maintenance planning and scheduling - mechanical...

MaintenancePlanning and

SchedulingHandbook

http://dx.doi.org/10.1036/0071457666

This page intentionally left blank


SchedulingHandbook

Doc Palmer

Second Edition

McGraw-HillNew York Chicago San Francisco Lisbon London Madrid

Mexico City Milan New Delhi San Juan SeoulSingapore Sydney Toronto

http://dx.doi.org/10.1036/0071457666

Copyright 2006 by Richard D. Palmer. All rights reserved. Manufactured in the United States ofAmerica. Except as permitted under the United States Copyright Act of 1976, no part of this publica-tion may be reproduced or distributed in any form or by any means, or stored in a database or retrievalsystem, without the prior written permission of the publisher.

0-07-150155-X

The material in this eBook also appears in the print version of this title: 0-07-145766-6.

All trademarks are trademarks of their respective owners. Rather than put a trademark symbol afterevery occurrence of a trademarked name, we use names in an editorial fashion only, and to the bene-fit of the trademark owner, with no intention of infringement of the trademark. Where such designa-tions appear in this book, they have been printed with initial caps.

McGraw-Hill eBooks are available at special quantity discounts to use as premiums and sales promo-tions, or for use incorporate training programs. For more information, please contact George Hoare,Special Sales, at [email protected] or (212) 904-4069.

TERMS OF USE

This is a copyrighted work and The McGraw-Hill Companies, Inc. (McGraw-Hill) and its licensorsreserve all rights in and to the work. Use of this work is subject to these terms. Except as permittedunder the Copyright Act of 1976 and the right to store and retrieve one copy of the work, you may notdecompile, disassemble, reverse engineer, reproduce, modify, create derivative works based upon,transmit, distribute, disseminate, sell, publish or sublicense the work or any part of it withoutMcGraw-Hills prior consent. You may use the work for your own noncommercial and personal use;any other use of the work is strictly prohibited. Your right to use the work may be terminated if youfail to comply with these terms.

THE WORK IS PROVIDED AS IS. McGRAW-HILL AND ITS LICENSORS MAKE NO GUAR-ANTEES OR WARRANTIES AS TO THE ACCURACY, ADEQUACY OR COMPLETENESS OFOR RESULTS TO BE OBTAINED FROM USING THE WORK, INCLUDING ANY INFORMA-TION THAT CAN BE ACCESSED THROUGH THE WORK VIA HYPERLINK OR OTHERWISE, AND EXPRESSLY DISCLAIM ANY WARRANTY, EXPRESS OR IMPLIED,INCLUDING BUT NOT LIMITED TO IMPLIED WARRANTIES OF MERCHANTABILITY ORFITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE. McGraw-Hill and its licensors do not warrant or guarantee that the functions contained in the work will meet your requirements or that its operationwill be uninterrupted or error free. Neither McGraw-Hill nor its licensors shall be liable to you or any-one else for any inaccuracy, error or omission, regardless of cause, in the work or for any damages resulting therefrom. McGraw-Hill has no responsibility for the content of any information accessedthrough the work. Under no circumstances shall McGraw-Hill and/or its licensors be liable for anyindirect, incidental, special, punitive, consequential or similar damages that result from the use of orinability to use the work, even if any of them has been advised of the possibility of such damages. This limitation of liability shall apply to any claim or cause whatsoever whether such claim or cause arises in contract, tort or otherwise.

DOI: 10.1036/0071457666

http://dx.doi.org/10.1036/0071457666

We hope you enjoy thisMcGraw-Hill eBook! If

youd like more information about this book,its author, or related books and websites,please click here.

Professional

Want to learn more?

http://dx.doi.org/10.1036/0071457666

To Jesus and Nancy

Contents

Foreword xixPreface xxiPreface to First Edition xxiiiAcknowledgments xxixPrologue: A Day in the LifeMay 10, 2010 xxxi

Chapter 1. The Benefit of Planning 1

Company Vision 1Why Improvement Is Needed in Maintenance 3What Planning Mainly Is and What It Is Mainly Not(e.g., Parts and Tools) 4

How Much Will Planning Help? 9The practical result of planning: freed-up technicians 9World class wrench time 12The specific benefit of planning calculated 13Why does this opportunity exist? 15

Quality and Productivity Effectiveness and Efficiency 19Planning Mission 20Frustration with Planning 21Summary 22Overview of the Chapters and Appendices 22

Chapter 2. Planning Principles 27

The Planning Vision;The Mission 27Principle 1: Separate Department 29

Illustrations 32Principle 2: Focus on Future Work 33

Illustrations 39Principle 3: Component Level Files 40

Illustrations 44Caution on computerization 46

Principle 4: Estimates Based on Planner Expertise 47Illustrations 53

Principle 5: Recognize the Skill of the Crafts 55Illustrations 63

vii

For more information about this title, click here

http://dx.doi.org/10.1036/0071457666

Principle 6: Measure Performance with Work Sampling 64Illustrations 69

Summary 70

Chapter 3. Scheduling Principles 73

Why Maintenance Does Not Assign Enough Work 73Advance Scheduling Is an Allocation 77Principle 1: Plan for Lowest Required Skill Level 79

Illustrations 82Principle 2: Schedules and Job Priorities Are Important 84

Illustrations 85Principle 3: Schedule from Forecast of Highest Skills Available 88

Illustrations 91Principle 4: Schedule for Every Work Hour Available 93

Illustrations 96Principle 5: Crew Leader Handles Current Days Work 97

Illustrations 99Principle 6: Measure Performance with Schedule Compliance 100

Illustrations 102Summary 104

Chapter 4. What Makes the Difference and Pulls It All Together 107

Proactive versus Reactive Maintenance 108Extensive versus Minimum Maintenance 112Communication and Management Support 113One Plants Performance (Example of Actual Success) 115Desired Level of Effectiveness 117Summary 119

Chapter 5. Basic Planning 121

A Day in the Life of a Maintenance Planner 121Work Order System 124Planning Process 128Work Order Form 130Coding Work Orders 133Using and Making a Component Level File 137Scoping a Job 138

Troubleshooting 139Performance testing or engineering 141Illustrations 142

Engineering Assistance or Reassignment 143Developing Planned Level of Detail,Sketching and Drawing 144Attachments 147English 101 148

Craft Skill Level 149Estimating Work Hours and Job Duration 153Parts 157

viii Contents

Equipment parts list 159Purchasing 160Storeroom, reserving, and staging 162

Special Tools 165Job Safety 167

Confined space 167Material safety data sheets 167

Estimating Job Cost 168Contracting Out Work 172

Insulation 172Other contracted out work 173

Closing and Filing Feedback after Job Execution 174Summary 179

Chapter 6. Advance Scheduling 183

Weekly Scheduling 183Forecasting work hours 184Sorting work orders 191Allocating work orders 201

Formal Weekly Schedule Meeting 215Staging Parts and Tools 217

What to stage 219Where to stage 221Who should stage 224The process of staging 224

Outage Scheduling 226Planning work orders for outages 229Key concepts in scheduling for outages 229

Quotas, Benchmarks, and Standards Addressed 235Summary 238

Chapter 7. Daily Scheduling and Supervision 241

A Day in the Life of a Maintenance Supervisor 241Assigning Names 246Coordinating with the Operations Group 254Handing Out Work Orders 256During Each Day 259Summary 260

Chapter 8. Forms and Resources Overview 261

Forms 262Resources 266

Component level filesminifiles 266Equipment History Files (Including system files and minifiles) 269Technical Files 272Attachment files 273Vendor Files 274Equipment parts lists 274Standard plans 274

Contents ix

Lube oil manual 278MSDS 278Plant schematics 278Rotating or critical spares program 280

Security of Files 280Summary 281

Chapter 9. The Computer in Maintenance 283

A Day in the Life of a Maintenance Planner(Using a CMMS) 284

What Type of Computerization 290Software already in use 290Single user or larger network 291Creating versus purchasing a commercial CMMS 291

Benefits with the CMMS 292Standardizing work processes 293Inventory control 293Information for metrics and reports 294Finding work orders 295Linking information to equipment 296Common database 296Scheduling 297PM generation 297Problem diagnosis and root causeanalysis support 298

Cautions with the CMMS 298Faulty processes 298Reliability and speed 299Backup system 300Cost assignment 300Employee evaluations 300Goldfish bowl 301Unnecessary metrics 301Eliminate paper? 301Jack of all trades, master of none 302Artificial intelligence 303Templates 303User friendly 304Cost and logistics 304

Selection of a CMMS 305Team 305Process 306

Specific Planning Advice to Go Along with a CMMS 308Advanced Helpful Features for Planning and Scheduling 310Summary 311

Chapter 10. Consideration of Preventive Maintenance, PredictiveMaintenance, and Project Work 313

Preventive Maintenance and Planning 313Predictive Maintenance and Planning 319Project Work and Planning 320

x Contents

Chapter 11. Control 323

Organization Theory 101:The Restaurant Story 323Selection and Training of Planners 326Indicators 329

