August 16, 2017

A.G. Coombs is proud to be a sponsor and to participate in the 2017 Tertiary Education Management Conference (TEMC), which will be held at the Crown Conference Centre, Melbourne, 17-20 September 2017.

As part of our participation with TEMC 2017, Paul Gilmore, Executive Manager Group Business Development from A.G. Coombs, and Kevin O’Sullivan, Associate Director Asset Services from The University of Queensland, will be presenting on Transitioning to performance based (proactive) HVAC maintenance at the University of Queensland.

The University of Queensland (UQ) went to the market in 2015 seeking a specialist building services provider to deliver a holistic solution to their Heating, Ventilation and Air Conditioning (HVAC) lifecycle and maintenance program – HVAC Maintenance Solution.

Historically the management and maintenance of the HVAC equipment and systems was task based routines, with repairs and rectifications primarily reactive, often leading to inconvenience and unplanned costs.

The UQ has a diverse base of HVAC assets over 300 buildings across twelve (12) campuses and required maintenance strategies to optimise performance over the short, medium and long‐term whereby the HVAC assets are not maintained as individual parts but maintained holistically as systems and subsystems.

UQ appointed A.G. Coombs with engineering support by A.G. Coombs Advisory to implement a performance based delivery model, with the key objectives of this model to include the development of maintenance strategies to optimise system performance and environmental outcomes across the University’s large and diverse building portfolio.

Taking a systems-based approach to maintenance, as opposed to looking at individual assets, the maintenance methodologies consider each component as part of a larger system and works to ensure these systems integrate in the best possible way to deliver the best operational and environmental outcomes for the buildings.

The service delivery framework also addresses the technical redundancy or obsolescence of aging assets, broader environmental and lifecycle considerations, operational performance, and condition and/or risk-based decision making.

The collaborative journey between UQ and A.G. Coombs has required an ideological shift to performance based maintenance strategies delivered through a staged approach, together with a commitment and significant effort from both organisations to ensure the processes match to the outcomes.

This presentation will provide insights from UQ (Customer) and A.G. Coombs (Service Provider) perspectives and the collaborative process to implement this new and innovative Performance Based maintenance solution, including the planning, systems, technology and analytics which have been leveraged into the second year of the contact.

More information and to register visit the Tertiary Education Management Conference 2017 website.