Is Your Routine Maintenance, Routine?
A facility manager’s work is never done. Every day brings new challenges from ordinary to unexpected. In the case of restaurants and food service, people problems are every bit as demanding as equipment and facilities. Just taking care of having all your shifts covered, food and supplies ordered, customer issues, and equipment failures can take up all of your time and energy. If it is not urgent it can wait. Routine maintenance often gets pushed further down the list until it becomes a problem.
A character in a Hemmingway novel explained going bankrupt as happening “gradually, then suddenly.” Maintenance problems in a facility can be said to happen the same way, gradually then suddenly. Routine maintenance is supposed to be routine. This sounds obvious but is so often ignored. Primarily maintenance neglect is a time issue and secondly a cost issue. As most businesses settle into a routine, processes like maintenance outside of day to day operations become less urgent. Many managers will say they don’t have the time or money to worry about extras. This practice actually ends up costing more time and money in the long run. Ask any service contractor whether they would prefer to charge emergency rates or routine service rates.
Ceiling cleaning is certainly no exception to this practice. In fact many never consider ceilings as an area requiring cleaning at all, much less routinely. Floors, carpets, and windows may receive regular attention. Furniture gets dusted and wiped. All the while ceilings are collecting the same dust, dirt, grime, and germs. In food service environments add in grease, smoke, and food splatters. Ceilings get dirty gradually, then suddenly. There are many reasons to keep a clean ceiling, with the most obvious being appearance. However more importantly are the other functions of a ceiling like sound absorption, light reflection, and fire resistance. Cleaning ceilings routinely maintains these three very important roles of a ceiling as well as maintaining appearance. Don’t let your ceiling cleaning become a sudden issue. Contact Heads Up Cleaning and we can develop a plan for routine maintenance of all your overhead surfaces.