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Standard
equipment maintenance practice for commercial building operators,
owners and service contractors is to perform equipment maintenance
as outlined in service manuals and repair or replace failed
equipment as needed. Standard maintenance practices are centered
on equipment operation and do not usually address pertinent energy
conservation opportunities related to system operations. Overall,
this philosophy is reactive in nature.
Scheduled
maintenance (SM) programs are intended to address this issue by
being proactive and setting up a process that predicts equipment
degradation or failure before it happens. As a direct result of
completing tasks outlined by the SM process, building equipment
within the entire building is kept in optimal operating
condition. SM programs offer significant advantages over
traditional maintenance programs. SM programs increase building
performance in occupant comfort, productivity and reduce equipment
failure downtime and costs. In addition, SM programs help improve
energy efficiency. Recent studies show that implementation of an
effective SM program can reduce energy bills by five to twenty
percent in commercial buildings. Given that over $81 billion was
spent on providing energy for commercial buildings in 1999,
widespread implementation of SM programs has the potential to
create significant energy cost savings for commercial building
operators.
The objectives
of this task are: |
