SNOW HILL – A new asset management program is expected to help the county better track the condition of its equipment.
The Worcester County Commissioners this week agreed to spend slightly more than $100,000 on a facility condition assessment proposal.
“We’ll have a better approach to managing things as we move forward,” Public Works Director Dallas Baker said.
Baker told the commissioners he was recommending purchase of an add-on to a program the county already used to generate work orders. The program, from Dude Solutions, would provide an array of information to assist the county’s maintenance staff.
“Facility Dude, despite the funny name, is an asset management program that we use to help track our workloads and our work tickets for maintaining the various facilities in the county,” Baker said. “What we’re proposing is expanding those services to a more proactive asset management approach.”
He said he wanted the county to have a more proactive approach.
“If you ask me right now how we determine what our daily workload is and what we’re going to be working on in maintenance, I can say well it’s whatever’s broke,” he said.
With an asset management program, there’s a database that indicates the average lifespan of various pieces of equipment so the county can plan for timely replacement. Baker said if an air conditioning unit was approaching its average lifespan, for example, staff could plan to replace it in the winter, when it wasn’t in use and when prices were lower.
The program will also track maintenance costs over a piece of equipment’s life.
“Right now we don’t have that,” he said. “So if you ask me how much have we spent on this one single piece of equipment, I can’t tell you. With this new software we’ll be able to track those costs so I can present to you better information that says why we’re presenting a piece of equipment for replacement with actual dollars behind it. That’s the approach we want to take moving forward with maintenance, instead of ‘hey guys something’s broke we need to start fixing it.”
The commissioners voted 6-1, with Commissioner Ted Elder opposed, to approve the facility assessment proposal.
