Controlling Your O&E Costs ... Without Sacrificing Peace of Mind

This is an open letter from the Maintenance Division of The Boston Group to all the facility executives and building owners out there wrestling with the best way to satisfy the maintenance and engineering demands of their facilities.

Believe me, I've been down that road in past lives and I know that, at times, the choice between outsourcing your needs or getting the job done in-house leaves you wishing there was a third option. Let's see: the salaries, benefits — and overtime costs — associated with an in-house team of technicians makes you gun-shy when it comes to tackling the seemingly never-ending needs of any commercial facility. And then, there's the sticker shock of opening your latest bill from your maintenance/engineering contractor that includes the "special" charges incurred last Sunday when the contractor team had to make an emergency call to one of your critical facilities.

If only you could have your cake and eat it, too — control your costs without sacrificing the peace of mind that comes from knowing you can afford to keep your buildings running like a clock, 24/7, year-round.

In a nutshell, there is a third option: Finding a partner who has your back relative to all your maintenance/engineering needs ...without having to "watch your back," and fret about hidden, unanticipated costs.

For example, when The Boston Group initially negotiates a service contract with a client, it establishes certain standards, upfront. Our organization defines what an "emergency call" is and what a "service call" is. If a freezer goes down in a convenience store, does the client have another freezer to preserve its products until the next day? If not, both client and contract would know ahead of time that this falls into the category of an emergency call. When a new customer reaches an agreement with us, we have our inventory specialist go to each of the customer's locations and perform an equipment and parts inventory of the products that the Boston Group would be servicing. These parts are then stocked in our depots near customer locations — and when a customer calls with a service problem and they describe it to us, we will know what parts to bring with us to remedy the problem.

The "Boston Group Way"

I could go on and on about why The Boston Group really is that fresh, new, innovative exception to all those nightmarish outsourcing anecdotes that you've experienced first-hand or that have been passed along by one of your facility management peers. Here are a sample of features that define The "Boston Group way" of doing things that I think you should be aware of:

• Our staff is cross-trained. Our staff of professionals can handle any highly complex engineering task, or build shelving to petitions, repair roofing problems, lay floor tile, fix conveyor belts or trouble shoot shredding machines. We employ estimators, designers and architects, inspectors and appraisers — in addition to operating engineers.
• We boast strategically located storage facilities that warehouse myriad replacement parts and equipment.
• You will never get an overtime bill from us because we have round-the clock operations that rotate manpower 24/7.
• We purchase all equipment and parts under your corporate name to guarantee that your organization is covered by any and all accompanying warranties.
• Training for our technicians is on-going. We partner with all the major technical organizations in the industry for training, as well as government groups like OSHA. We walk these technicians through our insurance coverage and your insurance coverage relative to the task at hand in order to favorably impact liability premiums.
• We screen our staff hires thoroughly and carry a $2-million liability insurance policy. Our employees are covered by workmen's comp and we've developed a very in-depth operations and engineering policy that everyone in the field must be familiar with.

I could go on and on about The Boston Group and why you should trust us with your maintenance and engineering program. My contact information follows — feel free to contact me in order to determine if your organization and my organization are, indeed, the right fit.

Thank you so much for your time.

Sincerely,

Alex Feinman. Director
Maintenance Division
The Boston Group
alex.feinman@boston-group.us
1-888-489-1191