Facility Manager Education Series – Part I – Automatic Door Preventative Maintenance / Risk Management Surveys

Automatic Door Preventative Maintenance / Risk Management

Facility-wide surveys conducted by an AAADM certified qualified firm should be the starting point in initiating a long-term preventative maintenance (PM) / risk management program. Negotiation of an automatic door PM program with your automatic door professional entails the assessment of the existing equipment in relation to ANSI and ADA code requirements as well as AAADM standard of practice recommendations. Before regular PM inspections and serve may be conducted, existing automatic door openings must be brought up to standards as a “baseline” starting point for your contract.

A facility cannot expect the door service professional to hit the starting block at a 400 door facility with 200 doors not meeting code requirements and AAADM recommendations. Repairs required to bring these openings to standard would undoubtedly occur within the first term of the first year of inspection cycles. These one-time costs always “muddy the waters” by showing what appears to be standard maintenance costs in a budget that was intended for the same. The PM budgets for following years are overestimated and some facilities leave funds on the tables when they realize that the PM budget for year two was overestimated because of year one’s one-time costs.

It is suggested that initial PM surveys be broken out as a separate proposal / purchase order prior to the formal commencement of the PM / inspection contract.

This gives your automatic door professional the opportunity to survey the site and log the condition / equipment type at EACH OPENING. Hold Harmless clauses in standard facility contracts would appear to indicate that the service professional has had an opportunity to visit, assess and make repair recommendations for each opening proposed under a forthcoming PM / service contract. Allowing your door professional to address any deficiencies found prior to the execution of a PM contract provides a starting point for both the door professional and the facility seeking a contract Hold Harmless clause.

When requesting a facility-wide existing condition survey, be sure to ask your automatic door professional for the following in order to facilitate future communication :

Qualified Surveys

Maintenance surveys are conducted by AAADM certified personnel
Final review of conditions made by Special Services Group for code compliance
Option to provide Preventative Maintenance Service during recurring surveys scheduled each year (includes equipment adjustment and wear item replacement)

Organized Summary

Point by point inspection checklists from both a maintenance and risk management perspective are utilized and summarized in a final report.
Recommendations are made based on level of importance with respect to code compliance and day-to-day maintenance of wear items
Both written report and sortable summary MS Excel spreadsheet / database table can be provided so that you may view the results in any way you choose (sorted by entrance numbers, issue type, etc)
Compliant entrances provided with final report noting compliance and inspection by door professional as the certifying party for your record

Facility Managers are encouraged by Risk Management professionals to utilize the services of qualified and certified entrance solution providers in order to mitigate the associated litigation risks and costs associated with using “leaner” or no such services.