Industrial maintenance outsourcing companies: key questions to consider when evaluating partners

Outsourcing your industrial maintenance operations can be a real asset when aiming for higher performance, safety and sustainability targets. The right industrial maintenance outsourcing company is committed to your goals and develops your plant’s maintenance with you.

Conversely, choosing the wrong maintenance partner for your organisation can end up being costly and endangering the performance of your plant. Evaluating potential partners and their expertise isn’t always easy, but with these three steps you can get started on your outsourcing journey.

1. Partners in performance

Effective maintenance processes take time to develop and are often highly industry-specific. Along with competent maintenance staff who are familiar with your field, you should also pay attention to the leadership at your maintenance partner company.

Is your partner able to commit to your shared performance goals? Can they demonstrate a commitment to developing their workplace safety measures, as well as the impact of those measures?

Ask potential partner companies for proof that their maintenance processes are effective and up to date. This can be demonstrated through reference cases from plants similar to yours, or the company’s best practices and proof of their long-term effectiveness. Since downtimes are an inevitable but costly part of running an industrial plant, you should also ask about your partner’s track record for reducing and effectively utilising production downtimes.

2. Data-driven decision-making

Modern digital tools are a key element of ensuring the efficiency and continuous development of maintenance processes. Collecting and utilising data about your plant’s maintenance operations helps you streamline your operations and make the most of your resources. Over time, these improvements in cost-awareness and cost-management can prove to be a valuable competitive advantage. In addition, digital tools can improve the wellbeing of your workforce by making the everyday maintenance work of your plant easier and safer for them.

When evaluating different industrial maintenance outsourcing companies, ask them about the digital tools they can offer and what their research and development abilities are like. Do they have a proven track-record of using data to drive their decision-making and helping their customers future-proof their operations?

3. Think beyond maintenance

Even if your main focus is maintenance, you should think bigger when selecting the right outsourcing partner.

A successful maintenance partnership means that your partner will become intimately familiar with your plant. It might therefore make sense to buy other services from them at some point. A competent maintenance partner can manage things like subcontractors and warehouse operations for you, making the everyday running of your plant that little bit more stress-free.

Finding a partner who can also provide design and engineering services, as well as facility management such as HVAC, energy and security services, can be beneficial, should the need for other expertise arise. Consider the maintenance outsourcing company’s entire service portfolio: can they offer other services besides industrial maintenance, and can they do that at a price point that suits your organisation?

A step-by-step guide to outsourcing industrial maintenance

To help you find the right maintenance partner for your needs, we put together a buyer’s guide to outsourcing industrial maintenance. The guide covers 9 important criteria for evaluating potential partners, as well as a checklist of questions you should ask them.

If you have questions about outsourcing maintenance or want to learn more about our services, feel free to contact me directly.