PPM Maintenance

What is PPM Maintenance?

PPM Maintenance is one of those activities where it means different things to different people – and they may all be correct! So defining what is required and why you want is vital at the outset. As usual in these matters describing to a surveyor what you want to achieve is essential so that the project can be scoped to achieve what you want (and not what someone said or thought you wanted!).

Broadly speaking PPM Maintenance involves a building owner or tenant commissioning a condition survey to allow budget planning for a building or group of buildings (schools across a county or local authority area, college campus, military establishments, corporate estates, investments such as shopping centres in multi occupancy or even an international property holding or estate terrier).

This might be in great detail or (perhaps more usually) might be a ‘high level’ snapshot of some key building elements to provide a guide as to overall condition without the time and expense of more detailed or invasive inspections. When properly executed, a high level inspection can be surprisingly accurate if data is distributed over a large estate of properties and any local discrepancies tend to ‘average out’.

PPM Maintenance - Explained

PPM Maintenance Plans & Schedules

PPM Maintenance - Useful Info

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PPM Maintenance is closely linked to a ‘Stock Condition Survey’ when more than one building is involved – essentially a client agrees with the survey team on the appropriate level of detail to be captured reflecting areas of concern or predicted cost and risk for a property holding. (Large stock condition surveys may have the data entry moderated to ensure consistency between different commercial surveyors or survey teams – and data is usually captured onto tablets running an app matrix).

For example, an older industrial estate might have a very basic level of inspection focusing on roof weather tightness and the anticipated lifespan of (possibly rusting) plastic coated sheet metal roof coverings, the wall cladding and roller shutter doors, condition of concrete floor slabs and the main electrical supply as far as the distribution board as key elements.

By way of contrast, PPM Maintenance applied to a series of high end office or retail units nationwide might have much more detail including all main building fabric elements plus analysis of plant/machinery – the age (and implied obsolescence) and condition of air conditioning and heating systems might represent an expensive single element and consequently given more attention.

A tenant (rather than owner occupier) would probably address PPM Maintenance issues having regard to lease obligations, lease expiry dates or break clauses and the intention to continue in occupation or vacate based on future cost predictions generated by the PPM Maintenance data.

A wider function of PPM Maintenance is to enable capture of regulatory or health and safety non-compliances. A building feature which may have been quite common when originally constructed may no longer comply and will require expenditure and planning to address.

The planned nature of the future maintenance process means any business interruption can be minimised and helps reduce costs elsewhere in the conduct of business operations, cash flow and profitability. Where buildings are in multi-occupancy or tenanted this can minimise problems and hopefully enable business continuity. Removal of asbestos is perhaps one of the most common problems encountered – perhaps lagging to heating pipes – where a managed short term strategy to maintain a safe environment prior to removal can be developed.

The initial PPM Maintenance survey enables a schedule or table of building elements to be drawn up with an anticipated remaining lifespan and cost estimate for repair or replacement to be placed against each. There is often a particular category for urgent health and safety items which in effect fall outside of ‘planned maintenance’ and would require an immediate action. Typically the schedule is broken down into ‘Immediate’ ‘within 5 years’ ‘5 to 10 years’ and ‘10 to 20 years’ perhaps with longer lifecycle periods included up to a 50 year horizon.

Usually these building elements are then given a repair or maintenance cost estimate which might be derived from cost data in tables or price books, from costs on similar buildings within the same estate – which are often a very accurate way of assessing forward expenditure, or at a basic level based on the experience of the surveyor undertaking the inspection. If a high degree of accuracy is required it may be necessary to obtain contractors prices – the cost of generating the detail could be extremely high in this event.

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PPM Maintenance

Occasionally a client will be content to receive only a PPM Maintenance plan identifying what works should be expected and when, and with no cost advice required – especially if they have a directly employed labour force which can undertake the work ‘in house’ and labour costs are, to a degree, already fixed.

Some elements will re-occur frequently – outside repainting of joinery components for example might reasonably be anticipated on a three yearly cycle, whereas others such as roof coverings might need replacement at fifty or sixty years with an allowance for some ad hoc repairs at twenty five years from new.

The PPM Maintenance schedule and pricing enables a projection of likely cost expenditure over the life of the building and a building occupier or owner can budget accordingly. A sinking fund or annual sum set aside to build up to a large sum for capital replacement costs can also be built in. Replacing or refurbishing lifts is a common example and key to managing residential blocks of flats or serviced or shared office buildings. It is usual to build in an inflationary element to the table.

Sometimes tax advice to look at ‘write down’ and the treatment of VAT may be relevant when compiling or analysing a PPM Maintenance Schedule – especially where the buildings are owner occupied and the cost of maintenance is to be weighed against a new replacement building which could be largely VAT free generating a potential 20% cost advantage at current rates.

PPM Maintenance – Other Useful Information

Where a building is managed by an agent there is a duty (especially for any managing firm governed by rules of professional conduct such as those of the Royal Institution of Chartered Surveyors) to demonstrate proper management of the accounts for service charges – including forecasting expenditure and budgeting for forward repair and maintenance to avoid any large and unexpected bills which might have been dealt with by either improved regular maintenance, or by enabling a sinking fund ‘savings scheme’ to spread the cost of contributions over a more manageable time frame. This may also demonstrate good management on behalf of a Landlord as it prevents crippling bills on tenants which they may not otherwise be able to afford – to the overall detriment of either the building or investment as a whole. Chartered Surveyors will also have regard to other guidance notes published by the RICS when preparing PPM for clients.

The output of a PPM Maintenance inspection and data collation is usually a table format identifying the various buildings, building elements, time frames and cost projections. This can become an intimidating mass of data to the uninitiated client.

To avoid this, when instructing or setting the scope for a PPM Maintenance exercise it is important that both client and the surveying team fully understand the key objectives for the process and are able to build sufficient time into the fee for fully reporting both the data and to assist the client with interpreting the information (a summary written report describing the key findings, budget summary and any critical areas for more urgent attention, and why, would be a basic minimum).

It is also important to bear in mind the PPM Maintenance – although sometimes undertaken very infrequently – is most effective when updated periodically. The PPM Maintenance is a guide only and there will always be failures in buildings which require an unexpected reactive repair or replacement and a contingency in the maintenance budget should be allowed to address this. The PPM Maintenance process should nevertheless keep unwelcome surprises to a minimum.