The Bureau of Building Repair provides two types of services to City departments:

The Bureau of Building Repair also receives General Fund facilities maintenance funds, in the amount of $425,000 for FY 2006-2007, to provide crafts for maintenance and repair of the 2323 Cesar Chavez Street Maintenance Yard and associated locations.

Appropriated funding for the Bureau of Building Repair increased by $2,293,488, from $29,980,940 in FY 2005-2006 to $32,274,428 in FY 2006-2007, as shown below.

Table 11.1
Bureau of Building Repair Expenditure Appropriations

FY 2005-2006 and FY 2006-2007

Source: Department of Public Works Office of Financial Management and Administration

Although the FY 2006-07 Annual Salary Ordinance authorizes the Bureau of Building Repair 276.62 full time equivalent positions, the Bureau has only 265.33 funded positions in FY 2006-07 because of 11.29 full time equivalent positions in attrition savings. As of August 31, 2006, 217 of the 266 authorized permanent positions were filled.

Exhibit 11.1
Bureau of Building Repair Organizational Chart

Though not reflected in the FY 2006-2007 Annual Salary Ordinance, the Cement Mason Shop with its 30 authorized positions was recently transferred from the Bureau of Building Repair to the Bureau of Urban Forestry because the preponderance of the work currently performed is in support of tree planting and other work performed by the Bureau of Urban Forestry.

Mission, Performance Measures, Standards, and Objectives

An organization's mission statement defines its purpose. Performance measures are selected input, output, outcome, or efficiency (input – output ratios) measures that provide an indication of how well an organization is performing. Standards are authoritative, recognized examples of correctness, perfection, quantity, or some definite degree of quality. An objective is a benefit to be achieved. A primary task of a manager is to convert the organization's mission statement into operational specifics. Managers make mission statements operational by developing performance measures, standards, and objectives.

The Bureau of Building Repair's Mission Statement

The stated mission of the Bureau of Building Repair is as follows:

Ideally, a mission statement describes the "nature and scope of the work to be performed – in effect describes the organization's or unit's reason for existence." To be effective, the mission statement should be simple, clear, and reflect three attributes: opportunities; competence; and commitment.

The mission statement quoted above should be modified to better emphasize the cost and quality expectations of the services provided to its clients, as follows:

Performance Measures and Objectives

The Building Repair, Remodeling, and Construction Division's Performance Measures

A generally accepted management principle requires that management establish standards of performance, periodically measure that performance, and take corrective action when necessary. The Bureau's Building Repair, Remodeling, and Construction Division lacks measures of its service and performance.

Because of the variability in building repair projects and the work of the trade shops, standard measures of work product are difficult. However, the Building Repair, Remodeling, and Construction Division could construct performance measures, such as (1) the percentage of jobs completed on or before the scheduled completion date, (2) ratio of estimated labor usage to actual labor expenditure, and (3) ratio of "wrench time" to charged time.

The Bureau of Building Repair's Measurement of Customer Satisfaction

An objective is a benefit to be achieved. The objective statement should relate directly to the manager's mission and to higher-level missions and objectives. Further, it should be understandable by those who will be contributing to its attainment and it should be attainable, but represent a significant challenge.

The Bureau of Building Repair did not achieve its FY 2005-2006 objectives. The important objective of increasing the Bureau of Building Repair's responsiveness to its customers and to develop a plan that describes how that will happen, which requires reviewing the Bureau's business practices, was not achieved.

As contained in the FY 2005-2006 Efficiency Plan of the Department of Public Works, the goal and measure for the Bureau of Building Repair are as follows:

Measure: Percentage of customers "satisfied" or "very satisfied" with service

Although the Bureau of Building Repair's performance measure is based on customer satisfaction, the Bureau of Building Repair has not received full-year feedback from its customers on their perception of the Bureau's performance for at least two years. The Budget Analyst requested a copy of the customer survey results for FY 2004-2005 and FY 2005-2006 and was informed that "Surveys for the requested periods were not completed. Survey revisions were recently finished, and the survey for 05/06 was sent out in July."

Further, the Bureau of Building Repair's customer survey contains eight questions that are too general and do not indicate what corrective action would be appropriate if a problem is indicated. For example, four of the eight questions are:

As noted below, the Budget Analyst developed and distributed a customer survey with questions that more specifically identified components of the Bureau's services to its customers, providing more precise information that the Bureau can use to plan service. The Bureau of Building Repair needs to revise its existing customer survey to reflect the Bureau's activities more precisely and distribute and tabulate the survey annually as part of its stated goals and performance measures.

