Preventive Maintenance Checklist for Corporate Offices

Most corporate offices already do some preventive maintenance. The gap is usually structure: checks happen when someone remembers, nothing is recorded, and the same breakdowns return after every long weekend. A planned preventive maintenance (PPM) programme turns “someone should look at that” into a scheduled, assigned and recorded task.

This article sets out how to organise the programme, which checks are worth scheduling in each discipline, and how to keep the paperwork light enough that people use it. Many offices run this through an annual maintenance arrangement, but the structure is the same whoever does the work. It is written at inspection level. Live electrical systems, fire systems, gas lines and anything at height need qualified or licensed people, and the lists below say what to look at and when, not how to repair it.

Start with the rhythm, not the asset list

Building a plan from a full asset register is the usual first instinct, and it tends to stall. A better starting point is the calendar. Decide what gets looked at daily, weekly, monthly, quarterly and annually, then place each asset in a slot.

• Daily: a walk-round on a fixed route by the on-site technician or supervisor. Eyes and ears only: leaks, unusual noise or heat, alarms, blocked exits, failed lights.
• Weekly: run-and-log checks on plant such as the pump room, DG set, AHU and chiller rooms, water tank levels and panel indications.
• Monthly: functional checks and cleaning that need some time: filters, washroom fixtures, emergency lights, door hardware, floor traps.
• Quarterly: deeper inspection of systems: thermal scan of panels, coil cleaning, tank and drain inspection, fire system checks, terrace and drain outlets.
• Annual: shutdown-dependent and statutory-type work: full equipment servicing, earthing tests, fire system servicing by the licensed agency, tank disinfection, pre-monsoon waterproofing review, façade inspection.

Where a manufacturer’s manual or a statutory requirement sets a frequency, that overrides this generic rhythm. Treat the rhythm as a starting point and adjust after the first two or three cycles, based on what the job cards show.

Checklists by discipline

Each item carries its frequency in brackets. Print these, or lift them into your CMMS or a shared sheet, and add the asset IDs and locations specific to your floors.

Documentation that makes the plan auditable

A plan that lives in people’s heads cannot be reviewed. Four records do most of the work.

• Asset tags and register. A unique ID on every significant asset, with location, discipline, make, model and service history. Tag first, then plan.
• Job cards. One per scheduled task: what was checked, readings taken, parts used, who did it, when, and whether it is closed. An open job card is a visible backlog.
• Logs. Daily and weekly round sheets and plant run logs kept in a fixed place. Baseline readings recorded early make later drift easy to spot.
• Photo records. Dated before-and-after photos tied to the asset ID, especially for concealed work such as tank cleaning, terrace drains and ceiling-void repairs.

Paper works. So do a shared spreadsheet or a CMMS. What matters is that closing a task needs a signature or timestamp, and that someone reviews the open items every week.

In-house or vendor: deciding the split

The common pattern is that the in-house team owns walk-rounds, logs, first response and low-risk consumable changes, while specialist vendors own anything licensed, warranty-bound or needing tools and training you would not otherwise carry.

If you are consolidating several of these under one contract, compare managed maintenance: one accountable vendor, one job-card system and one review meeting.

Shutdowns, permits and tenant coordination

Work that needs isolation, such as panel servicing, chiller overhauls, DG maintenance and tank cleaning, should be planned as shutdowns rather than squeezed in. Build the annual shutdown calendar early, share it with tenants or departments well ahead, and fix weekends or low-occupancy windows for the heavy items. Agree the following in writing before the day:

• Scope, timings, affected floors and services, and a named on-site contact.
• A permit-to-work for isolation, hot work, work at height and confined spaces, signed by the responsible person, with isolations locked and tagged using proper lockout-tagout devices.
• Fire alarm zone isolation only with sign-off from the responsible person, a fire watch where protection is impaired, and confirmed restoration before the area is handed back.
• A restoration checklist: services back, readings normal, area cleaned, permit closed.

Critical spares and reviewing the plan

A plan is only as good as your ability to act on what it finds. Hold a small stock of critical spares: parts whose failure would stop a floor or a plant room and which take time to replace, such as pump seals, float valves, contactors, filters and emergency-light batteries. Our guide to critical spares by facility type covers how to decide what belongs on the list.

Then review on a fixed rhythm.

• Monthly: planned versus completed tasks by discipline, open job cards and recurring complaints.
• Quarterly: repeat failures. If one asset keeps generating reactive calls, its check frequency is too low or it needs a repair-or-replace decision.
• Annually: reset the calendar, retire tasks that repeatedly find nothing, add tasks for new assets and revisit the in-house and vendor split.

Change frequencies on evidence from the job cards, not habit. A filter that comes out clean every month can move to quarterly; a terrace drain that clogs after every storm should not.

What to send us for a quote

If you want a vendor to run part or all of the programme, send the floor area and number of floors, a list of major equipment by discipline, current service contracts with expiry dates, and the hours the building operates. Scope, coverage and response options are confirmed against your site before quoting. You can send these through the RFQ form.