Several years ago, we built a home in a new neighborhood and moved in during early July. The home needed a few upgrades. For instance, I had an electrician install additional outlets in the garage for my workbench and an extra refrigerator for additional storage for frozen foods and beverages. Unfortunately, during a heavy ice storm, we lost power for several days. Everything was out — electricity, internet and heat.
We had a natural gas fireplace to keep us warm, but the damage was done. We lost several hundred dollars’ worth of food.
When we lived in New York and lost power during winter, at least it was cold enough to allow us to store food on the porch without having it spoil. But in North Carolina, the outside temperature never got below freezing or cold enough to temporarily keep things outside.
At that point, I said never again. I need a contingency plan because this will happen again. I bought a generator, and an electrician wired it so I could switch over in case of a power outage. The generator could operate on either gasoline or natural gas, which supplies the house. As it turns out, I’ve used the generator twice so far this year, and hurricane season is in full swing.
The point here is that emergencies will occur, and resilience in such situations is essential. Every commercial and institutional organization must develop contingency plans in case of emergency or service interruption.
Facility resilience focuses on fortifying physical assets against unplanned service interruptions or natural disasters. Resilience is critical to ensure business continuity, especially for mission-critical facilities such as hospitals or data centers, because billion dollar disasters hit the United States an average of every 18 days, based on data from 2017 to 2022.
Contingency planning and resilience analysis are critical processes for maintenance and engineering managers in every organization. These processes help ensure the continuous operation of their assets and deliver the required level of service, even when faced with adverse impacts. These processes focus on maintaining the safety and integrity of assets, regardless of whether the assets remain operational during an unplanned event.
Robust contingency planning involves establishing systems and protocols that allow facilities to either maintain services during serious crises and disasters or to recover those services in a short period if interruptions do occur. This approach ensures that essential functions can continue or be restored quickly, minimizing disruptions and effects.
Unfortunately, not all service providers demonstrate strong contingency planning. For example, my own provider appears to have overlooked the importance of these measures, as evidenced by repeated service outages and inadequate recovery strategies.
Any decisions managers make about optimizing asset resilience should have accurate data to support and assist in the development of those plans. Accurate and unbiased condition reporting ensures managers’ plans are well-founded and defensible should they require funding to implement them.
I often recommend that managers have an internal or third party conduct a facilities condition assessment (FCA), which can reveal facilities’ potential problems, clarify the severity of the deferred maintenance backlog and provide a reasonable estimate of replacement costs. The assessment also can identify the opportunities and risks surrounding the asset conditions and help managers communicate these needs across the organization.
Using tools like an FCA and life-cycle analysis (LCA) can help managers prioritize investments based on the criticality and condition of the asset. Using an LCA might be an appropriate tool for assets that are not as critical to the organizational mission. LCA uses a systematic methodology to evaluate the costs to operate an asset throughout its entire life cycle, from installation to end-of-life disposal or recycling.
These tools supply managers with data to support capital planning and reduce downtime. FEA’s property resilience assessment checklist — feapc.com/resilience-assessment-checklist/ — incorporates ASTM standards, and it evaluates risks across infrastructure, operations and long-term planning.
Andrew Gager is CEO of AMG International Consulting. He is a professional consultant and facilitator with more than 20 years of partnering with organizations in achieving strategic objectives and goals.
Making Facility Resilience Work
How Facility Managers Can Use Contingency Planning to Strengthen Resilience