Planned coverage 330Proactive versus reactive 330Reactive work hours 331Work type 331Schedule forecast 332Schedule compliance 333Wrench time 335Minifiles made 336Backlog work orders 336Work orders completed 337Backlog work hours 338

Summary 338

Chapter 12. Conclusion: Start Planning 341

Epilogue: An Alternative Day in the LifeMay 10, 2010 345Bill, Mechanic at Delta Ray, Inc. 345Sue, Supervisor at Zebra, Inc. 347Juan, Welder at Alpha X, Inc. 348Jack, Planner at Johnson Industries, Inc. 349

Appendix A. Planning Is Just One Tool; What Are the OtherTools Needed? 351

Work Order System 355Equipment Data and History 360Leadership, Management, Communication,Teamwork(Incentive Programs) 362

Qualified Personnel 369Classification 371Hiring 372Training 372

Shops,Tool Rooms, and Tools 380Storeroom and Rotating Spares 382Reliability Maintenance 386

Preventive maintenance 387Predictive maintenance 390Project maintenance 393

Improved Work Processes 396Maintenance Metrics 397Summary 403

Appendix B. The People Side of Planning 405

The People Rules of Planning 406Rule 1:The planning program is not trying to give away the plant'swork to contractors 406

Contents xi

Rule 2: Planners cannot plan the perfect job 407Rule 3: Planning is not designed to take the brains out ofthe technicians 408

Rule 4:The technicians own the job after the supervisorassigns it to them 408

Rule 5: Planners cannot make the perfect time estimate 408Rule 6: Management cannot hold technicians accountable to timeestimates for single jobs 409

Rule 7: Showing what is not correct is often as important asshowing what is correct 410

Rule 8: Planners do not add value if they help jobs-in-progress 410Rule 9: Everyone is an adult 411Rule 10: Everyone should enjoy their work 412Rule 11: Everyone should go home at the end of each day knowing ifthey have won or lost 413

Rule 12: Wrench time is not strictly under the controlof the technicians 413

Rule 13: Schedule compliance is not strictly under the controlof the crew supervisors 414

Rule 14: It is better to train employees and lose them than to nottrain them and keep them 415

Rule 15: Modern maintenance needs to do less with less 416Summary 417

Appendix C. What to Buy and Where 419

Minifile Folders 419Minifile Labels 420Miscellaneous Office Supplies 420Equipment Tags 421Wire to Hang Tags on Equipment 422Deficiency Tags 423Shop Ticket Holders 423Open Shelf Files 423CMMS 424

Appendix D. Sample Forms and Work Orders 425

Appendix E. Step-by-Step Overview of Planner Duties 453

Appendix F. Step-by-Step Overviews of Others Duties 459

Maintenance Scheduler 459Maintenance Planning Clerk 460

New work orders 460After job execution 460Other duties 460

Operations Coordinator 461Maintenance Purchaser or Expediter 461Crew Supervisor 462

Before job execution 462During job execution 462

xii Contents

After job execution 462Other duties 463

Planning Supervisor 463Maintenance Manager 463Maintenance Planning Project Manager 463Maintenance Analyst 464

Appendix G. Sample Work Sampling (Wrench Time) Study:Ministudy 465

Work Sampling Study of I&C Maintenance, OctoberDecember 1993.Final Report, March 25, 1994. 465

Table of Contents 465Executive Summary 466Introduction 467Category Definitions 468

Working 468Waiting 469Other 470Unaccountable 471

Study Results 471Collection of observation data 472Analysis 473

Conclusions 480Recommendations 481Attachment A: Procedure for Measuring Work Force Productivity byWork Sampling 481

Attachment B: Work Sampling Calculations 485

Appendix H. Sample Work Sampling (Wrench Time) Study:Full-Blown Study 487

Work Sampling Study of Mechanical Maintenance, JanuaryMarch 1993.Final Report, April 29, 1993 487

Table of Contents 488Executive Summary 488Introduction 489Category Definitions 490Study Results 494

Collection of Observation Data 494Analysis 495Time 517Conclusions 553Recommendations 554Attachment A: Procedure for measuring workforce productivity bywork sampling 555

Attachment B: Work sampling calculations 557

Appendix I. Special Factors Affecting Productivity 561

Wrench Time in Exceptional Crafts and Plants 561Blanket Work Orders 562Empowering versus Scheduling 563

Definitions and details 564

Contents xiii

Empowered to do what? 565Proper empowered responsibility between planning and crew supervision 567The result of proper empowerment 568

Schedule Compliance 569Major causes 572Overloaded schedule 573Crew not making it 574Schedule breakers 575Low producing crews 579

Priority Systems 584Major causes 585Choice 587No priority system in reality 588Gaming the priority system 589

Summary 594

Appendix J. Work Order System and Codes 595

Company Work Order System Manual 595Table of Contents 595Introduction 596Work Flow 597Work Order Form and Required Fields 597CMMS Instructions for Plant-Wide Use 602Codes 602

Priority 602Status 604Department and crew 605Work type 606How found 608Plan type 609Outage 610Plant and unit 611Equipment group and system 612Equipment type 632Problem class, problem mode, problem cause, action taken 635

Work Order Numbering System 639Current numbering system 639Previous numbering systems 640Notes 640

Manual Distribution 641

Appendix K. Equipment Schematics and Tagging 643

Equipment Tag Numbers 644Equipment Tag Creation and Placement 648Summary 650

Appendix L. Computerized Maintenance Management Systems 651

Planning Principles versus Using a CMMS 651Helpful Features for Planning and Scheduling 652

User friendly 652Speed is everything 654

xiv Contents

Reliability is second 655Inventory help 655Is this a modification? Rework? Call out? 655Deficiency tag 656Outage and clearance versus status 656Priority 657How found 657Attachment or link 657Equipment module 657

Types of Projects 658Patches 658Upgrades 658Changing systems 659New systems 659

Big Glitches in Real Systems 659Death March Projects 661

What they are 661Why they happen 662Key points to survival 663

Planning a CMMS Project 664Work Request for a CMMS 665Planning for a CMMS 665

Staffing 667Scope 667Project plan 669Parts 670Special tools 671Procedure 675Estimated job cost 680

Ongoing Support 681Perspective 681Meeting to Review Screen Design 681

Appendix M. Setting Up and Supporting a Planning Group 683

Setting Up a Planning Group in a Traditional MaintenanceOrganization for the First Time 683Organization and interfaces 686Planners 688Workspace layout 694Management and control 695

Redirecting or Fine-Tuning an Existing Planning Group 696Considerations 697

Older facilities versus newer facilities 698Facilities under construction 698Centralized versus area maintenance considerations 698Traditional versus self-directed work teams 699

Aids and Barriers Overview 700Major Areas of Planning Management 703

Organizeestablish a planning group 703Planplan enough jobs for one week 706Scheduleschedule enough jobs for one week 710Executeexecute scheduled jobs and give feedback 712Ongoingkeep planning and scheduling ongoing 714

Contents xv

Key Aids and Barriers 717Management supportsponsor a P&S system 717Supervisor supportfollow a P&S system 719Technician supportfollow a P&S system 721Right plannercreate positions and select the right planners 723Planner traininghave trained planners 725Urgent breakdownsutilizing P&S in a reactive environment 727Technician interruptionsdeal with planner distractions 728Equipment tagshave tags on equipment 730Fileshave effective files 732Purchasingbuy timely nonstock parts 733Work order systemhave an effective foundation 735CMMShave a helpful computer system 736

Special Circumstances 739Improve existing planningturn around an existing group 739New plants or unitsestablish effective planning 741Self-directed teamsuse planning and scheduling 743

Summary 744

Appendix N. Example Formal Job Description for Planners 745

Maintenance Planner 745Duties 745Minimum qualifications 746

Appendix O. Example Training Tests 747

Maintenance Planning Test Number 1 747Maintenance Planning Test Number 2 749Maintenance Planning Test Number 3 751

Appendix P. Questions for Managers to Ask to ImproveMaintenance Planning 755

Appendix Q. Contracting Out Work 759

Why Contract Out Work? 760Problems with Contracting Out Work 764Alternative Forms of Contracting Out Work 767

Contracting out all of maintenance and operations 767Contracting out all of maintenance 768Contracting out all the labor within maintenance 768Contracting out lower skills 769Contracting out unusual tasks or other tasks requiringspecial expertise 769

Contracting out to supplement labor 770Increasing in-house maintenance management expertise 771

Arbitration Considerations for Contracting Out Work 771Impact on employees 773Work type and equipment 779Reasonableness and extent justified by employer 783Good faith 787

Summary 790

xvi Contents

Appendix R. Concise Text of Missions, Principles, and Guidelines 793

Maintenance Planning Mission Statement 793Maintenance Planning Principles 793Maintenance Scheduling Principles 794Guidelines for Deciding if Work is Proactive or Reactive 795Guidelines for Deciding if Work is Extensive or Minimum Maintenance 795Guidelines for Deciding Whether to Stage Parts or Tools 796Guidelines for Craft Technicians to Provide Adequate Job Feedback 797

Glossary 799Bibliography 803Index 805

Contents xvii

Foreword

We are witnessing a major change in maintenance. It is moving from anequipment repair service to a business process for increasing equipmentreliability and ensuring plant capacity. Its practitioners are trading theirreactive cost center mentality for a proactive equipment asset manage-ment philosophy.

