Does your property inspections program get you the results you want? Or, does it often fail to generate the data you need to keep your building in great shape?
Regular inspections can help you extend the lifetime of your equipment and keep your building running smoothly. But, only if your inspection program is successful in getting you the information you need. With a failing inspection program, you’ll only waste your team’s time – and fail to extend the lifetime of your equipment.
Do you suspect that your inspection program is failing – and wonder what to do about it? Here are 3 signs your inspections program is failing and how to fix it.
1. Inconsistent Inspections Procedures
Inconsistent inspections are one reason your inspection program is failing.
If you have a subpar property inspection program, the data collected from your team’s inspections might be inconsistent. When your team conducts inspections, they only have vague directions to inspect certain equipment or collect specific data. Without clear direction, your different members of your team return with different (and often incomplete) data.
With incomplete data, it’s hard to know whether the equipment is underperforming. So, you can’t address problems before they require costly repairs or replacements. Even though you do inspections, inconsistent inspections mean they don’t help you keep your building in great shape.
To fix this, you need a standardized inspection template that tells your team exactly what data they need to collect. So, your template has to have a series of questions your team answers during the inspection. If you include the right questions, you’ll always get all the crucial info from inspections.
But, creating a template manually can be time-consuming. And, it can be difficult to think of the right questions. Inspection software can make template creation easy with a drag and drop builder. In only a few minutes, you can create a template with a variety of questions, like checkboxes, text fields, and more.
That way, you always get the info you need from inspections – making your inspection program successful.
2. Irregular Inspection Schedule
An irregular inspection schedule is another reason your inspection program could be failing.
To have a successful inspection program, you need to conduct inspections regularly. And, you need to conduct inspections as frequently as your equipment requires. So, you need to look at manuals, warranties, and more for every piece of equipment – and create an inspection schedule from that information.
But, implementing regular inspections can be a challenge. You have to find time to create a master inspection schedule – which can take days, and you have to make sure your team is following the schedule. So, you have to regularly monitor their progress – wasting time you don’t have.
An easier way to have regular inspections is by using property inspection software. This software can automatically create a master maintenance schedule for you based on your specific equipment needs. Instead of spending hours on the schedule, you can generate it in no time.
And, property inspection software can send automatic reminders to your team if they miss a scheduled inspection. So, you can make sure your team is following the inspection schedule – without spending any of your valuable time reminding them. And, property managers have visibility into team performance to see who’s performing well and who’s not.
That way, you can have a successful inspection program with a regular schedule in less time.
3. Non-mobile Inspections
Along with inconsistent and irregular inspections, non-mobile inspections are another reason your inspection program is failing.
Inspections are conducted throughout your building – not at the office. But, your team likely has to run back and forth during inspections to pick up forms, conduct the inspection, and get the data back to you. In all of this back and forth, your team can easily misplace data or forget to record important info all together.
And, if your team comes across any issues that need to be fixed, they have to wait until they get back to the office to create a work order. By that time, they may have already forgotten the key details of the issue. So, you’re unaware of the problem until it requires expensive repairs or needs to be replaced altogether.
To make sure all data and problems spotted are recorded, you need mobile inspections. While you could have your team record info on their phones, it’s still easy for data to get lost on the way to you. And things might get lost as they move throughout poor service areas in the building (basements, boiler rooms, crawlspace, etc.)
Instead, you could use property inspection software with mobile capabilities. With this software, your team can access your inspection templates on the go, and they can fill them out from their phone or another mobile device. Once they’ve entered the inspection data into the platform, you have instant access to it. So, no data gets lost before you can see it. Many solutions even come with an offline mode that will let engineers record and save data even in areas of poor service.
With property inspection software, your team can also generate work orders from their phone during inspections. So, if they come across problems, they can immediately put in a work order – ensuring the issue gets addressed before it’s too late.
Mobile inspections can help you get all inspection data – while making it faster for your team to conduct inspections.
Wrapping It Up
Regular inspections are essential for keeping your assets and your building in top shape. But, simply conducting sporadic inspections isn’t enough to keep everything in working order. You have to have a successful inspection program to make sure your equipment and building are performing properly.
If you have a failing inspection program, it could be due to inconsistent inspections, irregular inspections schedule, or non-mobile inspections. To fix these issues, you should create a standard inspection template, equipment specific master inspection schedule, and make inspections mobile. All of which is easy to do with property inspection software.
Looking for property inspection software to help you create a successful inspection program? Consider using Prism. With Prism’s property inspections module, you can create inspection templates, set a master inspection schedule, conduct mobile inspections, and more.
Want to know more about how Prism Inspections can help you? Tune in to our on-demand webinar today.
