Planned maintenance contracts

What a PPM contract is actually buying you

Three things, in ascending order of value.

1. The maintenance itself. Filters, services, cleaning, adjustment. Real, and the least interesting part.
2. Reduced failure rate and failure cost. A component replaced on a planned visit costs a fraction of the same component replaced at two in the morning with a kitchen shut and a call-out premium running.
3. Compliance certainty. Somebody else owns the calendar. Statutory checks happen before they lapse, the certificates arrive in a form your insurer and your auditor will accept, and when someone asks for the last three years of records you can produce them the same day.

For most commercial clients the third of those is the reason the contract exists. Maintenance is a cost line; a missed statutory check is a different category of problem entirely.

What we cover

The schedule is built from your asset list, not from a template. A site with a catering kitchen and a comms room has a very different calendar from an office with a boiler and two washrooms, and pretending otherwise produces either wasted visits or missed obligations.

How we set one up

1. Asset surveyEvery relevant asset identified, recorded, located and photographed: make, model, serial, age, condition, refrigerant type and charge where applicable, and where the isolation is. A surprising number of sites do not have this.
2. Statutory obligations mappedWhat the law requires for each asset, at what frequency, and who is responsible for it. This frequently identifies obligations nobody was aware of – F-Gas leak checking and water hygiene are the two that come up most.
3. Schedule builtVisits planned around your operating hours. Kitchens serviced between services, retail out of trading hours, schools in holidays, offices at weekends where it matters.
4. Scope agreed in writingWhat is included, what is excluded, what constitutes a chargeable extra, and what the response arrangement is for anything outside the plan.
5. Records structuredWhere certificates live, who gets them, and in what format – so they are usable when someone asks rather than scattered across email.
6. ReviewThe schedule is reviewed as assets change. A site that installs a new plant room mid-contract needs the calendar updating, not a note in a drawer.

Working around your business

The practical difference between a contractor who understands commercial work and one who does not is almost entirely about scheduling and conduct on site.

• Out of hours where it matters. A restaurant serviced during service is not being serviced, it is being disrupted.
• Term dates for education. Safeguarding requirements, and access that only exists in holidays.
• Notice periods that suit you, not a message the morning of.
• Engineers who look like they belong there. Identifiable, briefed on site rules, and able to sign in properly.
• Risk assessments and method statements provided in advance where your site requires them.
• One point of contact, so you are not explaining the site to a different person each visit.
• Honest reporting. If a visit finds something outside scope, you get told what it is and what it needs, not a surprise invoice.

Accreditations and insurance

We will provide current insurance certificates and evidence of competence on request, and we would rather you asked for them than assumed. Where a client’s procurement process requires a specific third-party accreditation scheme, tell us at the outset – it is better to establish that early than partway through a tender.

We are a Norfolk business and we are honest about our scale. We are a good fit for single sites, small portfolios and regional clients who want to deal with the people doing the work. We are not the right answer for a national multi-site framework, and we will say so rather than over-promise and under-deliver.