District. Before assuming his duties at Elmhurst, he worked for seven years as Director of Parks and Environmental Services at the Glenview Park District. Plumb earned a Bachelor of Science Degree in Outdoor Recreation from Colorado State University, and a Master of Science Degree in Park and Recreation Administration from Penn State University. He has worked on numerous IPRA and NRPA committees. Illinois Parks and Recreation 12 March/April 1983 |
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