As editor of a technical business magazine covering the maintenanceand reliability field, I have had an opportunity to track maintenanceduring its move from craft to profession. I have had the pleasure ofwriting about its leaders, the people, and organizations who are con-tinually extending the benchmark for maintenance excellence. Many arewell on their way to establishing themselves at a level where mainte-nance performance is measured not by simple efficiency, but by contri-butions to plant productivity and profitability.

One of my favorite jobs as an editor is the reporting of best practicesto the maintenance community. I first met Doc Palmer during such anassignmenta magazine cover story on a plant maintenance improve-ment program. Since then, I have published some of his articles andheard his conference presentations, and found that he has a superbunderstanding of the practices leading to maintenance excellence.

One belief that the leading organizations hold in common is thatmaintenance is a business process and that formal planning and sched-uling is key to its success. Yet, there is a dearth of practical referenceson the subject. Most articles and conference papers on planning andscheduling stress its strategic importance, but they do not delve intothe practical details because of limitations imposed by article length orconference programming. Doc has leaped over this hurdle with hisMaintenance Planning and Scheduling Handbook. There is now a readyreference to take the action oriented maintenance practitioner to thelevel of understanding needed to install a planning and schedulingfunction and make it work.

The book positions planning in maintenance operations and then pro-ceeds logically to introduce the principles of planning and scheduling and

xix

Copyright 2006 by Richard D. Palmer. Click here for terms of use.

explain how to make planning work. Additional sections cover thenuances of planning preventive maintenance, predictive maintenance,and project work. The book concludes with helpful information on howto get started.

Maintenance Planning and Scheduling Handbook is a welcome addi-tion to the body of knowledge of maintenance excellence and how toachieve it.

ROBERT C. BALDWINSenior Editor

EDTRON.comTechnical Business Communications

Palatine, Illinois

xx Foreword

Preface

The welcome demand for the Maintenance Planning and SchedulingHandbook around the world and repeated printings have encouragedthis second edition. The author is profoundly grateful that maintenancepractitioners across a wide spectrum of industries have found the hand-book and its principles universally applicable.

The second edition has revised most pages throughout the entirehandbook to clarify and amplify discussions based on the authors expe-rience of the last seven years and practitioner feedback since the firstedition. Perhaps the most fundamental of these revisions is movingthe planning strategy from simply relying on craft skills to more of aprocedures-based organization in terms of job plan detail. The secondedition also adds a definitive aids and barriers analysis to virtuallyevery key aspect of planning. Furthermore, it adds cause maps to inves-tigate low schedule compliance and priority system problems. Two newappendices add much discussion on the soft side of maintenance plan-ning (dealing with people) and the controversial issue of subcontractingmaintenance. In addition, the second edition delves much deeper intoimplementing and using a CMMS. Finally, readers should welcomeimprovements in overall text format (larger font) and chapter organi-zation that make the handbook easier to use. All of these changes makethe handbook even more comprehensive and helpful. These changesshould enhance the handbook's usefulness and unique contribution tothis key segment of maintenance.

DOC PALMERNeptune Beach, Florida

[email protected]

xxi


Preface to First Edition

The Maintenance Planning and Scheduling Handbook shows how toimprove dramatically the productivity of maintenance. For example, agroup of 25 maintenance technicians should be performing the work of39 persons when aided by a single maintenance planner. This bookclearly and simply sets forth the vision, principles, and techniques ofmaintenance planning to allow achievement of this type of improvementin any maintenance program.

When I began writing articles and publishing papers describing thesuccess we had achieved in maintenance through maintenance planning,I was not surprised by the requests for information I received. We hadrevamped our existing planning organization and the result was a totalclearance of a large backlog of work that had some work orders in it asold as 2 years. The clearing took less than 3 months thus freeing upin-house labor and allowing a scheduled major overhaul to commencewithout costly contractor assistance. We had been through a learningjourney in the course of our success. Before we got planning workingwe had to unlearn about as many false notions about planning as we hadto learn principles to support what it really was. Most of the requests forinformation I received primarily centered on a need just to get a handleon exactly what maintenance planning was. Eventually McGraw-Hillasked that I write this book.

I believe that maintenance planning has remained an undevelopedarea of tremendous leverage for maintenance productivity for several rea-sons. The planning function is positioned down in the maintenance groupand does not command the plant managers attention, so it is beneaththe plant manager. The techniques require an increased degree of organ-ization, coordination, and accountability as well as a loss of some control(which some maintenance supervisors might not find appealing), so it isunnecessary to the maintenance manager. Finally, the principles ofplanning are not technical in nature, so it is uninteresting to the plantengineer. Nevertheless, a company seeking to be more competitive woulddo well to exploit such an area of leverage. A common saying states that

xxiii


for any endeavor, 1 hour of planning will save 3 hours of work. Maintenanceplanning saves more. After a work order system, planning is the biggestimprovement one can make to a maintenance program.

This book considers planning as the preparatory work given to indi-vidual maintenance work orders before assigning them to specific craft-persons for work execution. This preparatory work, when properly done,greatly increases maintenance productivity. There exist few actual booksin print for maintenance planning and most do not actually addressplanning the way the Maintenance Planning and Scheduling Handbookdoes. Each of these other books is excellent, but they portray maintenanceplanning as overall maintenance strategy or preventive maintenanceinstead of as preparatory work before work order execution. For exam-ple, one book focuses on planning maintenance management rather thanplanning work orders. That book emphasizes having detailed work plansfor routine preventive maintenance, but the actual planning describedin detail primarily shows how to schedule outage time for working on theequipment. Another book defines and presents planning as preventivemaintenance or other work decided upon well in advance of execution.In other words, there exist two types of maintenance, planned versusreactive, so by definition there is no planning of reactive work. In con-trast, my book presents planned versus unplanned and reactive versusproactive as two separate considerations. Planning of reactive work isessential. A third book also addresses overall maintenance managementwith little distinction on what type of work is being planned. It comparesthe accuracy of different types of planner job time estimates, but withoutmuch comment on how using them affects crew productivity. So the fewbooks available define planning in varying manners. Overall mainte-nance management and preventive maintenance are not the maintenanceplanning to which the Maintenance Planning and Scheduling Handbookspeaks. Even though these areas are important and my book touches onthem in several ways, they are not work order planning. Maintenancemanagement is using the right tools and using them correctly. Preventivemaintenance is a tool involving some of the right jobs to do. Work orderplanning is a tool to get the right jobs ready to go. The MaintenancePlanning and Scheduling Handbook, authored by an actual practitioner,fills the gap in the literature for work order planning.

This book is also important because even when considering work orderplanning, industry has a significant problem with the concept. Mostmaintenance organizations do not have a planning function and manythat do are frustrated and not getting anywhere near the improvementthey should. Just like learning the computer, planning has been madeneedlessly over-complicated. Thomas Sowell (1993) said, If driving anautomobile were taught the way using a computer is taught, driving les-sons would begin with an elaborate study of the internal combustionengine, then move on to the physics of the transmission system and the

xxiv Preface to First Edition

chemistry of rubber tires before finally getting around to explaining howto put the key in the ignition and start the car. People have not seen aclear vision of the work order planning function. Until now, most of theliterature that targets the work order planning concept has presentedmerely the responsibilities of planning without actually defining plan-ning in a practical, bottom-line manner. Because that literature doesnot know the vision, it fails to translate the responsibilities into exactlywhat a planner does. The few previous attempts illustrate this lack ofclear vision: their ideas about everything a planner should do lead to ajob description impossibly full, even for Superman. The great truth is thatthe Pareto Principle is alive and well. 20% of what planners should bedoing contributes to 80% of the impact of planning. In actual practice,organizations have crowded this most important 20% out altogetherwith another group of activities imposed upon the planners. Some com-panies even mistakenly think of planning as simply a software project.Imagine the computer industry reinforcing this problem where there isan explosion of software to manage maintenance without a clear under-standing of what maintenance planning is. As a result, the many com-panies who have not implemented a planning function miss a greatopportunity and the companies frustrated with planning need to back upand relearn what planning should be. Because of insufficient under-standing, maintenance planning remains an undeveloped area of intenseleverage for maintenance productivity in industry.

The Maintenance Planning and Scheduling Handbook clearly setsforth both the vision and the how-to specifics of maintenance planning.The handbook carefully explains what maintenance planning is allabout and then nails down what is expected from a planner and why.It also shows how to measure the success. The handbook includes spe-cific directions for planners. Readers can grasp the fundamentals ofplanning and make an impact in their organizations.

