Retail maintenance management is many small registers, one in each store, maintained mostly by contractors and reported on by a head office that wants to know which stores cost the most and why. The store manager raises the request, the contractor does the work, and the software has to hold the register per site, schedule the contractor visits, file the certificates, and report by store. This page sets out the store's role, the contractor's, and the record head office reads.
The store's role
Raising requests from a form on a phone: the chiller, the door, the lights, the till counter. Doing the daily checks that are the store's own: refrigeration temperatures, fire exits, the shop-floor walk. Letting the contractor in and signing off the visit. The store does not maintain plant, and the system should not ask it to; it should ask for requests and checks and give it the status of both.
The contractor's role
Most of the work: refrigeration, HVAC, electrical, doors, shopfitting. The system raises the preventive visits from the schedule per store, sends the work order to the contractor, and receives the report and the certificate back against the asset. Response times by priority are in the contract and the system measures them from the request time to the return time. A store that waits two days for a chiller repair is a store that lost stock, and the record is what head office uses to hold the contractor to the contract.
The register per site
Small and repetitive: the same makes of chiller, HVAC unit and door in most stores, which means the asset classes and their tasks are written once and applied to every store. Each store is a branch of the tree; each asset has its contractor and its statutory checks. New stores inherit the template; closed stores are retired with their history kept.
What head office reads
Cost by store, split reactive against planned. Contractor response against contract. Overdue statutory checks by store. The stores with the most requests per asset, which are the ones with old plant or a bad contractor. A CMMS built for multi-site reports that from the same work orders the stores raise; a single-site tool or a ticketing system does not roll it up. The maintenance log worksheet on this site is one store's record and the shape the multi-site system multiplies.
Questions people ask about retail maintenance management
Is retail maintenance management the same as facilities management?
It overlaps. This hub's charter keeps to the equipment register and its record; a facilities service that runs the stores' buildings for a fee is the facilities hubs' subject.
Should every store have the software?
A request form and a checklist, yes. The full system is head office's and the regional maintenance manager's.
What is the most expensive retail asset to neglect?
Refrigeration, because its failure costs stock as well as repair. The daily temperature check is the store's most valuable maintenance task.