Quality Control.
Quality Control.
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Industry Challenge
Industry Challenge
If you ask your on-site property managers what 'good' looks like, you will have as many answers as properties in the portfolio.
Second to finding qualified and reliable labor pools, quantifying the timing, what to speak of quality of work, is the biggest challenge FM organizations face in exterior services management. While IVR systems can help validate time of service, they are not an indicator for quality of work. As a property owner, expecting regular, unbiased, qualified field supervision aligned with defined scope, brand standards and cost is a challenge in itself.
The Ask
The Ask
Help a medium size ($65M/yr. revenue) exterior services aggregator develop and implement internal process that measures quality of work performed to hold subcontracting crews accountable. This effort focused on solving for crews without GPS technology on board their trucks.
Initial Implementation
Initial Implementation
Before deep diving into available data, it is worth evaluating and listening to the customer for context clues and feedback coming from first line of defense: operations and dispatch teams.
Understanding the issue. The quick discussion revealed that most time consuming service validation tasks can be categorized into 2 large buckets: no-shows (or no IVR) and serviced during wrong time (outside contractual hours)
Data insights. Unsurprisingly, IVR data review matched the team feedback. No shows amounted to 44% and service time non-compliance equated to 25%. This meant, ONLY 31% of all sweeping services could be effectively validated.
Executive decisions to drive compliance. Working in partnership with IT, operations and compliance teams, a no-IVR no-pay policy was implemented to drive compliance with subcontracting teams. To support agile oversight, interactive IVR dashboards were created to help monitor performance at the subcontractor level monthly.
Working in partnership. 90-day ramp-up time for policy going into effect was provided to all partners. Process, coaching and training plans were developed for most non-compliant subcontractors. Further, QR code technology was leveraged to make IVR tracking at the site level much easier.
Making a Difference
Making a Difference
Post implementation of initial QR technology, reporting dashboards and process changes, validated sweeps went up from 31% to 70%, effectively reducing validation work for internal teams and recapturing $297,000 in payments otherwise given without validation of services.
Enough time on site? Evaluating time & day of service data sheds light into service confirmation per contract, measuring time spent on site can provide some insight into quality of work i.e. answering the question: how much time should it take provide quality service to a property 250,000 SqFt?
Develop tolerance thresholds for quality. Reviewed highest rated service provider data to come up quality levels based on time on site per property SqFt. Technology dashboard was updated to pull in quality levels as added validation layer. Service providers falling below quality thresholds were further audited. Turns out, a strong positive correlation existed between cumulative IVR time on site with customer's 'at risk' sites due to quality.
Performance management. Analysis helped point out which service providers were cutting scope, spending little time on site or gaming the system to get by. Performance calls occurred over a course of 30 days and evaluated for improvement for another 30. Service providers with no change in behavior were effectively terminated. New agreement templates were updated to reflect changes in process and performance expectations.
Reinvesting in the business. A portion of the ~$300,000 recaptured helped fund targeted field quality surveys for both sweeping and landscaping.
Quantified Results
Quantified Results
Validation of service improvement from 31% to 70%, representative of ~20,000 preventative maintenance WO's.
Incremental bandwidth: Freed up operations & dispatch team's capacity work on more productive and valuable work
Dollars recaptured: $300,000 during first 90 days, additional $320,000 forecasted for larger implementation.
Industry innovation: new quality control methodology for an aging industry without previous way of measuring QUALITY of work performed
Improved perception of property 'brand standard': by objectively measuring quality and terminating non performers, aggregator was able to improve service levels with customer base
Additional Thoughts
Additional Thoughts
Beyond initial 3 asset categories, enough data exists TODAY within any organization's CMMS (Computerized Maintenance Management Systems) to continue to push industry from reactive to proactive and predictive states. Other accounts that can and should be evaluated: Parking Lots, Exterior Paint and Exterior Illuminated Signage.
FM organizations should consider asset complexity, non-standardized specifications and long term value when evaluating potential benefit of changing maintenance models, as efficacy of forecast depends largely on these factors i.e., predicting replacement for door locks, light bulbs, and break room chairs is not worth the effort.
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