Commissioner's Directive

Facilities Maintenance Management

To ensure that real property, including facilities, equipment, roads and grounds are maintained in a manner consistent with their intended use, at an acceptable cost, while providing for the productive employment and training of inmates.
To ensure that the institutional physical plant is operated in an efficient, effective and safe manner, in accordance with applicable federal, provincial and municipal regulations and standards.

Directors shall establish an appropriate Facilities Maintenance Program which encompasses the following elements:
1. preventive and routine maintenance of building systems and equipment;
2. corrective maintenance and breakdown repair; and
3. major repair and/or replacement of worn, unserviceable or obsolete building systems and equipment.

Directors shall ensure the operation of a preventive maintenance program which forms the basis of an effective maintenance management program so that assets are maintained on an economical life-cycle basis. The aims of preventive maintenance are to prolong equipment life, improve safety of operation, and reduce the incidence of emergency or breakdown repairs and premature replacement of equipment, thus allowing for a more effective use of resources.

Directors shall ensure that corrective maintenance activities are accomplished with due regard for economy and efficiency in the use of material and manpower. Excessive corrective maintenance costs should not be incurred where the replacement of an asset is the more economical alternative.

Major repairs to and/or replacements of assets or components are normally planned and scheduled as part of the annual Capital Program planning and budgeting exercise within the framework of Institutional Master Development Plans. Institutions should therefore anticipate their requirements for major maintenance as part of an overall asset management plan, covering at least the five-year budgetary planning period.

Directors shall ensure the monitoring of energy utilization and ensure that energy conservation is practiced as part of an institutional energy management program. The objective of the energy management program shall be to ensure the most efficient possible operation of heating, hot water, lighting and power systems and equipment through rigourous preventive and routine maintenance, prompt repairs, timely replacement of worn or unserviceable components, and the adoption of energy efficient operating practices.

Directors shall ensure that inmates are productively employed in facilities maintenance and plant operations where appropriate and practical. Training provided to inmates shall consist of on-the-job training with a view to fully utilizing the potential of inmate labour, principally in non-technically complex areas of plant operations and facilities maintenance. In a contract maintenance regime, contractors shall be required to employ inmates where it is practical and cost-effective to do so.

Directors shall ensure the operation of a work order-based system in order to manage the facilities maintenance program. As a minimum, the Maintenance System shall provide for:
1. planning, scheduling and controlling work and tracking back-logs;
2. estimating the time required and the cost of labour and materials for work orders;
3. inspecting the completed work and ensuring that in-house and contracted work is of an acceptable quality;
4. controlling the use of spare parts and other materials and stocking these in appropriate, but not excessive, quantities; and
5. recording the maintenance history of individual pieces of equipment and accumulating the historical costs of maintenance on equipment and buildings.
In addition to the elements mentioned above, the preventive maintenance management system shall provide for:
1. a detailed inventory of all buildings, systems equipment, and other real property assets to be inspected, tested or serviced, including technical specifications, warranty inspections; and
2. a description of the preventive and routine maintenance requirements for the above assets, along with a preventive maintenance schedule. Preventive maintenance schedules shall be based on appropriate criteria such as hours of equipment operation, and require periodic updating to avoid incidents of under-inspection or over-inspection.

Directors shall ensure the timely production of reports on facilities maintenance and plant operations, as follows:
1. institutional reports on maintenance and plant operations, as deemed necessary for the effective and efficient conduct of the Facilities Maintenance Program;
2. summary reports deemed necessary by Regional Headquarters and/or National Headquarters; and
3. reports required pursuant to applicable federal, provincial and municipal regulations.

Commissioner,

Original signed by
Ole Ingstrup

For more information

To learn about upcoming or ongoing consultations on proposed federal regulations, visit the Canada Gazette and Consulting with Canadians websites.