Typically, maintenance managers and plant engineers have called mewith questions after I make a presentation or write an article. One main-tenance manager called me saying he had 38 craftpersons and was goingto hire 13 more for a major mill expansion. My opinion was that heshould hire no one new (savings of over $500,000 per year) and trans-form two of his existing craftpersons into planners. His resulting pro-ductivity would be as if he had hired 20 more persons. I have also receiveda significant number of queries from computer system personnel andplanners themselves. My favorite was from the planner who called fromacross the nation just to say I was right on target and to keep up thegood work. The book is primarily intended for maintenance managers(including plant engineers responsible for maintenance) and for plantmanagers. It is equally valuable for maintenance planners themselves,as well as for management information personnel working with a com-puterized maintenance management system (CMMS). Contractors and

Preface to First Edition xxv

consultants helping others will benefit as well as risk management pro-fessionals interested in the care of physical assets. Corporate executives,of course, would benefit in learning what a difference planning can makeas they play a role in getting the interest of these other persons.

The maintenance manager really determines whether planning will besuccessful, although to support planning, the plant manager must knowwhat improvement can be expected, what impact will be made on pro-duction personnel, and what the maintenance manager must do. Themaintenance manager will use this book to understand and believe thevision and to apply the principles to obtain the dramatic improvement.This maintenance manager is usually one of two persons: one is thedegreed person, typically with an engineering background, who has beenplaced in charge. The other is the craftperson who worked up into thislatest promotion. This latter manager is many times the only nondegreedmanager on site. (A third possibility, especially internationally where thedistinction between engineering and maintenance is blurred, is the craft-person who earns a technical degree while working. The resulting main-tenance manager or plant engineer has much hands-on experience.) Allof these persons need the concepts of maintenance planning very clearlyexpressed so that they can easily grasp them, apply them, and commu-nicate them to others.

Maintenance managers and plant managers are not the only oneswho will appreciate this book. The actual planners themselves will ben-efit from better understanding their mission and duties. Planners aretypically maintenance personnel directly from the crafts or craft super-vision, but sometimes they are engineers or construction technologists.In addition, computer system administrators and management infor-mation persons will better understand planning and be more able to helpmaintenance with a computerized maintenance management system.Companies that do maintenance for others and consultants that helpimprove programs will also use this book to establish superior mainte-nance performance. Finally, there is the risk management professional.Those persons in industrial insurance companies are taking a moreactive role spreading good ideas and asking pertinent questions. Theyhave a vested interest in clients adequately protecting their assets; thatis what maintenance is all about.

The Maintenance Planning and Scheduling Handbook is valuable toany person who wants to pick up a few good maintenance ideas.Nevertheless, the book is a handbook in its completeness of coverage andall readers will be able to use it to make their maintenance program dra-matically more effective and productive. The readers will finally under-stand the simple truths about maintenance planning. Managers will beable to implement a new planning group or decisively redirect an exist-ing one. Planners and supervisors will use this book as a training andreference tool. Because formalized planning can help any organization

xxvi Preface to First Edition

with more than ten maintenance persons, the resulting maintenanceprogram can be a competitive edge for the company for utilization oflabor and equipment assets.

Just after this Preface and the Acknowledgments, the Prologue narratesseveral typical scenarios of maintenance, some with and some withoutplanning. These scenarios all have significant problems which many read-ers will recognize in their own organizations. See if you recognize your ownorganization. After the book develops the planning function, the Epiloguedescribes these accounts again, but as the events should have transpired,flourishing with a properly executed maintenance planning effort, a toolleading to superior maintenance.

DOC PALMERNeptune Beach, Florida

[email protected]

Preface to First Edition xxvii

Acknowledgments

I gratefully wish to acknowledge several persons who made this bookpossible. My loving wife, Nancy, who generously gave me time, encour-agement, and support to write apart from my full time maintenance job.Dr. and Mrs. Richard C. Palmer (Dad and Mom), who raised me with awork ethic including a sense of responsibility that things should work.The late Ralph McCallum (Atlanta lawyer) and Dr. Gary Poehlein(Georgia Institute of Technology) for patiently explaining the concept ofbringing something to the table. Richard Johns, whom I consider theutility father of planning. Bill Jenkins (utility vice-president, retired)for empowering me to make planning work. Les Villeneuve and DavidClemons, the planning supervisor and one of the planners who sup-ported the changes and did the working. David was the model planner.Hicks and Associates, who helped us format and conduct the first worksampling studies. Bob Anderson, who gave me valuable advice for outageand overhaul scheduling. Bob Kertis of Fluor Daniel who taught me theweekly scheduling routine using a worksheet such as in Figure 6.5.Pastor Tom Drury for his prayers and encouragement. David Stephensand my parents-in-law, Mr. and Mrs. Paul F. Peek Jr., who allowed me tospend several weeks of my vacation time in their vacation cabins not vaca-tioning, but writing. Finally, one never learns maintenance in a vacuum.I wish to thank all the other persons who taught me along the way includ-ing those members of the Society for Maintenance and ReliabilityProfessionals (SMRP). I am especially appreciative of SMRP members, BobBaldwin and Keith Mobley, for recommending that such a book as minebe published to help others.

For the second edition, I would also like to acknowledge six additionalmen. Jack Nicholas of Maintenance Quality Systems for his excellentmethod of identifying and displaying barriers and aids and for his encour-agement about becoming a procedures based organization. Mark Galleyof ThinkReliability.com for his excellent method of cause mapping. ToddSeitz of Shell who encouraged me to address the people side of mainte-nance. And finally, Edward Yourdon (author of Death March), KevinTyler, and Fred Kerber who made surviving a CMMS project bearable.

xxix


Prologue:A Day in the Life

May 10, 2010

This section has four short narratives typical of maintenance with inad-equate or no planning help. These accountsunfortunate and frustratingare sure to be recognized by many hands-on managers who know whatcan go on in a workforce. The Epilogue, just before the appendices of thisbook, recounts these misadventures, but with each situation flourish-ing with proper maintenance planning.

Bill, Mechanic at Delta Ray, Inc., No Planning

Bill reported to work on time and went straight up to the crew break area.There the supervisor gave out the assignments for the day. Bill received twojobs: one was to take care of a leaking valve on the southwest corner of themezzanine floor and the other was to check on a reported leaking flangeon the demineralizer. The supervisor did not think they would take all dayand told him to come back for something else to do when they were finished.

Leaking stuff. Sounded pretty messy, so Bill walked by his locker toput on his older boots. Aaron was at his locker and the two chatted fora moment while they got ready. The first thing Bill did was swing by thejobs. This was always a good idea in case the job needed special tools orsomething. Maybe the job would not require him to lug his whole toolbox there. As he went by the first job, he easily found the deficiency tagmatching the tag number on his work order. Bill had the work permitand there were hold cards everywhere so he knew it was safe to work.The valve was at chest level so there would not be any scaffolding or alift truck needed. The valve was a 4-inch, high pressure globe valve. Billdecided to look over the other job, then go obtain a valve rebuild kit.

At the demineralizer, the area was also cleared and Bill had the rightwork permit. But Bill was uneasy. The deficiency tag was hung near a

xxxi


pipe flange, but Bill wondered if the line was an acid line or a water line.In either case, Bill knew the operators would have drained the line, butit would not hurt to put on some acid-resistant gear just in case therewere drops or anything.

Bill headed for the storeroom for a valve rebuild kit and the tool roomfor some acid gear. There was a line at the storeroom so Bill changeddirection and went toward the tool room first. On the way, Bill had anidea. He knew Aaron was an experienced technician and had worked onthe demineralizer many times. Maybe he would know if the flange wason an acid or water line. After asking around, Bill caught up with Aaronat the pump shop. After a few minutes Aaron came to a good time for abreak and walked over to the demineralizer with Bill. Aaron was con-fident that the line was only for water so Bill decided to skip the acidgear. It was now break time so Aaron and Bill headed for the break room.

After break, Bill got in line at the storeroom. The storeroom hap-pened to have a rebuild kit for the 4-inch valve. Bill took the valve kitand his tool box up to the mezzanine floor and got to work. This was aninteresting type of valve. Bill was hoping that it could be rebuilt inplace. After unbolting several screws on the top of the valve, Bill wasable to remove the internals. Bad news. Although Bill had the right kitto replace the valve internals, it was obvious that the valve body wasshot. The whole valve would have to be replaced. The only problem wasthat Bill was not a certified welder and this high pressure valve hadwelded connections. Bill went straight to his supervisor and explainedthe situation. The supervisor wanted to complete this job today andcalled the crews certified welder on the radio. The welder could comeover in about an hour and start the valve job. The supervisor asked Billto return the valve kit to the storeroom and check out a replacementvalve for the welder. Bill waited again at the storeroom to make theexchange, then took the new valve to where the welder was andexplained how far he had gotten along. Then Bill took his tool box overto the demineralizer to be ready to go after lunch.

