1762 – Shift Maintenance
SUMS was asked to: “Undertake a comparative review of other universities’ SLAs and cost of service to
inform decision making” regarding reactive maintenance, specifically out of hours reactive maintenance.
During the course of the assignment, interviews were conducted with representatives from key customer
groups such as the ASU, IT, Student Accommodation and Sports to understand their specific requirements
relating to out of hours maintenance.
Information was also collected regarding the out of hours maintenance services offered by a selection of
other universities.
A number of recommendations were made, including the identification of a possible service level for out
of hours reactive maintenance, together with feedback from the departments on the proposed service
level. SUMS also addressed the associated split of responsibilities between Estates and the departments.
This included establishing costs for the options of contracting out/more use of security and departmental
call-outs/departments carrying out some tasks themselves. In addition, SUMS recommended holding
discussions with staff concerning the proposed model for call outs, upskilling of security to enable fulfillment
of a triage role, and implementation of the new service level. Finally, SUMS recommended implementing a
preventative maintenance programme, monitoring the progress of preventative maintenance and adjusting
the SLA as appropriate.
The benefits of these recommendations should be clarity: regarding departmental and Estates’ roles and
responsibilities; clarity over response times, allowing departments to make arrangements to cover any gaps
from the implementation of the service level; a more cost effective model in the medium to long term;
a reduction in the number of out of hours jobs as the preventative maintenance programme takes effect
and a reduction in overall costs as the number of call-outs reduces.
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SUMS Consulting Annual Review 2016