The Budget Analyst's Survey of the Bureau of Building Repair's Customers

In order to obtain an indication of the level of satisfaction Bureau of Building Repair's clients are receiving, the Budget Analyst developed a customer questionnaire, which we disseminated to twelve of the Bureau of Building Repair's largest customers. We received eleven responses. The 35 questions comprising the questionnaire were grouped under the following categories:

Table 11.2
Summary of the Budget Analyst's Customer Satisfaction Survey Results

Source: Budget Analyst Survey Results

The Bureau of Building Repair's Customer Satisfaction

As shown in Table 11.2, ten of the eleven customer satisfaction survey respondents rated the Bureau of Building Repair's service as at least satisfactory.

Pertinent remarks accompanying some of the overall ratings are as follows:

Additional comments solicited on the questionnaire for the purpose of providing the Bureau of Building Repair with helpful feedback are as follows:

The Bureau of Building Repair needs to work with its customers to identify major service deficiencies and develop a plan to address the service areas of greatest concern. The overall ranking of satisfactory by one respondent was accompanied by comments that were more appropriate of a marginal rating, yet the respondent reiterated the satisfactory rating. The overall ratings reflect the conditions indicated in the individual questionnaire categories – the lack of consistent outstanding and excellent provision of services.

Relevant remarks on responses to other questionnaire categories follow:

Requests for Service

This category, which contains four questions, is informational in nature rather than evaluative. As discussed in Section 12 of this report, the Bureau of Building Repair does not have a Computer Maintenance Management System (CMMS) whereby the steps in processing a work order – generating the request, acknowledging receipt, requesting and providing additional information, approval, and status updates - are performed electronically. The Bureau of Building Repair's clients transmit this information by telephone, facsimile, electronic mail, and for departments having a Bureau of Building Repair resident stationary engineer, in person, in a variety of formats.

Every department for whom the Bureau of Building Repair performs work is assigned a minimum of one "job order" by Department of Public Works Accounting Division in order to collect costs in the City's Finance and Accounting Management Information System (FAMIS). The Bureau of Building Repair issues a "tag," which is an authorization to perform work. In response to the question "Do you receive job/tag numbers for maintenance requests?" we received a variety of responses, ranging from "always," to "seldom," to "yes, but not until billing phase." The lack of consistently providing information to departments is an indicator of the need for better customer relations.

Response Times to Repair Requests

Based on the answers received, the Bureau of Building Repair is much more responsive to some departments than to others. One department stated that the average response time was less than four hours; however, three departments reported average response time of between one and two days, and three departments reported response times of greater than two days.

Estimates

Although there is an element of inconsistency indicated in the responses, overall most departments view the Bureau of Building Repair's estimating services as being adequately performed. Most responses stated that the estimates are performed within one week. One response cited within one month, and one stated that a number of months are required to obtain an estimate.

Billing – Invoicing

The ratings and comments in this category primarily concern the timeliness and completeness of billing information provided. Some departments report that they seldom or never are notified when work commences on a job. A lesser number stated that they are seldom informed when a job is completed. Most departments reported that they do not receive invoicing. All departments responded that some form of invoicing is desirable.

Work Performance

The individual shops generally received high marks for their workmanship. The carpenter shop received the highest number of outstanding ratings, four, and the paint shop received the second highest number of such ratings, three. Since not all departments use all of the individual shops, some shops received a greater number of ratings than others. On the basis of the highest proportion of outstanding and excellent ratings received as a percentage of the total number of ratings, the paint shop was highest at 85.7 percent.

Concerning how often a supervisor inspects work on a job, most departments reported always or frequently. The same was reported concerning how often a prompt solution is implemented when issues arise about work being performed. As to whether the Bureau of Building Repair performs corrective work at its own expense, most departments were not sure.

The Bureau of Building Repair needs to identify specific weaknesses in providing customer services through routine customer surveys, as noted above, and develop a plan of action to improve the quality and consistency of service. The Bureau of Building Repair especially needs to assess its procedures for providing customers work order and billing information and responding to service requests in a timely and consistent manner.

