Focus on Reliability

Seemingly overnight, the challenges for the maintenance function intensified.  Some organizations faced reduced sales and product demand, pushing the organizations to reduce budgetary spend. Meanwhile, others have pivoted with new products or increased production demand requirements.  In either case, the need to improve performance and maintain reduced costs remains a strong focus.

From my experience, there are no better tools than education and the use of a guide to coach people to implement a proactive maintenance organization focused on improving performance and reducing cost. The use of one should lead to the use of the second in tandem.

At People and Processes, Inc., we are pleased to provide effective solutions for both.  In the table below, you can see the advantages and disadvantages of different training approaches. Currently, we offer both the instructor-led classroom and virtual interactive training courses. We are also developing the on-demand eLearning training courses as well.

So, what is the best learning method for you?

How can you turn your maintenance planners into the foundational building blocks of a world class Maintenance organization?

During various maintenance process improvement initiatives that I have been a part of over the years, the role and function performed by maintenance planners and schedulers invariably surface as an integral piece to achieving best practices.

There are maintenance groups out there right now that have not yet reached into the world Of things like reliability-centered maintenance or invested in condition-based technologies, etc…but do normally have some vestige of a Planning process (for better or worse) to insure their technicians are being given the support they need to be effective.

If we were to consider that a planner may be required to plan for the activities of 15-25 while also controlling costs and supporting overall reliability initiatives, then the competencies of those individuals need to be considered.

Planners are ideally selected from the craft roles, and shown how to use the CMMS to create work orders. Those same individuals may even have been given some training in planning principles and then put to work.

Later, it is often assessed that planning is not working well. We wonder why that could be. It has been my experience that planners need to not only be selected with care and trained initially, but also coached until a desired level of competency is achieved.

An experienced practitioner can first assess your planners against best practices. On reconciling the findings, coach them in one-on-one sessions against a standardized and scored framework in subjects like:

• Estimating
• Job Plan building
• Scheduling
• Backlog g management
• Materials management
• Job Package creation, etc.

The goal is to develop a specified level of competency that demonstrate the planner's ability, knowledge, and skills in measurable approach.

Coaching is an investment in this integral role and can be conducted in short sessions either in person, or virtually, until competency is achieved.

Click here to learn more about our Virtual Planner Scheduler Competency Development & Coaching Program.