A fryer down on a Friday and nobody sure who was called
The left fryer at one site stopped heating at 6pm on Friday. The sous chef told the GM, the GM texted the facilities manager, and the facilities manager rang the catering equipment engineer. The engineer came on Monday, replaced a thermostat and left a paper job sheet in the office. Three weeks later the same fryer fails again. A different manager is on shift and emails head office. A different engineer is called. Nobody connects the two faults.
Meanwhile at another site, a dripping tap in the toilets has been reported three times. Each time, someone said it would be sorted.
Why maintenance slips through the gaps
Multi-site maintenance usually rests on one facilities manager, or on an ops manager who has facilities as a side job, receiving requests from every direction.
- Faults arrive by text, email, WhatsApp and phone, often without photos or asset details.
- Urgency is judged by how loud the message is, not by what is broken.
- Contractors are chosen from memory, and warranty cover is rarely checked.
- Job sheets and invoices are separate, so nobody knows which invoice paid for which repair.
- There is no history by asset, so repeat faults look like new ones.
The cost of an informal repairs process
Equipment down during service means dishes off the menu, slower tickets and sometimes lost trade. Repeat faults on the same item cost more in call-outs than a replacement would, but nobody sees the pattern. Work done under warranty is paid for because nobody checked. Small jobs, left for weeks, affect how the site looks to guests. And the facilities manager spends the day as a switchboard.
How we set up group maintenance
- Every site gets a simple fault report on a phone: pick the area or asset, describe the problem, add a photo and say whether it affects service.
- Priority is set by rules you agree, such as refrigeration and cooking equipment during trading hours taking priority over cosmetic work.
- The job is assigned to the right contractor from your approved list for that site and trade, with warranty status checked where the asset record holds it.
- Contractors receive the job by email or a contractor login, and can update status and upload their job sheet.
- Invoices are matched to jobs, so spend is recorded by site, asset and contractor.
- Head office sees open jobs by site and age, and a report of assets with repeat faults.
| Priority | Example | Expected handling |
|---|---|---|
| Service affecting | Walk-in not holding temperature, fryer down | Same day where possible, as your contracts allow |
| Important | Dishwasher slow, extraction noisy | Scheduled soon |
| Routine | Dripping tap, loose skirting | Grouped into a planned visit |
| Planned | Servicing, deep cleans | Calendar by site |
The priority response times come from your own contractor agreements. The log shows whether they are being met.
What the facilities manager sees now
One list of every open job across the group, with photos, age and contractor. Site teams can see what happened to their request without sending a chasing message. When the fryer fails a second time, the history shows the first repair and the part replaced. At budget time, the group can see spend by site and asset type, and which equipment is costing more to keep than to replace.
Is maintenance in your group like this?
- Faults are reported by text or WhatsApp to one person.
- Nobody can list the open repairs across all sites.
- The same equipment keeps failing without anyone noticing.
- Warranty repairs are sometimes paid for.
- Contractor invoices cannot be matched to specific jobs.