Technology manufacturer deals with deferred maintenance, improves operations

It’s a common story in the technology industry: leaders concentrate on increasing sales and developing or maintaining best-in-class facilities falls by the wayside. As successful years fly by, infrastructure and systems are added on to enable business operations. Need a new clean room? Build it quickly and connect to existing systems so it’s up and running as quickly as possible and output increases. 

Perhaps while business is booming and infrastructure is at capacity, the company does repairs and fast fixes to maximize uptime. But without a proactive maintenance and growth strategy, inevitably, the business starts to see an increase in downtime, required repairs and energy costs. The total cost of operations continues to climb faster, closing the gap between profit and spend.

For one global tech manufacturer, the deferred maintenance and agile add-ons began taking a toll on the bottom line as well as U.S. operations. Vendor cost and the time to get machinery and systems back up and running was increasing. It was time to shift to a proactive approach. To increase efficiency, savings and uptime, they partnered with JLL as their integrated facilities management (IFM) for their locations across the U.S.

First, we implemented continuous improvement program to ensure savings across the client’s real estate portfolio. We established robust response plan and recovery processes as a key to shortening downtime when incidents occur. Our teams began doing proactive maintenance that had been outsourced through various vendors. Knowing the equipment and infrastructure inside and out, we were able to do maintenance work much more efficiently, saving time and dollars.

Upon our recommendation, the tech manufacturer hired a third-party consultant to impartially evaluate cooling capacity in an aging chiller plant facility. Based on the consultant’s analysis, we developed a capital plan to address the deferred maintenance and increase capacity as our client continues to scale the business strategically.

In the first 8 months of partnership, our client saved nearly $1M on HVAC costs alone. Overall, the tech manufacturer saw a 4% savings overall in their U.S. portfolio. Not only did they save money, our client increased operations efficiency and productivity in their facilities. As demand for their product increases exponentially this decade thanks in part to reshoring and technological advances, our client is poised to grow its operations and profit.