After lunch, Bill took the flanged connection apart at the demineral-izer. In order to obtain access to the leaking flange, Bill had to dissembletwo other connections as well. All three flanges looked like they had Teflongaskets, so Bill went to the tool room for material to cut gaskets. Sincehe was waiting in line at the tool room, it was a good time to call the den-tist to make an appointment for next month. With the gasket material inhand, Bill went to his work bench and cut three gaskets using one of theold gaskets as a template. Bill realized that with these gaskets, he couldfinish up this job in no time. He wondered what the next job would be ifhe went back to his supervisor. It would probably be cleaning under theauxiliary boiler. He hated that job. Why couldnt he be given a pump jobor something important? Well, there was no sense worrying about it. Billgathered up his gaskets and started toward the job. On the way he passed

xxxii Prologue

Gino cutting out some gaskets at his work bench. After stopping to com-pare notes for a few minutes, they both noticed it was almost break time,so they decided just to stay in the shop and talk.

After break Bill started reassembling the flanges. Most of the boltslooked in good shape, but a couple looked a little ragged. Bill thought thatthe plant had a good handle on completing most of the maintenance work.It would probably be a wise use of time to go to the tool room and replacethose bolts. The tool room had an open crib for bolts so he did not have towaste any time in line acquiring new bolts. Soon Bill finished the job andhe wiped down and cleaned up the area. He then reported to his super-visor so the work permit could be signed off and taken to the controlroom. By then, there was about an hour and a half left in the work day.It was customary that the crew could use the last 20 or 30 minutes of theday filling out time sheets and showering. Therefore, instead of startinga new job, the supervisor decided to have Bill go assist Jan who was fin-ishing up a job on a control valve. Bill helped Jan complete her job. Thenhe filled out a time sheet and headed to his car at the end of the day.

On the way out to his car, Bill reflected how you had to keep busy allday long just to finish one or two jobs. He wondered if he did enough work.

Sue, Supervisor at Zebra, Inc., No Planning

Sue considered herself a capable supervisor. She knew that to keep theoperations group satisfied, the maintenance crew had to respond tourgent maintenance requests. She worked the crew hard and kept ontop of high priority work. Whenever a priority-one work order came in,she assigned it immediately even if it meant reassigning someone froma lower priority job. The crew knew the importance she placed on com-pleting high priority work and was always willing to work overtimewhen required. In return for their cooperation, Sue did not push the crewwhen there were few high priority jobs. She was sure that the crewwould eventually complete the lower priority jobs, but the operationsgroup really needed the higher priority jobs completed or productionwould suffer.

Her normal method of job assignment was to assign one job at a timeto each technician, putting persons on what they did best. Sometimesthis required the art of deciding who would receive which jobs. Since allshe had to go on was the work request from the operations group, it wassometimes difficult to tell what craft skill was required and for howlong. Her experience came to her aid frequently, but she still preferredto assign one job at a time and trust the individuals to work expedi-tiously. She knew the crew worked hard because they rarely loungedeither on the job or in the breakroom. When they finished the jobs theywere on, they would come to her for other assignments. Earlier in theday, Jim came in for another job. After looking through the backlog in

Prologue xxxiii

the file cabinet, she assigned a pump repair. Jim was great working withpumps. She noticed a higher priority, air compressor job in the file, butDonna knew the most about air compressors and she was on leave forthe week. A few moments later, another technician came into the office.This particular technician had not earned Sues confidence so sheassigned that technician to go help Jim.

Lately it seemed that all the work was high priority and productionwas suffering. She used to feel that sometimes the operations crewswould exaggerate the priority of minor jobs just to make sure they weredone. However, from looking at the recent work orders, there reallywere many urgent jobs, some bordering on near emergencies. She knewthe crew was beginning to tire of working in a near panic mode and itseemed some of the crew was slowing down. Hopefully, after they com-pleted this recent batch of jobs, things would calm down. In order to keepthe crew moving along, Sue decided always to make sure that each tech-nician had a personal backlog of at least two or three jobs to do. NextSue began to monitor starting and quitting times closely in addition tobreak time. Nevertheless, things did not seem to be improving.

Juan, Welder at Alpha X, Inc., Has Planning

Juan received two jobs for the day. Planning had planned one, but notthe other one. Both were jobs to replace valves that were leakingthrough. Eli in the predictive maintenance group had used thermogra-phy to find the problems. Juan hoped he could finish both jobs beforequitting time.

Juan got to the site of the planned job and looked at the work orderagain. The west economizer drain root valve was leaking through. Thework plan called for replacing the valve and gave a detailed plan. Theplan gave the following steps.

Obtain valve from storeroom, 15 minutes. Obtain welding machine, welding materials, and chainfall from tool

room, 20 minutes. Make sure the work area is cleared by the operations group, 3 minutes. Clear the immediate area of combustible material since welding is

involved, 15 minutes. Unwire and set aside equipment tag, 1 minute. Support the old valve to be removed with a chainfall from the tool

room, 5 minutes. Use a cutting torch to cut out the old valve, 30 minutes. Prepare both pipe ends, 25 minutes.

xxxiv Prologue

Check new valve for obvious defects and move into place with chainfall,10 minutes.

Make root pass, 10 minutes. Finish welding, 45 minutes. Grind to smooth edge of weld if necessary, 10 minutes. Heat treat weld areas for 5 hours or as directed by supervisor, 4 hours. (During heat treating, clean up area, 20 minutes.) Replace equipment tag with wire, 1 minute. Take old valve to scrap and return equipment to tool room, 15 minutes. Turn in work permit and fill out paperwork, 10 minutes. Total time: 3 hours 15 minutes plus 4 hours for heat treating.

Juan thought the plan was ridiculous. He did not mind having the valveidentified and reserved. Nonetheless, Juan felt that the planner mustthink he was an idiot not knowing how to weld. Juan was a certifiedwelder for which the plan called, after all. Juan also figured that theplanner being an apprentice explained why the heat treatment infor-mation was all wrong. This type job required preheating with a torchand temperature stick for about 5 minutes. A simple wrapping with anelectrical treatment blanket at the end of the job kept the valve fromcooling too quickly. Juan could go on to another job and come back in 2or 3 hours to retrieve the blanket. Juan also seemed to remember work-ing on this valve last year. Did he have to drain the water through theroot valve before he could cut out the valve? It just seemed that plan-ning was not all it was cracked up to be.

Jack, Planner at Johnson Industries, Inc.

Jack came in ready to go. As a planner for 20 technicians, he knew thateach day he needed to plan about 150 hours worth of work orders.Standard preventive maintenance work orders that needed no plan-ning would add about 50 hours. That would keep 20 technicians busyfor a 10-hour shift. He could not afford to become bogged down.

Reviewing the work requests from the previous day, Jack got to work.He decided first to make a field inspection for eight of the most press-ing work orders. He hoped to have them planned before lunch and starton another group. He gathered the eight work orders on his clipboardand headed for the door. At the door he met George and Phil. They hadjust started a pump job and wanted the pump manual. Jack agreed tohelp them look through the planning files for the book. After some min-utes they found a copy in the technical file section with the other OEMmanuals.

Prologue xxxv

Jack had no problem finding and scoping most of the jobs, but one jobwas hard to find. Jack made a trip to the control room and waited a fewminutes for an operator to be able to take a look with him. While he waited,he received a radio call from the Unit 1, mechanical crew supervisor. Jacksplan had indentified the wrong valve for a job and the supervisor wantedhim to help the technicians at the storeroom pick out the right one. Tellingthe operator he would have to come back, Jack headed for the storeroom.Once there, Jack agreed that the application called for a globe valve. It wasnow about 10 A.M. and Jack decided to meet with the operator after break.

After break, Jack and the operator found the elusive job site. Jackmade a mental scope of the job and headed for the planner office. Oncethere, another technician, Jim, caught his attention and pleaded forhelp. He was replacing some bearings on an unplanned job and neededsize information. Together, they searched, but did not find a manual norany information in the equipment files. This required a call to the man-ufacturer who was glad to help. Then two more technicians workingunplanned jobs came in and asked his help finding parts information.Since their jobs were underway, it was logical that he should stop andhelp them. After all, he was very adept at finding information and hisjob existed to support the field technicians.

So it was after lunch that Jack finally sat down to write detailed workplans for the jobs he had scoped. The equipment files had parts infor-mation for two of the eight jobs. Jack went ahead and wrote those workplans for about 12 hours of technician work. Looking through the store-room catalog yielded parts information for three jobs. One job neededno parts and the last two jobs required parts not carried in stock. Jackrequested the purchaser to order them. Technicians twice more inter-rupted as Jack wrote out plans for the six jobs. Near the end of the day,he completed the six job plans totaling about 50 hours. Jack realized hehad only completed plans for 62 hours of technician work that day. Hehad hoped to complete some of the other work orders. Maintenanceseemed to be in a cycle where crews would have to work unplanned jobsbecause there were few planned jobs available. Then crews would needparts help for the jobs already underway, which kept him from planningnew jobs. Something was not right.

xxxvi Prologue


SchedulingHandbook

Chapter

1The Benefit of Planning

One cannot discuss maintenance planning without first considering anoverall perspective of maintenance itself.

