An essential part of any snow-removal plan is an accurate review of equipment inventory with an estimate of usable life remaining, according to an article from Facilities Maintenance Decisions on the FacilitiesNet website.

This step helps managers identify capital-equipment needs with enough time to get the needed approvals, but they need to make sure the inventory lists attachments as a sub-item of the main piece of equipment. Doing so allows the manager to make separate quality assessments while acknowledging attachments are only useful for the main piece of equipment.

Preparations for snow- and ice-management should also include training and orientation for equipment operators and mechanics that ranges from refreshers for experienced team members to full training and tours of the property for new members of the operation.

If routes, zones and equipment have not changed from the year before, managers still need to make sure that team members go through refresher training that includes driving the entire area to be cleared.

Training allows operators to mark key areas that are visible under snow cover, and it provides ample opportunity to document areas of pavement deterioration that they need to handle differently.

Read the full Facilities Maintenance Decisions article.