Trust can be costly and dangerous
I want to talk a bit about why what we do at AuditMate is so important and why our service pays for itself both in the short term and long term.
We audit what happens on your vertical transportation equipment. We audit when they work on the equipment. We audit what they do to the equipment. We audit how long they did it, and we audit the results of the work they did. Now here is why this is so critical: elevators and escalators are very expensive assets. Repair work is expensive, replacement and elevator modernization are both expensive and disruptive to your building. Knowing that the maintenance you’re getting is adequate for the needs of the equipment is a must if you are going to get the full life expectancy out of the equipment you have. We take all this data and we deliver the results to you each month to keep you informed on contract compliance, state and local JHA certification compliance, maintenance deficiencies, callback and entrapment information, root cause analysis issues, and any recommendations we see that can protect you and your equipment.
In addition, we perform elevator audits on every invoice for the correct labor rate, compliance to the contract, and validity and we negotiate any disputes for you directly with the vendor. We audit every proposal for a correct and complete scope and fair market value.
It would be great to just be able to trust that your elevator service contractor was doing all the right things to see to it that your equipment runs as it should and all the preventative maintenance is done correctly. Unfortunately, the data proves otherwise. It is a very rare occasion when we complete a contract analysis and find the vendor performing above 50% of the contract deliverables. So, we say at AuditMate, verify the work and validate the data.
Since launching AuditaMate, I have been in lots of elevator machine rooms and have seen so many elevators and escalators that will get modernized 5, 7, even 10 years before they should, solely because the maintenance was inconsistent, insufficient, or nonexistent. Imagine you own a building with 4 ten-stop elevators. You find out you are going to have to spend one million dollars (roughly the cost of modernizing four traction cars) on a modernization 7 years before you should have had to, when you had been paying for and assumed you were getting the maintenance that should provide a full useful life. I don’t know about you, but I would be hotter than Texas chili.
It is also important to look at the safety side of what does and/or does NOT happen during maintenance. When all the safety concerns are not addressed as they should be and within the code-mandated time frames, the liability risk increases tenfold. In every accident investigation I have ever been involved with during my 42 years in the industry, the plaintiff’s legal team went straight to code compliance first to see whether what should have been done was actually done. When the plaintiff’s legal team finds gaps in the code compliance record, it makes it so much easier to sell the story of liability to a jury, virtually ensuring a big payout. While you expect the vendor to handle this work as the code mandates, it clearly states it is the owner’s responsibility.
Knowing what you’re getting and knowing it is done right will save you money short term and long term. And while having a relationship with your service vendor is great, you can trust what you audit and verify.
Let AuditMate do the heavy lifting for you.