Plant capacity is the lifeblood of a company. Plant capacity must bereliable for the company to produce a product to stay in business. YetSandy Sutherland and Gordon (1997) of Kemcor Australia point out anastounding conflict in the business models of many companies. Thesemodels show reliable plant capacity connected with revenue streamswhile showing plant maintenance in the fixed cost section elsewhere inthe models. The management and financial groups of these companiesdo not realize that reliable plant capacity is by definition an invest-ment in maintenance. In real life, capacity must be maintained. Capacityis not reliable by itself. Poor maintenance equals poor revenue streams.

Maintenance provides a competitive edge in many companies. In1993, good maintenance helped operating crews at a large electric powerstation achieve an excellent 93% equivalent availability (a utility meas-ure of generating capacity), well above industry average. If the capac-ity were not available, the station could certainly not sell electricity. Thesignificance of higher availability extends even beyond the daily increaseof sales and reduction of generation interruption. If maintenance canachieve continued superior availability, then a company can defer con-struction of new capacity even as annual sales grow. The ability to defercapital construction as a company grows leads to lower company capi-tal cost, a financial blessing. Todays money invested in proper mainte-nance ensures high capacity and guards against premature futureconstruction. Proper maintenance makes a company cost competitive.

Company Vision

The purpose of maintenance is to produce reliable plant capacity. Thecompany vision for producing a profitable product should understand

1


that effective maintenance provides reliable plant capacity. Some of themost important maintenance decisions are made before a company evenbuilds a plant. Gifford Brown (1993) of Ford Motor Company explainsthe 1-10-100 Rule. This rule means that every $1 spent up front duringengineering to reduce maintenance eliminates a later $10 cost to main-tain equipment properly or $100 in breakdown maintenance. In thissense, Brown says, The company vision should be how to prevent main-tenance, not how to do it efficiently. Companies should spend moreeffort purchasing machines that need a minimum of attention. This ispreferred first over being efficient at either performing work to keepmachines from failing or reacting to repair failed machines. Any com-pany would prefer machines that run constantly without any attention.Phillip Young (1997) of DuPont says industry typically does not involvemaintenance intellect up front, a serious fault. By far, the greatestmaintenance opportunities exist before the company installs equip-ment. Therefore, the first step in dealing with maintenance effective-ness involves working actively with engineering and constructiondepartments before installing equipment (Fig. 1.1).

Nevertheless, some maintenance attention will be required after acompany installs equipment. Once equipment is installed and operat-ing, the second step in dealing with maintenance effectiveness is to beproactive. Proactive maintenance means to act before breakdowns occur.It acts through preventive maintenance, predictive maintenance, cor-rective maintenance, and project work. Proactive maintenance recog-nizes and addresses situations to prevent them from ever becomingurgent problems or breakdowns. Urgent maintenance performed underschedule pressure is rarely cost efficient. Breakdowns interrupt rev-enue producing capacity and destroy components. Maintenance doesnot want to recover plant capacity by repairing broken components.Proactive maintenance programs stay involved with the equipment toprevent decline or loss of capacity. In this sense, maintenance producesa product which is capacity; maintenance does not just provide a repairservice. These concepts of proactive maintenance of John Day, Jr. (1993)play an important part in planning in Chap. 4.

2 Chapter One

Figure 1.1 Management must makethis connection in their vision for pro-ducing a profitable product.

Why Improvement Is Needed in Maintenance

Effective maintenance reduces overall company cost because productioncapacity is available when needed. The company makes a product withthis capacity to sell at a profit. This explains the reliabilitycost rela-tionship: focus on overall cost reduction and reliability gets worse, butfocus on reliability improvement and overall cost goes down. Nevertheless,examining the cost of the maintenance operation cannot be dismissed asunimportant. After maintenance effectiveness, maintenance efficiencymust be considered. What if the same or better maintenance could be pro-vided for less cost? What if the company could grow by adding new pro-duction capacity and maintain it without increasing the currentmaintenance cost?

Keeping the purpose of maintenance in mind, one may focus on thecost of the maintenance operation. Understanding the details of onesmaintenance system provides the information on how it may beimproved. Many companies trying to become more competitive changetheir maintenance budget without any understanding of how their main-tenance system works. They may increase the budget to add mainte-nance personnel when making capital plant additions. They may reducetheir budget for an existing plant. They may not increase the budgetwhen making capital plant additions. They may hope that budget pres-sure will cause the maintenance force to work harder or do what ittakes. Nonetheless, to make improvements to the efficiency of a main-tenance operation, one must understand the details of the system.

What are the details in the maintenance system? The following caseshows a pertinent example of the details involved in a maintenancesystem.

In the 12 months resulting in 93% availability, the previously men-tioned power station spent over $9 million in maintenance. This amountincluded more than $5 million in wages and benefits for the mechani-cal, electrical, and instrument and control (I&C) crafts. A study revealedthat productivity of maintenance personnel was about 35%. That is, onthe average, a typical maintenance person on a 10-hour shift wasmaking productive job progress for only 312 hours. The other 612 hourswere spent on nonproductive activities such as necessary break timeor undesirable job delays to get parts, instructions, or tools. The studyonly included persons who were available for the entire shift so train-ing time and vacation time were not even included. For example, ifmechanic Joe Stark had a pump job and a valve job for a 10-hour day,typically he would have physically performed maintenance on the equip-ment for only 312 hours. The rest of the time Joe might have done some-thing very necessary for completing the job. He may have stopped to geta gasket or a special wrench, but when he stopped, the job did notprogress. If the job did not progress when it otherwise might have, the

The Benefit of Planning 3

company lost an opportunity not only to regain plant capacity, but alsoto have Joe perform another job that day. If Joe had not had to stop, thework would have proceeded much faster. Overall, only 35% or $1,750,000of the $5 million paid to the employees was for productive maintenance.The company paid 65% or $3,250,000 for unproductive maintenance.Considering that training time and vacation time were included in the$5 million would make the actual amount paid for productive mainte-nance even lower. The company was surprised to learn that 35% pro-ductivity was typical of good traditional-type maintenance organizations.However, the company realized that the average of 612 hours of non-productive time per person accompanying the significant cost of main-tenance was an opportunity to improve maintenance efficiency.

Understanding the details in the maintenance system leads toimprovement opportunities. Understanding what is happening allowsselection of maintenance strategies for the specific opportunities toimprove. Maintenance planning is a major strategy to improve mainte-nance efficiency with regard to unproductive maintenance time.Implementing proper planning and scheduling can improve productivemaintenance time from the 25 to 35% of a typical organization withoutplanning to 50 to 50%, almost doubling the ability to get work completed.Nevertheless, Brad Peterson (1998) of strategic Asset Management,Inc. (SAMI), says that Planning is a discipline that is difficult to achieveand difficult to maintain. It needs to be nurtured and developed care-fully. This is the greatest issue to maintenance improvement in mostplants.

What Planning Mainly Is and What It Is MainlyNot (e.g., Parts and Tools)

All plants require some maintenance and planning can help mainte-nance efficiency. Some of the primary aspects of planning are wellknown. Maintenance planning involves identifying parts and tools nec-essary for jobs and reserving or even staging them as appropriate. Thecommon perception of planning is that after someone requests work tobe done, a planner would simply determine and gather the necessaryparts and tools before the job is assigned. The planner might even writeinstructions on how to do the job. With this preparatory work done, thecraftperson actually doing the job would not have to waste time first get-ting everything ready. This planning methodology would be thought toincrease maintenance productivity.

Figure 1.2 shows the common perception of what a planner would dofor parts. The planner would write a job plan that identified parts neededsuch as specific gaskets and impellers along with their storeroom iden-tification numbers. Then the planner would reserve them in the store-room to ensure their availability when the job was executed. If any

4 Chapter One

needed parts were not carried in inventory, the planner would havethem ordered to be on hand when needed. The planner might stagesome of the parts by placing them in a convenient location such as thejob site before the job starts. With staged parts the technician per-forming the work would not have to wait at the storeroom. The plannerwould also provide a bill of materials or an illustrated parts diagram.These documents would help the technician identify parts unantici-pated at the time of planning or understand how the parts fit together.The planner would also work with vendors to ensure good sources ofmaterial supply. Finally, the planner would be involved in quality assur-ance and quality control of vendor shipments.

Likewise, Fig. 1.3 shows the common perception of what a plannerwould do for tools. The planner would write a job plan that identifiedspecial tools needed such as a chainfall or even a crane. The plannerwould reserve or schedule certain items such as the crane so everyonewould not be expecting to use it the same time. The planner might evenstage the special tool, such as having the crane moved to the job site inanticipation of the work to begin.

Unfortunately, most organizations do not see a significant improvementin maintenance after over 10 years of trying maintenance planning basedon getting parts, tools, and instructions ready. It just seems that somethingis missing. Why is it that when you are driving and looking for an address,you turn down the volume on the radio? That something is not workingis obvious when studies show productive maintenance time is never


Figure 1.2 It is commonly recognized that planningconsists of parts.

