Overcoming common maintenance obstacles through better planning and scheduling
Proactive maintenance organizations consider maintenance planning and scheduling the central hub to drive consistent plant performance. Yet, most organizations struggle to get it right.
In my last column, I wrote about a planned gearbox replacement with kitted parts scheduled for a weekend. When the planner left on the Friday before the work was to occur, little did he know how things would transpire.
Perform work execution audits
The planner returned to discover that the technicians replaced a different gearbox than the work order instructed, and in the process they damaged the working gearbox. Now, they had two gearboxes at the point of failure, which shut the plant down for an extended period.
Could identifying roles and responsibilities have helped the plant address the issue of the wrong gearbox change? While there could be many reasons for the misstep, pulling three completed work orders and walking them down with the planner, supervisor, storeroom clerk, and technicians, at a minimum, can highlight issues in the business processes and workflows.
In that audit, each individual should be queried to identify opportunities for improvement, as well as help identify if there is conflict or distrust between the various roles. Were the right child asset and work scope identified in the work order? Were the materials kitted and staged? Did operations have the equipment clean and ready for work when agreed? Did the technicians correctly identify the failure codes and provide feedback to the planner to improve the reusable job plan? You can learn more about audits here.
Develop partnerships
In some organizations, adversarial relationships exist between planning and the trades. At some sites, expectations have been set where the technicians believe (incorrectly) that the planner will provide a perfect and technically complete job plan. When they don’t get that, conflict can occur.
However, the planner's role is to give a head start on the job by providing a minimum of the trades required, estimated hours, and necessary materials. This proactive approach, coupled with a feedback loop from the technicians, allows the plan to be improved over time. Each execution enables a more comprehensive job plan, and the technicians' input is crucial.
Consider that a trade-skilled planner cannot be an expert in every job he or she may plan. When spending one-third of the day in the field walking down jobs, the planner should interface and partner with the technicians when developing the job plan. Both groups buy into what they help create, which builds trust and rapport. The workflow processes and RACI (responsibility, accountability, consultation, and information) matrix should clearly define the roles and responsibilities for each involved work execution function. The audit process helps to reinforce expectations continually.
When visiting sites, I commonly find that the total labor hours on the weekly schedule fall significantly short of the actual available hours to do planned work. This causes me to dig deeper to understand why.
Build and manage the work backlog
Ideally, schedule 100% of the available labor hours. However, when starting planning and scheduling (yes, some organizations are just beginning the planning and scheduling function), it may be more advantageous to consider the level of reactivity in determining the number of hours to schedule. If 40% reactive, schedule a challenging 70% of the available hours. On hitting 85-90% schedule compliance for a few weeks, schedule 80%, and so on.
Target two to four crew weeks of ready-to-schedule (RTS) backlog and four to six weeks of total backlog. Some plants use the maintenance management system as a placeholder for all work, even envisioned future capital project wants. Those plants will often restrict the backlog reporting to the latest six months to differentiate the necessary work for maintenance. I have previously written that backlog should not have birthdays. That said, it is essential to constantly tend to the backlog, such as in a garden, pruning and prioritizing the work. The RTS backlog is prioritized and pulled to build the weekly schedule.
Implement the 20-minute rule and improve PM optimization
Digging deeper, I find that some sites don’t have a backlog, yet they constantly fight reactive failures. In my experience, I often find some common causes for these shortfalls.
When doing an on-condition inspection task, the technician decides to make the corrective repair now, regardless of the potential failure point on the P-F curve. If the repair can wait until the next maintenance window, sending the work to be planned and scheduled enables a more proactive approach. It feeds the backlog. I write more about the 20-minute rule and P-F Curve in this article. With a 70% self-induced failure rate, not having a corrective job plan with specifications often creates unplanned future failures.
Not raising notifications when performing PMs and incurring failures also is a clear indicator that PM optimization is needed. Often, 40-60% of the existing PM tasks don’t address the likely failure modes and, therefore, are non-value-added. In addition, the PM tasks need to identify the potential for failure, not the failure. We have had tremendous success teaching maintenance technicians a process to identify the likely failure modes and optimize the PM/PdM programs.