Bureau of Building Repair Business Processes

The Bureau of Building Repair does not have a computerized maintenance management system for receiving and approving work requests, setting work priorities, assigning work to shops, planning and scheduling work, monitoring progress, closing work orders, and developing management reports. The Bureau of Building Repair does have a computerized system called the Work Order Tracking System that is used for authorizing work and collecting costs. The various other systems used by the Bureau of Building Repair to facilitate the processes enumerated above are primarily paper-driven. Given the importance of the work that the Bureau of Building Repair performs, the situation is entirely unsatisfactory.

Receiving and Approving Work Requests

The Bureau of Building Repair does not have a standard format for receiving departments' work requests. Departments submit work requests in a variety of methods: electronic mail, facsimile, telephone, and in person. At least one department has developed its own work request form.

Because work order requests require essential elements of information, the Bureau of Building Repair needs to develop a standard format. Of seven maintenance and repair organizations that the Budget Analyst has audited in the past 38 months, the Bureau of Building Repair is the only department that cannot receive work orders through a computerized system.

Attachment I to this section is a two-page example of how a Bureau of Building Repair planner accepted a work request for roll up door covers from the Water Pollution Control Division of the Public Utilities Commission. Attachment II shows the "tag" that is generated by the Work Order Tracking System that authorizes work to be performed and material to be ordered. In the case of this example, the "tag' was generated on the same day as receipt of the work request. However, tags are sometimes generated subsequent to the date of work request receipt, and if the "source document" (Attachment I) is not placed in the file, which appears to be the case frequently, then the actual date of the request is not captured.

Attachment III is an example of a work request generated by a shop supervisor. The work request in this case is a "Shop Tag Request Form" that is submitted to the appropriate planner as a request to generate a tag so that work may be performed.

Work Order Planning and Scheduling

The Bureau's Building Repair, Remodeling, and Construction Division does not have sufficient maintenance planning and scheduling. Consequently, productivity of the journeymen workforce is significantly less than it would be were adequate planning and scheduling processes employed, resulting in unnecessary down time or travel time.

Planning and scheduling work orders assigns the proper amount of work to crews and enables control for managing productivity. Work order planning entails specifying the job scope, craft and skill level, a time estimate, as well as specifying anticipated parts and tools needed for the job. Work order planners should be highly skilled and conscientious journeymen, and the planner or planning unit should report to the bureau manager rather than a trade supervisor who is directly responsible for overseeing the maintenance and repair work that journeymen perform. The output of the planner or planning unit is a set of work orders that cumulatively require the hours available for journeymen to perform maintenance and repair work. Normally, planners perform a week's worth of planning for each selected trade.

In contrast to the centralized planning system described, the Bureau of Building Repair's planning and scheduling is performed by the shop supervisors. Thus, the control and standardization of centralized planning is forfeited. The Bureau of Building Repair has three assigned planners whose primary task is customer relations, including responding to the emergency, repair, maintenance, and estimating needs of customers. The Bureau of Building Repair planners are only peripherally involved in planning work – that is, specifying the job scope, craft and skill level, a time estimate, as well as specifying anticipated parts and tools needed for the job – that is the essence of what a "planning" shop should perform. Since the Building Repair, Remodeling, and Construction Superintendent does not have a means of knowing how much work is planned, he does not have a basis for measuring planned work against work that is accomplished.

The Bureau of Building Repair needs to look at its overall business practices, including maintenance planning and scheduling. Other City departments, such at the Public Utilities Commission's Water Pollution Control Division have effective maintenance planning procedures. The Bureau of Building Repair should assess its current maintenance planning functions and staffing to identify opportunities to perform these functions more efficiently, and evaluate the cost-effectiveness of substituting vacant Supervisor I positions for maintenance planning positions.

Management Reporting

Another important function of maintenance and repair operations is management reporting. The computerized maintenance management systems that we have observed offer a wide variety of management reporting capabilities. The Bureau of Building Repair should require reports for managing its internal operations and also for providing visibility to their clients on work orders and projects.

Management reporting is one of the weakest aspects of the Bureau of Building Repair's current method of operating. The following list of Budget Analyst inquiries and Bureau of Building Repair responses illustrates the shortcomings of the Bureau's management reporting capabilities:

a. Total number of work orders completed.

