Peabody Essex Museum: Performing Cost-Effective Maintenance on Priceless Assets

Visitors to the Yin Yu Tang house at the Peabody Essex Museum (PEM) report feeling a peacefulness of spirit when they enter the building. The Chinese house, which dates from the late 18th century, was relocated more than 13,000 miles and rebuilt piece by piece at its new home in Salem, Massachusetts. The house is part of a major renovation and expansion project that nearly doubled the museum’s space. With this historic house in place, PEM began implementing processes that would help manage the museum’s new and historic buildings, as well as perform preventive maintenance on some very unusual—and valuable—cultural assets.

An Architectural Feat
The PEM was founded in 1799 and is the oldest continually operating museum in the U.S. The museum’s collection exceeds 2.4 million works of art and culture and includes 24 historic buildings, four of which are nationally registered historic landmarks. In 2003, the Yin Yu Tang ancestral home was relocated from southeastern China to the PEM through a cultural partnership between the museum and the governmental authorities of Huizhou, the home region of Yin Yu Tang. The dismantling, re-erection, and presentation of Yin Yu Tang constitute a landmark collaboration between Chinese and American architects, artisans, conservators, engineers, and museum experts. Today, the house stands as it did for over two hundred years, inviting museum visitors to experience the architecture and furnishings that reflect the culture of several generations of a Chinese family.

Cost Tracking
As the museum grew in size and scope, the need for a formal method of tracking critical facilities management information—including scheduling preventive maintenance and tracking repair costs—increased. Plus, a lack of historical data meant that the museum was continually dealing with the same recurring challenges. “We chose ARCHIBUS as our facilities management system to help achieve these objectives,” says Robert Monk, Facility Director at PEM. “We also knew it would seamlessly link with AutoCAD® and would be easy to operate—an important attribute of a facilities management system, as the museum has a core of volunteers that interact with the system on a regular basis. ARCHIBUS is now our tool for standardizing, managing, and tracking preventive maintenance within the museum and its many historical buildings, some of which are hundreds of years old.”

One result of the museum’s expansion is increased operating costs. “At the end of the year, the museum needs a clear record of where and how it spent its facilities budget,” says Monk. By maintaining a centralized database of facilities information, he can determine accurate operating costs and develop strategies to cover them. “ARCHIBUS provides the tools we need to make informed decisions about operating costs,” he says.

Barcoding Equipment
Meanwhile, ARCHIBUS Business Partner Terminal Velocity FM (TVFM) works with the volunteers—people who are passionate about the museum, but don’t necessarily have facilities management backgrounds. These folks perform the bulk of the data collection, which has been key to the PEM’s goal of tracking its space and exhibits. Data collection is simplified by the use of MicroView Palm® technology. An easy-to-use data collection form lets volunteers and staff enter space, equipment, and exhibit information to ARCHIBUS via a handheld device. Barcoding helps the museum track physical assets for preventive maintenance purposes. Some of the PEM’s more unusual preventive maintenance considerations include scheduling artisans to perform maintenance on large wall murals and arranging for the maintenance of exotic plant species in different areas of the museum’s campus.

Integration with Johnson Controls Metasys
Since Johnson Controls has had temperature control equipment in the PEM since the 1940s, it made sense to have the company handle the new museum’s Building Automation Systems—but with increased accountability. In the past, the Johnson Controls personnel would perform maintenance on the equipment as needed, but their work was not accurately tracked. “Since there was no formal tracking of Johnson Controls’ repair work other than handwritten service tickets, at the end of the year we’d have to do a lot of reconciliation to determine whether or not we got our money’s worth,” says Monk. “When we’re considering whether or not to enter into expensive service contracts, we need to prove them to be of significant value.” Furthermore, Monk wanted a way to seamlessly translate preventive maintenance requirements to the facilities management staff.

Custom reports integrate work order details from ARCHIBUS with Johnson Controls tracking systems. This eliminates duplicate input.

With the help of TVFM, the museum integrated ARCHIBUS and Johnson Control’s Metasys system to create a reliable work order management system. Today, Johnson Controls maintenance staff update work order details directly into ARCHIBUS, which then publishes the work sheet (in Crystal Report format) that contractors must submit to Johnson Controls in order to get paid for their work. It’s a faster process for them, and it also helps build the ARCHIBUS database. “With ARCHIBUS driving the preventive maintenance process, we can cost-effectively track repair time,” says Monk. Daily work orders are rolled up into monthly reports so Monk and his staff can easily analyze maintenance tasks, set schedules, and prepare budgets. “At the end of the year, cost tracking is essential for the operation of the museum’s facilities,” he says. “As we continue to develop our implementation, our facilities management tools will become as critical as the boiler room at this facility.”