Based on the set of recommendations given by the Government, offices that are reopening have to arrange a 24-hour office sanitisation. All common areas of the building/office premises, including toilets, must be cleaned after each use while entrance areas are to be sterilised. Offices are covered by the set of restrictions and protocols to prevent and minimalise any chance of contamination.
Expanding on the guidelines by CDC (Centers for Disease Control and Prevention), before resuming business operations, the incumbent must check the building to see if it’s ready for occupancy. One must evaluate the building and its mechanical and life safety systems to determine if the building is ready for occupancy. In addition, facility managers must check for hazards associated with prolonged facility shutdown such as mould growth, rodents or pests, or issues with stagnant water systems, and take appropriate remedial actions.
The guidelines also states to ensure that ventilation systems in the facility operate properly. For building heating, ventilation, and air conditioning (HVAC) systems that have been shut down or on setback, there should be a review of the new construction startup guidance provided in ISHRAE’s Standard Practice for the Inspection and Maintenance of Commercial Building HVAC Systems.
In addition, there should be an increase in circulation of outdoor air as much as possible by the opening windows and doors, and using fans. One must not open windows and doors if doing so poses a safety or health risk for occupants, including children (e.g., a risk of falling or of breathing outdoor environmental contaminants such as carbon monoxide, moulds, or pollens).
All of the above is easier said than done. Khaled AlShami, director, Solution Consulting, Infor, says that the ability to operate in a safe and clean working environment is one of the primary challenges in operations and maintenance, especially after the impact of the 2020 global pandemic.
AlShami says: “Whilst most industries have successfully transitioned to new ways of working, the world awaits a much-anticipated return to ‘normal’. For businesses, reopening is not as simple as it once was, facilities management now means meeting heightened government requirements for cleaning, hazard and contamination management, and ultimately, ensuring the safety and wellbeing of employees and customers.
“The 2020 global pandemic is redefining what it means to be ‘safe and clean’. Successful enterprises are working to stay ahead of the curve, embracing a new level of asset management to not only address official guidelines, but to minimise risk to employees and customers, strengthen organisational resilience and optimise analysis and reporting.”
5-step guide on how to rebuild a safe, productive, and compliant workplace.
Step 1: Re-assess Risk
Mitigating risk is crucial to business continuity: The changing risk profile of the global pandemic now redefines a critical asset. Teams need to re-evaluate all assets within the organisation, and align appropriate maintenance and management practices, not just with a lens of meeting government regulations, but to minimise risk to employees and customers.
Employees and customers need to feel safe: Whether you’re a retail worker or shopper, public transport commuter, or delivery driver: the triggers for feeling unsafe in a post-pandemic world have changed for all. Train carriages need to be visibly clean and socially distanced; holding on to handrails are a very conscious choice; seeing an operator without a mask is a cause for concern. This ultimately means some assets are now critical to ongoing service delivery and require new processes to ensure safety, compliance and business continuity. This is likely to include PPE for staff, social distancing and signage to customers.
Staff should be guided to operate to a more concrete risk assessment and ranking process. This provides a fomalised tool that helps determine the risk of assets as measured against specific criteria. This allows users to assign a Risk Assessment Index (RAI) and score to assets. Criteria is defined by using decision trees and developing formulaic approaches to calculate the risk assessment score. Assigned score ranges determine which RAI should be applied, and therefore defining, when and what activities need to be applied.
Step 2: Review maintenance schedules
Reopening the doors on brick-and-mortar businesses that have remained empty for months, is not as simple as flicking on a switch. Particularly in today’s modern smart buildings: extended hibernation periods pose new challenges with HVAC systems having been powered down, stagnated water in pipes, and reduced building maintenance for prolonged periods. All of which need to be considered before employees return in limited or normal capacity. To add to that, with Personal Protective Equipment (PPE) guidelines a mainstay in today’s new-norm, work instructions need to be updated to include PPE, and additional cleaning procedures, whilst maintaining clear, undisputed records.
Each industry faces their own unique set of regulations, but all businesses face a common hurdle: more tracking, monitoring, and postmortem analysis of any contamination incident, from questions about maintenance frequency to employee education and qualification. The key is to be prepared with clear documentation, and records outlining health and safety practices.
Step 3: Amplify clean practices
In the post-pandemic era, pre-existing operations plans are now insufficient: cleaning and disinfectant protocols need to be increased and tracked. This new level of rigor enforced by governing bodies, is designed to enable business to restart operations, whilst minimising risk to employees,customers, and their families. It goes beyond traditional once-a-day cleaning regimes, and “employees must wash hands before returning to work” signs in the bathrooms –to stringent new procedures that reduce risk of contamination. These include increasing and documenting cleaning and disinfectant schedules, implementing social distancing, and adding HR policies that outline, qualify, and audit employee behaviours.
Everyone from field technicians to janitorial staff to IT personnel need to follow consistent practices. Manual and paper recordkeeping are prone to errors and not rigorous enough to meet these new standards. Instead, the time is right for automated maintenance checklists and workflows that provide necessary maintenance tracking. Staff scheduling, training, and manager signoffs should also be digitised and integrated with specific information on staff skill sets, training, and qualifications.
Step 4: Be ready for changing expectations
To ensure continuity, organisations need to be ready to adapt and change to the evolving situation; to be able to comply with government regulations, but also with what customers and employees expect in order to feel safe. To achieve this, businesses need to consider ways to improve visibility of assets for compliance, streamline maintenance processes to accelerate response time to hazards and other incidents, and develop real-time reporting for ongoing monitoring.
Businesses should seek access to real-time data. This will ensure limited resources are directed to projects of greatest need, minimising the risk of assets becoming detrimental to health and wellbeing, or impacting service delivery.
Having real-time reports and data on workplace safety adherence is imperative. These reports should include: Procedures in place; Implementation timelines and real-time reports of adherence; Records of staff trainings and certifications; and Hazardous materials and activities and how those are being mitigated and avoided.
Step 5: Move from preventive to prescriptive
An asset management system that can adapt to a rapidly changing environment needs to integrate across facilities, and include environmental controls, CAD, supply chain, and any other relevant systems. This enables access to rapid, quality, and accurate condition data.
A digitised system enables smart technologies that apply key analytics and can overlay the system with historical elements such as failure analysis, repair codes, warranty definitions, and original equipment manufacturer (OEM) expectations and strategies. This allows a shift from a preventive mindset to predictable and prescribed safe and clean practices.
Cloud services
AlShami concludes by saying that today’s organisations need an agile infrastructure to maintain leadership in a competitive and often unpredictable environment. Cloud-based enterprise software provides businesses with the kind of nimble platform that enables quicker responses to opportunities, customer needs, and a rapidly changing business environment.
He says: “Cloud deployment also facilitates complete automation and integration across the enterprise and supports the implementation of future-forward innovations such as mobility, AI and drone technologies. As organisations continue to build data-rich repositories of business-critical information, cloud storage also offers optimum data safety and security.
“Every organisation is ready to get back to work, but we know that markets will perform differently, and more challenges are sure to emerge. Now is the time to focus on the processes, methods, and procedures that create a reliable, sustainable, and scalable asset management infrastructure, no matter what lies ahead.”