Response: The total number of work orders completed in 05/06 can not be accurately calculated at this time due to carry forward reviews still ongoing. It is my understanding that these quantities can be requested through OFFMA (Office of Financial Management and Administration) after all carry forward activities are complete. [Answer provided on September 25, 2006. There was no response to the number of work orders completed in FY 2004-2005.]

b. Total Estimated Hours for work orders completed.

Response: The Work Order Tracking System (WOTS) does not track total estimated hours.

c. Total hours allocated to each category of maintenance. (For example, preventive maintenance, emergency maintenance, etc.)

Response: WOTS does not track categories of maintenance.

d. Number and value of change orders.

Response: WOTS does not track totals of change orders.

The existing Work Order Tracking System is outdated and does not allow for accurate, comprehensive reports to track labor and non-labor expenditures; does not produce accurate project or maintenance activity reports; and fails to provide scheduling or accurate charge reports to clients. As discussed in Section 12 of this report, the Bureau of Building Repair and the Office of Financial Management and Administration are trying to address the Bureau's job order management and control issues.

The Bureau of Building Repair should review how it manages its work, identifying and addressing needed process improvements. Specifically, the Bureau needs to assess its work order request processes and management reporting capabilities and develop procedures to improve these processes.

Operational Policies and Procedures Manual

The Bureau of Building Repair does not have an operational policies and procedures manual. In a January of 1995 directive to the Department's Deputy Directors, Bureau Managers, and Office of Financial Management and Administration Division Managers, the Director of Public Works established a policy for preparing, updating, distributing, and maintaining Department of Public Work's policies and procedures. The directive established the methods and standards for developing and maintaining both administrative and operational policies and procedures. The directive specifies that administrative policies and procedures, which have department-wide applicability, are the responsibility of the Director, the Manager of Environmental Health and Safety, and the four Office of Financial Management and Administration Division Managers, and would cover topics such as Department of Public Works correspondence, Safety Program, personnel requisitions, annual budget instructions, and the records retention plan.

The policies and procedures directive assigns responsibility for developing operational policies and procedures to bureau managers and provides examples of typical topics, three of which are shown below:

8.01 Design Phase Flow Chart

8.02 Utility Coordination

8.03 Design Review Process

Policies and procedures serve multiple functions, including the following:

The Bureau of Building Repair needs to develop its operational policies and procedures manual to ensure not only that the Bureau's procedures are carried out uniformly and efficiently, but also to provide information and continuity as senior employees retire and are replaced by new employees who lack the institutional knowledge of the retiring employees.

Concerns of Shop Supervisors

The Budget Analyst interviewed all of the shop Supervisor II position incumbents, permanent and acting, and certain Supervisor I position incumbents, in order to determine their concerns, assessments of current operations, and ideas for improvements. The interviews took place in the trade shops, travel to and from job sites, and at job sites. Pertinent comments on those interviews are as follows:

The policy change or intervention recommendations of the supervisors should be considered during the Bureau of Building Repair's review of how it manages its work.

Obtaining Permits and Performing Work

Section 106.2 of the San Francisco Building Code, Work Exempt from Permit, and relevant sections of the San Francisco Plumbing Code and Electrical Code specify those construction activities that may be undertaken without first obtaining a permit. Concerning the San Francisco Building Code, exempted activities pertain to nonstructural work such as fences not over six feet high and painting, papering, and similar finish work. Work performed on structures owned and occupied by the Federal or State Government is also exempt from San Francisco Code requirements.

In general, City departments with building trade capabilities, such as the Department of Public Works, are required to comply with all provisions of the City's construction codes, including those mandating permits and inspections. In order to determine whether the Bureau of Building Repair is obtaining permits for required work as set forth in the Building, Electrical, and Plumbing Codes, the Budget Analyst obtained a listing of the projects that the Bureau completed under its Facilities Maintenance Job Order and also a listing of the larger projects that the Bureau of Building Repair completed during FY 2005-2006, for testing.

Table 11.3 below lists the projects that were completed under the Facilities Maintenance Job Order. According to the Department of Building Inspection, these projects would require a building, electrical or plumbing permit. As shown in Table 11.3, none of the appropriate permits were obtained by the Bureau of Building Repair, and thus none of the required building, electrical, or plumbing inspections by the Department of Building Inspection were performed.

