The article describes the management improvement process underwent by the Huggins Hospital in Wolfeboro, New Hampshire. According to the article, the hospital, which was constantly expanding and modernizing its infrastructure in several ways, was unable to maintain the efficiency and cost-effectiveness of its operations. It was not until the management decided to look into its regulatory and compliance standards that the improvement was visible.
The need for change became apparent after the completion of the new facility in 2010. The new hospital featured the newest equipment and was built in accordance with the latest standards. However, it quickly began to show the same signs of infrastructural deterioration as the other parts of the organization, which was at least partially due to the lack of technical expertise required for utilizing the new technologies. It was thus decided to change the course of action oriented at operational and fiscal improvement. However, this conflicted with the self-governing approach traditional for the establishment. Thus, the decision has been made to seek the services of a third-party team of experts capable of providing leadership, efficiently handling innovative technologies, and capable of operating the facilities and services.
Huggins thus sought the assistance of ABM Healthcare Support Services, the company specializing in improving services and patient experience. Once the communication in the work environment was established, ABM has initiated change on multiple levels. Most prominently, it introduced training programs for the employees, instilled new policies that introduced minimal disruption to the existing practices, and located the compliance and regulatory issues which were thoroughly documented and addressed.
The most notable innovation was a web-based computerized maintenance management system (CMMS). Such approach has several advantages over traditional methods of supervision and management, as it introduces additional accessibility, transparency, and allows for a more streamlined approach in scheduling and tracking orders as well as managing contractors and assets. As a result of these innovations, several achievements were visible, such as reduced order completion rates, reduced spending and vendor outsource costs, increased compliance percentage, and improved employee qualification, among other things.
The concept of computerized maintenance management system can be beneficial for the facilities management for several reasons. First, the CMMS is fully automated and centralized, allowing for the easy access from any device, including the ubiquitous personal mobile ones. This speeds up the process, eliminates the unnecessary steps, and streamlines the communication between the staff and the management. Next, such approach uses a unified database which makes the interaction between departments easier – for instance, in this case, the synchronization of information on assets with the schedule of orders and tasks in progress offered a convenient and timely way of planning the future operations. Finally, the control stage improves significantly after utilization of CMMS, as the overseeing becomes possible through a single point of contact reaching to all the relevant areas. This is confirmed by the fact that ABM was requested to “provide oversight and management of the Materials/Purchasing department,” (Scheffer, 2016, para. 6) which confirms the success of its actions.
What I found especially interesting about the described process was the quick and determined switch from the traditional self-managing management practice to the third-party one, and the obvious success of the decision. This denotes the importance of the appropriate change process that does not disrupt the existing practices.
The CCPM technique has several notable strengths. The most prominent one is its the fact that it utilizes computing hardware. This makes the technique extremely time-saving, as the large cluster of managerial routine becomes automatized. It also improves accessibility not only to the management but to the employees, who benefit from the improved transparency and can receive and send feedback without delay. Besides, it enhances the involvement of the staff in the process by allowing to expose them to the complete picture of the project rather than restrict to their niche. Finally, the automatized and standardized nature of CCPM increases the reliability and concreteness of the evaluation process, allowing the easy and comprehensive representation of intermediate and final results. However, the technique is not without its weaknesses. First, it requires the high level of proficiency among both the management and the staff. While the former is not a problem in the case of a third-party contractor, the latter needs to be addressed by the proper training. Second, the software can not possibly account for all of the factors to correctly plan and assess the procedures, and requires fine tuning which, if done improperly, will disrupt the validity of the results and predictions.
While the company chosen by the Huggins Hospital is oriented towards services in the healthcare industry, the methods used by them can be applied to the non-healthcare facilities and buildings. The approach they chose uses the CMMS to plan, oversee, manage, and control the infrastructure maintenance operations, which does not restrict the area of application to the field of healthcare. Besides, the nature of the procedures described in the article suggest the possibility of its use outside the constructions management. In fact, the decision by Huggins to assign ABM to oversee and manage the Materials/Purchasing department illustrates the versatility of the method in question perfectly.
References
Scheffer, R. (2016). Huggins hospital finds solution to improving facilities management. Web.