M&E Maintenance
Written by Saff Young
🕛 5 Minute Read
Why mobilising an M&E contract is like Bake-Off
Baking Your Perfect Service ‘Cake’
Mobilising a new building maintenance contract is a lot like baking a cake. You need the right ingredients, a clear recipe, good timing, and everyone working from the same step-to-step guide. Our mobilisation process is designed to simplify a complex contract transition, ensuring the experience is smooth and stress-free for our clients.
As you can imagine, this is often a challenge for our clients. By implementing a new contractor changes the flow of how they’ve previously run the building, due to new processes, systems and people involved. Sometimes leading to site knowledge being lost which can cause stress or worry for the client. Therefore, our goal is to work with them and their processes/ requirements to make the contract transition as easy as possible.
~Visualising the Final Cake~
Understanding What the Client Wants
When a client first tells us what they need, we often receive a list of ingredients (assets, service requirements, and expectations). But we don’t yet have a clear picture of the final look. For example, going back to the cake analogy, is it a simple sponge or a multi-tiered cake with icing and decorations?
If we went ahead with just the basic standard, we might deliver a four-tier cake with no icing. But what the client really wants might be a four-tier cake with vanilla icing. So, to avoid any miscommunications, we need to visualise the final product as a team and with the client.
~Following the Recipe~
The Tender Process
| Understanding the Ingredients | Site Survey | We visit the site to understand the building’s layout, the type of equipment, the systems in place and the overall requirements of the contract. |
| Preparation Steps | Strategy Plan | Based on this information, Hemlow build a personalised strategy thats based on what the client wants. Enabling us to envision the final look of the cake. |
| Recipe Sharing | Internal Handover | Once the contract has been handed over, we share the agreed ‘recipe and picture’ with our operations and technical team. This allows everyone, especially the Contract Manager, to know exactly what’s expected and what was promised during the first stage of the tender process. Now, we're all baking off the same sheet to produce the same cake, with the same ingredients, using the same steps. |
~Baking the Cake~
The Next 60 Days
The contract is now live, and we enter a 60-day window to bring everything together, ensuring all assets, systems, and processes match what was promised and what our client specifically wants. This allows us and our client to remain compliant with regulatory standards.
Baking Plan
We start with a collaborative workshop session for larger contracts/portfolios, which allows our team to:
- Understand how the client works
- Learn their communication preferences
- Identify their priorities and pain points
If the client prefers a printed recipe, we’ll deliver it on paper (e.g. Logbooks on site), whilst keeping a digital copy on file for our team (e.g. our CAFM system). It’s about working to their style, not forcing them into ours.
Checking the Quality of Ingredients
The condition report is one of the most important steps in our mobilisation. Our technical team visits the site to:
- Identify and record all equipment and their conditions
- Highlight any missing, faulty, or end-of-life assets
- Prioritise what needs urgent attention
This report gives us and the client a clear picture before we begin the maintenance works. It’s also a chance for the client to recover costs from previous service providers or understand where we can help them save money.
This is the first step in ensuring our maintenance planner has the correct assets uploaded. We can then identify which supplier looks after specific equipment for example, our engineers, the technical team or the subcontractors.
Setting Timers
Once we know the exact condition and quantity of assets, our administrators can create a mobilisation planner that links every asset to its servicing schedule. This must be aligned with the clients’ requirements and systems (e.g. eLogbook’s) to ensure full compliance and meeting all the required servicing levels.
This is important. If our internal schedule says a boiler needs servicing in two months, but the client’s system shows it’s due in two days, the client risks becoming exposed and non-compliant. That’s why accurate asset data from the condition report from day one is non-negotiable.
Checking the Oven
- Â We hold regular meetings based on our client’s preference
- Share reports and updates
- Confirm access protocols
- Adapt our communication to the client’s preferred style (as agreed in the ‘Baking Plan’)
This helps us ensure the client is comfortable, informed, and confident in our process. It also ensures they are on the same path as us and know what is happening and when it’s happening – a clear, structured process.
~Decorating the Cake~
Delivering What We Promised at the Beginning
Our goal is to deliver the exact cake that was envisioned at the start. No surprises. No missing ingredients. Just the right balance of planning, teamwork, and operational delivery.
By personalising our mobilisation process for each client, rather than following a one-size-fits-all approach, enables us to deliver a service that is personal, efficient, and fully aligned with our clients’ expectations. We understand that transitioning to a new contract can be challenging, but we’re here to make it as smooth, accurate, and pain-free as possible for our clients.
We want our clients to reach out to us because they trust that partnering with Hemlow means a stress-free experience into the contract.
In simple terms, our mobilisation process starts with understanding what our clients need. We then adapt our standard mobilisation process to match their specific requirements and specification. We ensure all our team members and departments involved are aligned and fully understand what is expected. Finally, we validate, create and communicate to deliver the exact ‘cake’ they had in mind.
