Begin with your building manager: A review of March's work request process

  • Published
  • By Linda Welz
  • 452 AMW Public Affairs
MARCH AIR RESERVE BASE, CALIF. --  You've probably experienced it before or know someone who has mentioned it. It's freezing in one office while down the hall, or upstairs, the occupants are sweltering.

What do you do? Wrap up in a blanket and put on your hardiest ski cap? Slap a cold rag on your neck and stand in front of a fan? What do you do if you need utilities repaired, a swarm of bees removed from your building, or flooring replaced or installed?

In each scenario, you would begin with your building manager. It's good to know who he or she is so you can place him or her on speed dial. Building managers and their alternates attend civil engineer training to learn the proper steps to take whenever a building needs civil engineering work.

Service calls must be made by the facility manager or alternate unless it is an emergency, in which case anyone can call it in to the service desk at 951-655-4880.

"Know your facility manager," said Lisa Hayes, work receptionist with Satellite Services, Inc., the base support contractor. "Be as informative as possible to them for whatever your need is."

Hayes, who answers the 50-75 daily service desk calls, said most of them concern the temperature in the buildings.

"We have old systems and they are very hard to control from room to room," she said.

Charles Felarca, SSI, said the government sets the minimum and maximum temperatures as well as the dates the heat and air conditioner are turned on and off.

"We turn the heat on November first and the air conditioner goes on May first. The required set temperatures are 72 and 75 degrees," Felarca said. Building managers who call in a request are given a work order for the repair. Should the request be to upgrade or modify a portion of the facility, an Air Force Form 332 is required, which then goes before the Work Order Request Board, held every Thursday in Building 2405.

"Every time we have a work order request, we have to fight for it at the weekly meeting due to the fact that our building is scheduled for complete renovation," said Master Sgt. Ralph Elderbaum, 452nd Security Forces Squadron resource advisor and building manager. "But, we all know complete renovations don't happen overnight. We still have to keep things running on a daily basis."

Tech. Sgt. Daniel Armstrong, 452nd Security Forces Squadron alternate building manager, said he requested to have a raised floor replaced with tile in their building so the room could be used for ground combat training.

"We requested that in early 2009," Sergeant Armstrong said. "I would love the process to be faster but there's risk management involved. If you speed things up you are going to miss plenty of steps. Everything has to be safe and for the benefit of our health and well-being."

More than a year after the request for tile was submitted it was installed. The AF Form 332 was routed through the safety office, fire department, environmental management, bioenvironmental and public health office for processing and approval before being assigned to SSI for completion.

"Once SSI got the approval it was fairly quick and we appreciate that," said Sergeant Armstrong.

Satellite Services, Inc., is authorized to work on anything that was part of the original building design or that was originally installed in your building, said Felarca.

"Our goal is customer satisfaction," he said. "We receive more than 600 work requests a month so we occasionally miss our time frames for one reason or another."

The process to follow up on a request is already in place, Felarca said.

"The first step is to call Lisa to find the status of the work order," he said. "If Lisa cannot answer the question, she will refer you to the scheduler or estimator who will do their best to answer any questions."

In addition, there are customer survey forms attached to each work order that are the customer's opportunity to judge the work, make recommendations for improvements or provide accolades for technicians who did a good job. Completed surveys may be turned in to SSI or the technician. The process from request to completion may sometimes be long, but the building managers and alternates have the training to work the process.