Getting your property portfolio in order

Optimising property management to maintain the value of buildings over time requires structured working methods. Coor administers and manages a property portfolio of over 10,000,000 sq.m., and to support its customers optimally, has produced a systematic technical management methodology.

“Fundamentally, this is about good order, and our systematic methodology is an excellent way of being able to guarantee it,” commented Anders Eriksson, a services developer at Coor, who specialises in technical property management.

Maintaining an updated and comprehensive situation assessment on all buildings and installations in the relevant assignment is a vital prerequisite for proactive and quality-assured property-related work. So every new partnership should start with an inventory and status audit of the agreement’s constituent items.

“With an updated and structured situation assessment, we can analyse property portfolios, make the necessary prioritisation and establish short and long-term maintenance plans in consultation with the customer. This includes planning more urgent measures, and planning renovation needs and actions over a several-year horizon. Maintenance plans may run for between 5 and 20 years, and are normally updated yearly. This means our customers get a good overview of future costs and investment needs,” continues Anders.

This situation assessment is also an important basis for preventive maintenance, which is entered into Coor’s IT- based operational management system. The advantage of capturing all items and maintenance measures in the system means that job orders are generated automatically, assuring the quality of delivery, and facilitating mobile solutions, such as connections to PDAs. Remedial maintenance is also continuously recorded, offering the advantage of accurate cost monitoring for all items.

“Our responsibility is to help our customers get a good overview of everything that needs to be done, and to prioritise and plan property maintenance correctly. We’ve got the required systems and methodology, which when linked with the customer’s knowledge of its portfolio, results in optimal property maintenance,” concludes Anders.

Sandvik—a good example

Coor has been delivering a range of some 30 services across the workplace, property and production segments to AB Sandvik since 2008. These services include industrial cleaning, waste management, property operation, outdoor environments, cleaning, reception, conference services, dispensing machines, PBX services and catering. AB Sandvik’s head office has a very attractive location in Sandviken, north of Stockholm. The estate has some 200 buildings, totalling some 600,000 sq.m., of varying age and condition. Some of the properties are very old, and listed, implying special requirements for their administration.

One of the first actions Coor executed when starting this partnership was to audit and inspect all existing properties. This was an extensive process that took four months, and to some degree, was implemented in collaboration with an external consultant.

"Our contract stipulates that we're responsible for inspection and care, as well as corrective maintenance, while Sandvik is responsible for planned maintenance. To avoid any difference of opinion over what counts as corrective or planned maintenance, it was an advantage that we got help from an independent party to execute the actual status inspections," commented Guy Drottler, Coor's Contract Manager.

This work was conducted in close collaboration with Sandvik’s FM resources.

"The status inspections provided us with a comprehensive overview of the maintenance needs of Sandvik's property portfolio. There was some neglected maintenance in the holding, and with this in mind, we produced a long-term, rolling five-year plan of maintenance measures," added Arnold Silverhult, FM Unit Manager at Sandvik Materials Technology.

The overall five-year plans are revised yearly, simultaneous with adopting concrete one-year plans.

“When we discuss the measures to be implemented each year, we weigh up the long-term maintenance needs against the needs of our business and other relevant circumstances. Because largely, Sandvik’s FM resources consist of client competence and service owners, we outsource maintenance work to different contractors,” continues Arnold.

Arnold thinks that the status reports and structured, long-term maintenance plans offer major benefits:

We’ve got a very accurate perception of the maintenance needs of our property portfolio and concrete plans stating necessary measures and costings. This is a big help in our work on Sandvik’s property portfolio.”

Want to know more about our property concept?

Please contact Anders Eriksson.