In this adapted version of an article from The Australian Hospital Engineer, Kim Bruton, MIHEA, the magazine’s editor, and chief engineer at the Wodonga Hospital campus of the newly-formed Albury Wodonga Health Service in Victoria, Australia, describes a project to both analyse the impact of regular maintenance on plant performance, and significantly reduce energy consumption across the hospital estate in the future.
Energy management still rates highly among the pressures placed on facility managers responsible for the constant reduction of energy consumption. There are many legislated requirements that have to be accommodated, but by using these it is possible to implement maintenance treatments that will assist in reducing energy use, and therefore expenditure. This article presents over five years of data on maintenance costs that directly relate to the consumption of energy. I took up the position of chief engineer at the Wodonga Hospital Campus in 2003 following the completion of a rebuilding programme. The redevelopment replaced or upgraded most of the major building infrastructure between 1992 and 2001. This was the ideal situation to measure the relationship between maintenance and energy costs as facilities age over time. The study’s intention was to prove a relationship between energy consumption and regular planned preventive maintenance by analysing what impact planned maintenance (PM) has on repairs and breakdown maintenance (RM) and the consumption of energy using the following criteria:
• What are the energy sources?
• How much energy is consumed?
• What is the maintenance regime?
• How is the maintenance provided?
• A plant audit.
• Constructing a methodology to measure these relationships.
I have always believed that an effective planned preventive maintenance programme should minimise breakdown maintenance, improving plant efficiency and reducing the amount of energy consumed to run a facility.
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