Maintenance Planning is too Hard

“Maintenance planning is too hard in my workplace.” I have heard this stated hundreds of times, and in some ways I agree with it. If maintenance planning was easy, everyone would be World Class and wrench time would be above 55% in all organizations. However, less than 2% of companies can honestly say they are World Class – that’s a small club, wouldn’t you say?

Let’s begin with a few questions so you can measure the effectiveness of your current maintenance planning function.

1. Do you know the current state of your Maintenance Planning and Scheduling?
2. Do you measure Mean Time Between Failures (MTBF) of your critical assets?
3. Is Maintenance Rework measured and managed?

DEFINITION OF MAINTENANCE REWORK:

This metric is corrective work done on previously maintained equipment that has prematurely failed due to maintenance, operations or material problems. The typical causes of rework are maintenance, operational or material quality issues.

OBJECTIVES

This metric is used to identify and measure work that is the result of premature failures caused by errors in maintenance or operation (e.g., start-up) of the equipment or material quality issues. Measuring rework and its root causes enables plant management to develop and implement effective strategies designed to minimize or eliminate these errors. Typical strategies include: maintenance training, operations training, defective parts elimination, maintenance work procedures development or revision, operating procedures development or revision and improved purchasing and/or warehouse practices.

FORMULA

Rework (%) =[Corrective Work Identified as Rework (hours) / Total Maintenance Labor Hours] × 100

3. Do you have a maintenance planner?

4. Does your planner get involved in emergency or urgent work?

5. Does your planner have repeatable and effective work procedures for all critical or repeatable work?

Note: Repeatable and Effective Work Procedures have, at a minimum: Step by step repeatable instructions to ensure everyone conducts Preventive, Corrective, and Lubrication maintenance following the same process and procedures; parts are kitted or staged before the job is scheduled; coordination was defined in the work package; and Specifications and Standards are defined.

6. Are the parts kitted or staged before the work can be moved to “Ready to Schedule” status?

7. Is the backlog estimated in labor hours?

8. Is the backlog broken down into categories by:

• labor hours
• such as waiting on parts
• waiting on approval
• Ready to Schedule

There are other possible categories, but these examples should be enough to help you understand the concept.

Note: 2-4 weeks calculated in labor hours is a typical ready backlog of a World Class Organization.

Ready Backlog Definition: This metric is the quantity of work that has been fully prepared for execution but has not yet been executed. It is work for which all planning has been done and materials procured but is waiting to be scheduled for execution.

OBJECTIVES of Ready Backlog: This metric measures the quantity of work yet to be performed to ensure labor resources are balanced with the available work.

FORMULA for Ready Backlog

• Ready Backlog = Ready Work / Crew Capacity

COMPONENT DEFINITIONS

Crew Capacity =The portion of the weekly maintenance labor complement that is available to work on backlog jobs. It is the sum of the straight time hours per week for each individual in the crew, plus scheduled overtime, less indirect commitments (e.g., training, meetings, vacations, etc.).

Ready Work

Work that has been prepared for execution (e.g., necessary planning has been done, materials procured, and labor requirements have been estimated).

Example: 10 maintenance technicians x 40 hours/week = 400 labor hours. This is one week of backlog.

Moving Forward

How did you score on the questions above? The answers to these questions will help an organization identify the start of the path towards World Class Planning/Scheduling?

Why should you be motivated to move to World Class Planning/Scheduling?

1. It reduces stress, cost, and increases wrench-time.

There is no rushing around to help everyone and save the day almost every day. Wow, what a relaxing job… and it is when accomplished correctly.

The most serious issue one will face when developing a maintenance planning strategy is changing the culture of maintenance technicians, maintenance supervisors, maintenance management, production, engineering, etc. If you try to improve planning, you must address the culture first or you will never succeed. This is done through education of what true planning really is.

Let’s take a look at what Albert Einstein had to say about change:

“The significant problems we face cannot be solved at the same level of thinking we were at when we created them.”

The bottom line is that everyone must understand the value of maintenance planning and agree with the process. Like a wise maintenance manager at a World Class facility told me,

“this isn’t about commitment, it is all about compliance.”

Why Is Maintenance Planning Sometimes Not Effective?

Most people, when not motivated or not led by a true leader, begin to stray like lost sheep. Leadership is the first place to begin the education of true maintenance planning and also the rest of a proactive process. All the pieces need to fit together in order to achieve success.

Let’s look at the results of proactive maintenance planning:

There are many measurements that should be taken and used to evaluate a maintenance planning strategy. If they do not synchronize with your overall maintenance process, you will not see the results you expect. Other measurements are an output of Maintenance Planning effectiveness or can cause maintenance planning to fail.

Listed below are some leading indicators for verifying maintenance planning effectiveness:

1. 100% PM Compliance using the 10% Rule on critical assets
2. Emergency labor hours are trending down, and percent of Schedule Compliance is trending up.
3. Maintenance Cost is trending down.
4. Vendor Efficiency is above 99%

Note: Vendor Efficiency is calculated as the percent of time parts are delivered on time x the percent of time parts are ordered the same day x the percent of the time the right part and correct amount of parts are delivered.

1. Stores Efficiency is above 98 %
2. Stores Stock Outs are less than 2%
3. Most of the jobs that are planned come from Potential Failures

Note: A Potential Failure is an identifiable physical condition that indicates a functional failure is imminent and is usually identified by a maintenance technician using Predictive or quantitative Preventive Maintenance.

If you like to optimize your Maintenance Planning and Scheduling join me for this "Maintenance Planning and Scheduling Best Practices Virtual Workshop via Zoom". See the information below.