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Whether managing commercial properties, restaurant, or convenience store chains, many stakeholders have an interest in the lifespan of the mechanical equipment and commercial appliances that support all of your locations. From equipment owners, repair and maintenance personnel to those who manage compliance with regulatory and manufacturer requirements, many are involved in all aspects of the equipment’s ‘life.’ As such, there is a lot of talk about assets on any given day. But one participant is missing in this dialogue – the equipment itself. What if your equipment had a voice, enabling it to be a participant in the conversation?

Here are some valuable things your equipment could be telling you:

1) “How to repair me right the first time.”

The skilled labor shortage is increasing – with a generation of skilled technicians retiring just as commercial equipment is becoming more complex.

According to a recent PRSM (Now Connex) Member Survey, 65 % of facilities managers stated that highly skilled field service personnel are most challenging to find. A Society for Human Resource Management (SHRM) survey indicated that 43% of service companies report that hiring skilled trade professionals is their biggest challenge. To make matters worse, the upskilling of younger technicians is not keeping pace with equipment sophistication, creating financial, logistical, and operational problems that grow more acute over time. According to the Aberdeen Group Report, “Fixing First-Time Fix: Repairing Field Service Efficiency to Enhance Customer Service Returns,” 25% of all work orders require at least one repeat visit. Typically because service personnel arrived on-site without the right parts (51%) or the skills needed (25%). Repeat visits cost time and money, disrupting your operation and leaving tenants and customers dissatisfied.

The good news is that your equipment itself can provide call-avoidance scripts and triage information to site staff when they encounter a problem, saving thousands of dollars in unnecessary service calls. And when a service call is required, vital equipment-specific data and supportive content can be communicated directly to field service personnel – when they’re standing in front of the equipment they are there to service. Having ‘at-asset’ access to this type of Equipment Intelligence can improve first-time fix rates dramatically.

2) “How to avoid my costly violation.”

From the NFPA and local Fire Departments to the DOB, DOH and OSHA, there are tons of national, regional, and local regulations covering equipment-specific inspections, operation, testing, maintenance, and repairs. Not being compliant with these myriad requirements is costly, time-consuming, and potentially fatal to your business. In the restaurant industry, solutions by Coinspect and Zenput help chains manage food safety compliance and protocols as well as brand standards. In commercial real estate, services like SiteCompi in NYC help provide knowledge to resolve open items after receiving a violation.

3) “What senior staff already knows about me.”

In a recent presentation at the National Association of Convenience Stores (NACS) Show entitled “Combating Costs with Strong Facilities Maintenance Management,” Tom Sansoucy, Senior Manager of Facilities Support at Cumberland Farms indicated that one of Cumberland’s biggest challenges was the transfer of knowledge by senior staff and service technicians. He included the upskilling of younger workers, which were often reliant on the teaching ability of senior employees or manufacturers who provided limited in-person training. With a generation of skilled technicians retiring, as referenced earlier, and inefficient methods to leverage the resident knowledgebase (tribal knowledge) of in-house service management, Cumberland struggled to capture and share information that is vital to the operation of their mechanical infrastructure.

By connecting mechanical equipment to the digital world with Equipment Intelligence, convenience store chains like Cumberland can create a ‘living’ equipment inventory including troubleshooting information and process intelligence for internal staff (think call avoidance scripts; best practices, ‘Redbook’ procedures), as well as a knowledge base of field notes and site-level equipment expertise for their field service personnel and external service technicians.


Giving equipment a voice optimizes the compliance, inspection, testing, repair, and maintenance process, changing how your teams communicate with the mechanical infrastructure that is vital to your business.

What is your equipment telling you? We’d love to hear.

Ready to give your facility a voice?
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