What is response and resolution times?
Response time is how quickly work begins after a request; resolution time is how quickly it is completed. They are the measures most FM contracts are judged on.
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<img src="https://facilityoptix.co.uk/glossary/sla-response/diagram.svg" alt="response and resolution times — diagram from FacilityOptix" width="880" height="620" loading="lazy">
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<a href="https://facilityoptix.co.uk/glossary/sla-response">What is response and resolution times?</a> — diagram by
<a href="https://facilityoptix.co.uk">FacilityOptix</a>
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</figure>Measuring response at attendance rather than at resolution flatters the figures and hides the problem. A job attended in an hour and completed in three weeks meets one measure and fails the building.
Priorities have to be defined and applied consistently, because a caller's sense of urgency and the actual priority are different things and the gap between them is where disputes start.
Parts availability is the usual cause of long resolutions, which means it is a stock and procurement problem presenting as a maintenance one.
In practice
A supplier reporting ninety-eight per cent performance to an unhappy client.
Response is met consistently. Resolution is not measured, and the occupant's experience is of an engineer arriving quickly and the problem persisting for weeks.
Response and resolution measure different things, and contracts that only measure the first optimise for attendance.
The targets themselves come from the contract, which is where they should be read.
What goes wrong in practice
- Response measured to attendance only.
- Priority assigned by whoever logs the call.
- Jobs held open on parts with no visibility of how many or for how long.