Figure 1.3 It is commonly recognizedthat planning also consists of tools.

more than 40%, hardly better than an organization without planning.In these companies, planning also has a bad reputation among the craftsfor not offering much assistance anyway.

One must first understand the system of planning to use it effectively.Maintenance planning is a system analogous to the bubble in the carpet.If one simply pushes down the bubble, it will only appear elsewhere.Understanding the carpet as a system allows focus on the edge of thecarpet, the leverage point, to pull the slack areas and eliminate thebubble. One must understand the planning system with its specificimportant characteristics. Fortunately, these characteristics are notcomplicated. This book explains the characteristics of the system withprinciples, guidelines, and specific techniques so one can work withplanning to improve maintenance productivity.

It turns out that identifying parts and tools is not the purpose of plan-ning. This concept is important to state. If planning does not increaseoverall maintenance effectiveness or efficiency, it does not matter thatplanning expends effort gathering parts and tools. The purpose of plan-ning must focus on the high productivity desired from the applicationof the planning and scheduling principles.

In the proper planning system, the maintenance process proceedsthis way. After someone requests work to be done, a planner plans thework order by specifying job scope, craft and skill level, and time esti-mate, as well as specifying anticipated parts and tools. The plannerdoes not necessarily specify a detailed procedure. By including the skilllevels and time estimates on jobs, scheduling can assign the properamount of work to the crews. In actual practice, scheduling control con-tributes more to managing productivity than do parts and tool delaysin and of themselves.

Consider a one-person company: the owner works extremely hard, con-scious of every job needing completion. If he finishes one more job, theowner makes more profit and pays the house mortgage once again. Afterseveral years of prosperity, he hires ten salaried technicians. The ownerlater senses that less work per person is accomplished than before. Theconversation goes like this:

OWNER: How did it go this week?

TECHNICIAN: We did a lot!

OWNER: Well, how much was that?

TECHNICIAN: We turned out 50 jobs which was more than we ever didbefore!

OWNER: But how much was that compared to how much you shouldhave been able to turn out?

TECHNICIAN: But you dont understandWe really worked hard!

6 Chapter One

So the next week the owner looks at every job in the backlog andestimates how long each should take. Then on Friday the owner selects400 hours worth of work and tells the crew, There are ten of you eachworking 40 hours next week, so here are the jobs we need to complete.The next Friday, the owner has some basis for knowing how much workshould have been done and has another conversation:

OWNER: How did it go this week?

TECHNICIAN: We did a lot!

OWNER: How much of the work that I gave you last Friday is done?

TECHNICIAN: Well, most of it.

OWNER: Let me have the jobs back that you havent started yet. [Thenafter a minute] I see you didnt start about 100 hours worth of the jobs.What happened?

TECHNICIAN: Lets see. On three of the jobs we didnt have the rightparts in stock so we had to order them. On one of the other jobs thatwe did complete, the time estimate you gave us just didnt work out;that job ended up taking George and John twice as long even thoughthe job didnt have any special problems. Then on one of the other jobsFred completed, the work took extra long because he ran out of solventand had to run to the supply center and buy some. So overall, we didntfinish all the work you had wanted.

OWNER: Well, thats okay. On some weeks that just happens. I knowwe were working hard because I was on the shop floor several times thisweek. But I am concerned a little bit about three jobs not having partsavailable. When I scheduled them, I didnt think they would require any-thing special. We probably also need to look at how much solvent wenormally carry; thats not something we should be running out of. Also,if we didnt start on three jobs, were we able to work in any other jobsthat we didnt think we would start this week?

The owner utilizes a basis for controlling the work force. The word con-trol in this context means that the owner can compare the actual amountof work done against something. In this case the something was theamount of work hours the owner had originally assigned for the week.The crew may not have been able to do all the assigned work, but thepoint is that now there is a basis for questioning and examining the workdone. Could the owner gain this information without having assigneda specific amount of work and just by asking if there had been any prob-lems or delays? He could have, but consider if the technician had saidNo, it seemed to be a normal work week. We worked pretty hard. Thetechnician may well have presumed it was just part of the job to scram-ble for parts or supplies here and there. He may accept that jobs some-time seem to run on forever. The owner or manager of a maintenance


group cannot accept that delays are normal before any scrutiny. It is afair question to ask why 40 hours of work are not accomplished in the40 hours a technician works. But the question cannot be asked if theamount of work assigned and completed is unknown. Planning andscheduling assigns the proper amount of work to the crews and a con-trol tool becomes available for managing productivity.

Maintenance managers greatly need the information just to allowscheduling. If a crew has 1000 person hours available for the upcomingweek, a planning system allows 1000 hours of work to be scheduled. Inactual practice without such a systematic approach, supervisors typi-cally assign much less work than should be done during the course ofthe week.

Note that the context of discussion is not major plant outages orturnarounds. The book touches on outage scheduling in Chap. 6, butthat is not the books focus. Outages are very important, but very wellmanaged already. Management gives much attention to the executionand improvement of outage maintenance. On the other hand, considera week of routine maintenance. How much work should be done? Howwould one know? And if one did know, how would it be done? The systemof planning and scheduling answers these questions. The MaintenancePlanning and Scheduling Handbook focuses on the planning and sched-uling of the routine, day-in and day-out maintenance. This mainte-nance most affects the reliability of plant capacity and makes up thebulk of the budget, yet so far it has received the least attention. Thisundeveloped area of maintenance provides the greatest opportunityfor leverage.

Proper planning also provides identification of parts and tools, but notas commonly perceived. Planning departments usually maintain a list ofparts for each piece of equipment. The planner would send this list outwith the planned work order. On the other hand, if parts identification isnot readily available the first time the plant works on a machine, the plan-ner does not necessarily create a list. The planner knows the technicianscan determine what is needed and provide identification through feedbackto help future jobs. The planner accumulates the feedback from com-pleted jobs to establish a parts or tool list over time. So the plannerbecomes somewhat of a file clerk for the 20 to 30 technicians.

In the broadest view, a maintenance planner gives the maintenancemanager information to allow scheduling enough work and gives thefield technicians file assistance. The planners do not necessarily placefirst priority on extensive research to determine possible parts and toolrequirements.

Nevertheless, knowing what constitutes planning does not make ithappen. One must know the specific results to expect and the principlesand practices involved.

8 Chapter One

How Much Will Planning Help?

Planning provides dramatic, tangible help. The amount of work accom-plished rises. The work force is freed up. The extra labor power can bereallocated to added value activities. One can calculate and measure theactual amount of increased productivity.

The practical result of planning:freed-up technicians

After 1993, the previously mentioned power station examined its posi-tion. The station had achieved reliable plant capacity with a year of supe-rior availability, but studies showed an opportunity to improve workforce productivity. Management decided to redirect its existing main-tenance planning group. They implemented a planning system accord-ing to the guidelines in this handbook for its mechanical maintenancecraft (approximately 30 persons). Less than a year later in 1994 the prac-tical result of planning was 30 maintenance persons yielding the effortof 47 persons. Figure 1.4 is the central statement of this book and thesubject of planning: how planning leverages 30 persons to produce asmuch work as 47 persons. They did not hire anyone new. The benefitreceived was as if 17 new persons suddenly started helping. These newpersons did not cost the company any money because they were free.

Although planning had existed since 1982, planning according to thesystem principles began in 1994. The start of weekly scheduling beganin the middle of May 1994. The maintenance group completed so muchwork that in mid-June there started to be insufficient backlog to sched-ule for the entire amount of work hours available for each crew. This hap-pened because in about a month the crews had worked down their entireoutstanding backlogs. These backlogs had even included some workorders that were over 2 years old. The power station was thus able toproceed into its Fall 1994 major overhaul of its largest unit with theother units caught up in backlog.


Figure 1.4 The practical result of planning.

Emerging from the overhaul of the unit, the utility included the elec-trical and I&C crafts as well as two other plants into the planning system.The total of the maintenance force at this point was 137 personnel.With the productivity improvement from planning and scheduling assis-tance, the utility could expect to free up in effect 78 technicians. Thesetechnicians could be available for work to stay ahead of the maintenancebacklog. They could do work previously outsourced or given to contrac-tors for outages and projects. They could even build parts in-house. Theycould also do more preventive maintenance and do maintenance forothers at other stations. They could accept attrition without rehiring.

Planning achieves this effect for improvement in maintenance produc-tivity. How would you like to have 17 extra persons for free? How about 78?