Table 11.3
Bureau of Building Repair Compliance with Code Requirements

Source: Bureau of Building Repair

The Assistant Superintendent, Building Repair, Remodeling, and Construction, has stated that in past practice a permit has not been required for the type work shown in Table 11.3. However, the construction codes are unequivocal in the requirement: unless exempted, a permit and inspections are required. Without a change to the construction codes, Bureau of Building Repair should obtain the required permits and undergo the required inspections.

In the instances that obtaining a building, electrical, or plumbing permit would delay required emergency work, the Bureau of Building Repair can obtain permits and required inspections where appropriate after the performed work is completed, according to a Department of Building Inspection manager.

The Director of Public Works should ensure that the Bureau of Building Repair obtains necessary permits as any professional contractor is so required to obtain, for the health and safety of the public and for the City workers who use the buildings and facilities. The Department of Public Works should work with the Department of Building Inspection to implement a permit processing priority system so as not to unduly hamper the work of the Bureau of Building Repair.

Sunnydale Basketball Court Project Funding

The Department of Public Works has spent funds that were appropriated for the Department's facilities maintenance projects on projects for other agencies, without Board of Supervisors' approval or the Controller's authorization. The Board of Supervisors appropriated $600,000 in the FY 2004-2005 for maintenance and repair of the 2323 Cesar Chavez Street Maintenance Yard and other buildings and facilities for which the Department of Public Works is directly responsible.

The Bureau of Building Repair spent $336,685 of the $600,000 appropriation on a San Francisco Housing Authority project called the Sunnydale Basketball Court Project, and approximately $133,182 in charges to other job orders, for a total of $469,867 in FY 2004-2005. The five additional job order numbers and the specified client and uses are as follows:

The Department received $119,403 from the San Francisco Housing Authority and $237,768 from the Mayor's Office of Community Development to reimburse for the costs of the Sunnydale Basketball Court Project. Remaining funding was provided by the Bureau of Architecture's capital and facility planning appropriation and other Department sources. According to the Controller's Office, the Department should have obtained the Controller's approval at a minimum prior to expending the facilities management appropriation on other uses.

Conclusions

The Bureau of Building Repair needs to strengthen its management of performance and tighten its management controls. The Bureau does not consistently establish standards of performance, periodically measure that performance, and take corrective action as necessary. The Bureau's Building Repair, Remodeling, and Construction Division lacks performance measures. The Bureau of Building Repair has not completed a full-year customer satisfaction survey for two years, although the measure of its performance goal – "provide high quality and cost-efficient repair, maintenance, and cleaning of City buildings' – is the percentage of customers "satisfied" or "very satisfied" with service.

A survey of the Bureau of Building Repair's customers, conducted by the Budget Analyst, showed overall satisfaction with the Bureau's service but identified specific areas of weakness, including insufficient work order and billing information provided to customers, and inconsistent response times to repair requests. The Bureau of Building Repair needs to routinely conduct its own surveys, including developing survey questions that reflect the Bureau's activities and components of customer service, in order to identify components of customer service that need improvement and develop specific procedures to improve these components.

The Bureau of Building Repair also needs to look at its business processes, one of its stated objectives, to assess process inefficiencies. For example, the Bureau of Building Repair has no standard format for receiving service requests from other City departments. The Bureau also needs to develop better procedures for management reporting and evaluating and acting on information provided in management reports.

Recommendations

The Director of Public Works should:

The Bureau of Building Repair Manager should:

Costs and Benefits

The Bureau of Building Repair could incur potentially significant costs in re-engineering its work processes and obtaining a computerized maintenance management system to support those processes. The Department needs to incorporate an evaluation of the Bureau's business processes as part of its current initiative to address the Bureau's job order management and control issues, discussed in Section 12 of this report.

The Bureau of Building Repair can minimize its costs to re-engineer it's business processes by applying lessons learned from other City departments. The Bureau can develop an operational policies and procedures manual in-house, within existing resources. The costs of obtaining required permits would be borne by interdepartmental work orders and possibly by a small increase to the facilities maintenance budget. The benefits of the proposed recommendations would include improved repair, remodeling, and construction services to City departments, a better trained and more cohesive workforce, compliance with City building, electrical, and plumbing codes, which are designed to protect the health and welfare of the citizens of San Francisco and its workforce, and adherence to the appropriation intent of the Board of Supervisors.