Michael Bigelow of Seattle Children's Hospital tackles the universal issue of elevator unreliability in healthcare, where poor service is not just frustrating but expensive—costing over $2,200 per car per month for minimum compliance. The core problem is that traditional contracts incentivize vendors to rush emergency repairs, leading to early failure and repeat callbacks (the "Tower of Terror" model).
This session outlines a strategic shift from vendor-driven dependency to metric-driven partnership:
Contractual Revolution: Mike details the successful implementation of a performance-based contract that aligns incentives by tying vendor fees directly to asset performance metrics, primarily Mean Time Between Failures (MTBF), and adding penalties for excessive callbacks.
The Results: This approach immediately yielded cost reductions and a dramatic increase in performance. For the hospital's worst-performing elevator bank, MTBF jumped from 9-13 days to 33-116 days between unplanned interruptions (a 3X improvement).
Root Cause Focus: The contract incentivized the vendor to group maintenance activities (reactive, predictive, and planned) together when a car was down, ensuring root causes (e.g., electronic controller faults, heat issues, dirty power) were addressed, preventing repeat visits.
The Dedicated Mechanic: The new contract allowed the hospital to secure a dedicated route mechanic who gained deep system familiarity, proactively ordering long-lead-time spares and correctly torquing critical components (like brake relays) that are often missed.
Culture Shift: Mike details the culture shift required to empower mechanics to ignore the pressure to "get it back online as fast as possible" and instead take time for critical Root Cause Analysis (RCA) after an entrapment.
The ultimate success is the transition from fragile, faulty, and frustrating service to a system that is resilient, predictable, and managed.