The reduction of delays is where planning impacts productivity.Productivity of 25% to 35% is typical of traditional-type maintenanceorganizations using wrench time as a measure. Remember the case of35% productivity of available maintenance persons where, on the aver-age, a typical person on a 10-hour shift is only making productive jobprogress for 312 hours. The other 612 hours are spent on nonproductiveactivities such as necessary break time or undesirable job delays suchas getting parts, instructions, or tools. Simply implementing a funda-mental planning and scheduling system should help improve produc-tivity to about 45%. Then as files and information become developed toallow avoiding problems of past jobs, productivity should increase to50%. The last improvement to over 55% is attributed to special aids, suchas inventory or tool room sophistication or perhaps computerization ofcertain processes. This last improvement is only possible after the basicprocesses leading to the first improvements are well utilized. [A men-tion of computerization is appropriate at this point. Planning is obviouslymore than computer data collection and research. Planning leveragesmaintenance productivity. Whether or not a computer is employed, thereare certain principles necessary to make planning and scheduling effec-tive to provide leverage (see Fig. 1.5).]

10 Chapter One

Figure 1.5 Improvement in productivity.

Paradigm shift: Immediately one may be thinking There is no wayour wrench time is below 80% in the first place because we are alwaysbusy. We are working as hard as we can. Sure, there are some delays,but they are unavoidable. See Fig. 1.6.

In reality, productive maintenance time is not nearly that high.Many studies classify work activities differently. For example, shouldbreak time be included in the study? How about lunch? Regardless,there is wide agreement across most industries that productive main-tenance time is less than 35%. Productive work is commonly reportedbetween 25% and 35%. It may actually be less. Keith Mobley (1997) ofISI says that Typical maintenance technicians spend less than 25%of their time actually maintaining critical equipment. The balance ofthe time is spent on nonproductive tasks. Yes, one can be busy, but ifone is obtaining a part instead of working on the job site, one is in adelay situation that might have been avoided. One would think itwould be hard to get only 312 hours productive work from the average,10-hour shift mechanic. Where does the other time go? Unfortunately,a minute here and a minute there getting tools, traveling, and thelike add up to significant delays. That is why the results of statisticallyvalid studies are so important, because of this great false notion of highproductive time.

Statistical work sampling studies properly measure productive time,also known as wrench time. Separate studies done over time indicate ifplanning is getting better or worse. At issue is not so much the time thetechnicians spend doing productive work. Figure 1.7 shows there is asignificant proportion of time involved with delays. To determine if anyof the delay time is avoidable requires analysis of the nonproductivetime. For example, how much time is spent waiting for parts? What arethe specific delay areas? Can these delay areas be avoided? Analysisof the nonproductive time is one of the most valuable parts of a worksampling study.

Akey point has been uncovered. Where there is a great difference betweenreality and perception, there is great opportunity for improvement. Here is


Figure 1.6 False common perception.

an opportunity to improve productivity. Maintenance planning addressesthis opportunity to reduce delays and free up technicians for more pro-ductive work.

World class wrench time

Not only is there a widespread mistaken belief among maintenance prac-titioners that wrench time is not very low, but many industry consult-ants believe this as well. There have been numerous consultant surveyspassed among maintenance organizations asking about wrench timeamong other plant workforce questions. A typical wrench time questionasks the respondent to score their own wrench time with the followingchoices: ___30%, ___40%,___50%, ___60%,___70%, ___80%,___90%. Theavailability of such high choices could be a leading question, in casethe respondents have the mistaken belief that wrench time could evenbe so high. However, the absence of choices below 30% indicates thatthe consultants who drafted the questions do not understand the sever-ity of typical low wrench time as well. Furthermore, sustained achieve-ment of wrench times above 60% averaged across a workforce is nearlyimpossible. The world class performance target for wrench time is prob-ably keeping a workforce average between 50% and 55%. Does thismean that although low wrench time is a reality, it is too difficult toimprove performance? Not at all. This book has its roots in the realworld improvement experienced as a good performing workforce movedfrom 35% wrench time without planning to 55% with planning. In addi-tion, the following section calculates the benefit of planning with a moretypical improvement of a plant at 25% wrench time improving to only50%, a doubling in labor productivity!

Beyond any rigorous calculation of improvement based on wrenchtime, knowledgeable reliability professionals acknowledge the value ofplanning. Brad Peterson (1998) of SAMI reports that planned work typ-ically requires only one-third as much labor as unplanned work. Anotherhighly respected reliability manager of an international company toldthe author that because of the intangible benefits of planning provid-ing better control of maintenance work, if he had only two or threemaintenance persons, he would make one a planner!

12 Chapter One

Figure 1.7 Reality of productivity.

The specific benefit of planning calculated

How does one measure the leverage of work order planning?The specific improvement in maintenance can be quantified as shown

in Fig. 1.8.Consider three persons working without the benefit of planning, but

placing them at the highest productivity common in such organizations(35%). Their combined productivity (105%) can be thought of as oneperson always working productively who never has a delay and evengives the company some extra time at the end of the day.

Without Planner:

3 persons at 35% each = 3 35% = 105% total productivity

Now, take one of those persons away from the work force and makethat person into a planner. The planner helps boost the productivity ofthe remaining two persons up to 55% each. The planners productivityis considered to be 0% because productive time is defined as time phys-ically working a job. Envision turning a wrench. The planner no longerturns a wrench. The combined productivity of all three persons is now110%, a little better than all of them working without planning.

With Planner:

2 persons at 55% and 1 planner at 0% = (2 55%) + (1 0%)= 110% total productivity

How many planners? It is intuitive if a planner could help multiplythe productivity of a single craftperson by a factor of 1.57 (55% dividedby 35%), that a breakeven point would be to take one of every three craft-persons and convert them to planners. Furthermore, experience hasshown that a single planner can plan for 20 to 30 persons. Consequently,there should never be any question that a person cannot be taken outof the work force to become a planner. This area is a big problem formany companies. They fail to provide enough planners for one of two rea-sons. One, they might select one planner for a group of 50 technicians,a serious underinvestment. Two, they may select two planners, but thendump extra duties on them preventing them from the real work of


Figure 1.8 The mathematics of the lever-age of planning.

proper planning. In either case, planning fails because managementdoes not really believe that they could take out one of every three tech-nicians and keep the same productivity.

A 30-person maintenance force is leveraged as 30 persons times 1.57to yield a 47-person effective work force. Instead of 30 persons workingat 35% productive time each, the work force is boosted to be equivalentto 47 persons working at 35% each. This means that one is obtainingthe effect of having 17 extra persons on the team without having to hireanyone new; 17 persons for the cost of one planner.

Another way of examining this benefit is that the old, 30-person workforce averaged 35% productive time each for a combined total of 1050%.The new, planning assisted, 30-person work force averages 55% each fora combined total of 1650%. The difference of 600% divided by 35% equals17.1 showing the extra persons.

Seventeen persons at $25 per hour (including benefits) for a year areworth $884,000. (17 persons times 2080 hours per year times $25 perhour equals $884,000.)

Consider a 90-person work force, leveraging to get a 1.57 improvementyields a 141-person work force. The extra 51 persons are worth$2,652,000 for a year.

The above cases are conservative in considering a boost from 35%wrench time to 55%. The above cases are fantastically improved if start-ing at 25% wrench time and moving to only 50, which is a 50/25 = 2.0 factorimprovement. The 30-person work force is increased to 60 persons ineffect; the 30 persons are worth $1,560,000 annually. The 90-person workforce is increased to 180; the extra 90 persons are worth $4,680,000. Whatan improvement to the maintenance force!

What do these extra persons do? In the company with much reac-tive work, one leverages or uses them to put out all the fires. In the com-pany with reactive work under control that is focusing on planned work,one leverages them to do more proactive maintenance work avoidingfires. Finally, in those world class companies with preventive mainte-nance well in hand, one leverages them to invest in training to increaselabor skills and in projects to improve equipment or other workprocesses. Each of these companies has the ability to grow or allow nat-ural attrition without hiring.

While the measure and value of the extra productivity can be cal-culated rather easily in terms of work force, how one uses this extra laboris what matters. Getting more work done and done right leads to othersignificant savings that are as easy to calculate, but are more difficultto attribute. Planning does not work in a vacuum, but brings the otheraspects of maintenance together. Nevertheless, these are importantconsiderations. Beyond just performing enough maintenance work tokeep the plant on line and stay in business, there are considerations ofincreased reliability of existing capacity, improved efficiency, and

14 Chapter One

deferred capital investment for more capacity. The monetary value ofthese benefits is company and situation specific. For example, for an elec-tric utility with a 1000-MW steam system, each 1% availability improve-ment might be worth over $300,000/year in power transaction capability.Each 100 Btu/kWh improvement in efficiency might be worth over$600,000/year. A single 1% sustainable improvement in availabilitymeans not having to build 10 MW of future power plant capacity. At$1800/kW construction prices, that is $18 million.

One can measure the leverage of work order planning on mainte-nance to see that it is definitely a good investment.

Why does this opportunity exist?

To understand further why the opportunity of improving productiv-ity through planning exists, this section considers an organization(see Fig. 1.9). An organization is a group of coordinated specialized per-sons with a common goal. Everyone understands a group; everyoneinvolved in the area of the company being considered. Everyone alsounderstands a common goal; in the context of business, the group wantsto make a profit with decent wages while being environmentally, socially,and le

maintenance planning and scheduling - mechanical...

Documents