Top Emerging Trends in Maintenance Outsourcing
Published on : Friday 07-05-2021
By outsourcing maintenance management, it is possible to meet and exceed expectations within the business units.
Today, outsourcing promises the immense potential for businesses seeking to minimise costs and boost productivity in maintenance management. It significantly enables companies to pay for the services they want and when they need them. Maintenance outsourcing is rapidly becoming an increasingly prevalent method to maintain assets in industries, from manufacturing to aviation and IT. When a company outsourced maintenance, more and more maintenance tasks are handled by outside vendors that were handled by in-house staff earlier.
Maintenance outsourcing helps reduce the need to hire and train specialised staff, brings in engineering expertise from the outside, and lowers capital expense. An outsourced contractor for maintenance provides flexibility in delivering the proper staffing level and required skill set quickly, with less cost and time investment. The contractor also provides expertise that may not be available or is inadequate within the in-house staff.
According to Doug Schuler, an instrument reliability coordinator with BP Amoco Texas City and a Puffer-Sweiven contractor, “There’s a clear trend to using more and more contractors all the time.” Doug says, “Using a contractor to focus 100 per cent on a particular area lets you better manage existing assets.”
Since an outsourced contractor can minimise the wasted time and money to improve maintenance, there are still some inherent barriers or challenges to outsourcing maintenance. These include:
1. Maintenance outsourcing may be cost-effective, but there are restrictions when working with contractors. These include the host company’s inability to directly manage and instruct the workforce. It is also important when choosing contractors that it may be difficult for a service provider to fulfil all of a client’s requirements like staff flexibility or craft availability within the host company’s expectations.
2. It has seen that in-house employees are inclined to spend more years of service at a facility than employees on a contract. In-house employees know the business and its expectations better than a contractor. It is a common issue for clients, as outsourced staffs do not, as a rule, possess as much loyalty to the company.
3. Maintenance outsourcing can create a conflict on roles and priorities. Overlapping roles and responsibilities can lead to inefficiencies within the maintenance organisation and contribute to the appearance of too many leaders and not enough workers, leading to conflicting priorities and confusion.
4. In the case of delivering services on time, companies can handle response time more rapidly in-house, as compared to dealing with a phone call to an outsourced vendor. It is important for companies seeking maintenance outsourcing that they must clearly define the acceptable response time, let’s say, for example, 36 or 72 hours, in the contract. This is vitally important because a longer response time leads to more downtime and lost production.
Nonetheless, it is up to the companies to determine the cost-effectiveness, control, flexibility and focus required at their unique site to properly manage their maintenance function within their particular budgetary constraints. Advanced Technology Services (ATS) is an outsourced industrial maintenance service and MRO asset management provider. The company’s comprehensive range of on-site Industrial Maintenance and MRO services provides the expertise businesses need to make their factories run better. V2Soft is another company that offers Application Maintenance Outsourcing (AMO) to maximise its customers’ existing IT applications through corrective, adaptive, perfective and preventive maintenance.
One can see the following emerging trends in maintenance outsourcing:
Growth in outsourcing
Outsourcing in maintenance management continues soaring in popularity. The need for outsourcing functions is largely driven by the demand for both high-quality workplace experiences and minimised operating costs. The increased cost of in-house employees and the complex task of managing a large suite of services are also the major growth trend for maintenance outsourcing. According to a McKinsey report, outsourcing has surpassed 50 percent of the total facilities management market in several regions, including Europe, Middle East, and North America.
Increased need to reduce maintenance cost
Recruiting an outsourced contractor significantly minimises the time and money on the path to improved maintenance. By outsourcing maintenance management, it is possible to meet and exceed expectations within the business units. Many companies are investing in intelligent infrastructure and turning to third parties that provide smart solutions. Doing so significantly helps in providing assistance in numerous areas, including management of the lifecycle of assets, facility capital planning, benchmarking, and customer satisfaction surveys.
Workplace strategies
The productivity and well-being of employees have gained significant traction in recent years. This has led to a trend where companies are focusing on the creation of workplace strategies that vigorously promote the engagement, well-being and productivity of their employees. Workplace strategy is becoming a key aspect to enhance employee engagement and retention. It includes several different categories: Modular workspace, Coworking, Lifestyle amenities, and Wellness designs. Together, these categories form options along the continuums of space and well-being.
Summing up
In conclusion, outsourcing will continue to grow across industrial settings. Outsourcing of any service does not mean abdication of management responsibilities. Instead, it requires dedicated and committed management personnel experts in the computerised maintenance management system (CMMS). Moreover, companies also must consider where exactly the priorities of outsourcing customers will lie as they seek to add value to their services. They should invest in premium services, as they want to gain a competitive edge to lead their industry in talent attraction and retention.
References:
1. https://www.advancedtech.com/
2. https://www.v2soft.com/services/outsourcing/application-maintenance-outsourcing
3. https://www.mckinsey.com/business-functions/operations/our-insights/six-emerging-trends-in-facilities-management-sourcing
