Why is it important to have a maintenance standard?

This article produced by Paul Bullard, Product Director at SFG20, and Lucy Hind Senior Facilities & Estates Lecturer at Leeds Beckett University, will outline the importance of adopting a maintenance standard to ensure effective and compliant building maintenance. The article also highlights SFG20’s expertise in supporting building professionals with identifying statutory and optimal proactive maintenance tasks.

Why should building professionals implement a maintenance standard?

In the 1950s, with the expansion of modern office spaces and the inception of the NHS, there was a growing demand for organised maintenance, although during this period it was primarily reactive. During the 1960s and 1970s, buildings became more structurally complex, and the limitations of purely reactive maintenance became more evident. As a response to the 1970s oil crisis, energy-efficient systems became prominent, necessitating monitoring and regular adjustments. This, in turn, led to the adoption of planned maintenance strategies to optimise energy usage and a new consideration for compliance and governance aligned to building maintenance.

However, with varying levels of quality and safety from building to building, there was an urgent need for an industry standard that could be adopted nationally, thus establishing a benchmark for what constituted correct building maintenance. An industry standard ensures that resources like time, manpower, and materials are used efficiently by focusing on the tasks that are most important, creating benefit with employee wellbeing, efficiency, and optimisation.

Building maintenance guidance is integral to a comprehensive building maintenance plan. Property managers, and those carrying out the work, need to understand task instructions, frequencies and required skillsets for the tasks that need to be performed. 

Opting for regular, planned maintenance keeps assets in strong working order, running efficiently and reduces the risks of unplanned downtime and costly reactive repairs. A standard provides transparency and accountability. When everyone adheres to the same guidelines, there's a clear framework for assessing performance and ensuring that maintenance work meets a certain standard. This transparency builds trust among building owners, occupants, and maintenance personnel. 

Buildings are subject to a wide range of laws and regulations. The standard aligns with these legal requirements, helping building owners and managers avoid fines, penalties, and potential legal troubles. The standard is also used in conjunction with HTMs for the healthcare sector and a variety of organisations who manufacture BMS systems to enhance maintenance optimisation. 

What is SFG20?

SFG20 is the industry standard for building maintenance specification. Its extensive library of schedules covers more than 70 different asset types, plus the fabric of the building itself.

Created in 1990 in response to the need for a standard that would drive legal compliance, SFG20 is used by organisations in a wide range of sectors, spanning healthcare, education, government, retail, residential and more to ensure safe, legal, and competent building maintenance. It provides a standardised and structured approach to maintaining the various systems and components within buildings.

The primary areas covered by SFG20 include:

• Maintenance Tasks:  Outlines specific maintenance tasks for each building system, specifying what needs to be done. These tasks cover routine inspections, servicing, cleaning, and repairs.

• Frequency:  Offers maintenance frequency guidance to make sure that tasks are completed at the appropriate intervals. This prevents neglect or over-maintenance, to optimise the likely lifespan of building assets.

• Compliance:  Building owners and managers can better comply with legal requirements and industry best practices by using the standard, which ensures compliance with legislation, regulations, and codes of practice.

• Competence: Each maintenance task has an associated skillset assigned e.g., Authorising Engineer, Duty Holder, Facilities Manager etc., meaning that SFG20 users can easily assign a task to a competent person for that job.

• Building Systems: Building systems covered by SFG20 include, but are not limited to, plumbing, electrical, HVAC (heating, ventilation, and air conditioning), building fabric (such as walls, roofs, and floors), fire safety, and security.

• Customisation: SFG20 offers a standardised framework yet permits customisation to meet the particular requirements and features of each building. This adaptability guarantees that maintenance schedules can be customised to meet particular needs.

• Documentation: SFG20 highlights the importance of documenting maintenance activities, recording when tasks were performed, who conducted them, and any observations or issues encountered. This documentation serves as a valuable historical record and aids in demonstrating compliance.

• Cost Efficiency: SFG20 can assist in cost-efficient maintenance management by providing guidance that maintains the building fabric - and assets within - appropriately, reducing the likelihood of unexpected breakdowns and appropriately allocating resources.

Paul Bullard, Product Director at SFG20, says:

“When relied on too heavily, reactive maintenance tasks can drain resources, time, and budget, leaving us perpetually one step behind. 

"Implementing preventative maintenance as the bedrock of a regime is often the key to optimising resources while remaining legally compliant. Switching to a preventative maintenance approach, where you regularly maintain your assets, removes the temptation to only do the bare minimum to save costs, as this can lead to operationally critical assets being undermaintained. Insufficient maintenance can lead to an increased risk of failure, drive up energy costs, and reduce assets’ remaining useful life – it’s a vicious cycle.”