Focus on Reliability

Need More Technicians? Find the Capacity You're Losing First

At a plant I visited, the maintenance metrics looked solid. Schedule compliance was high, and maintenance management seemed confident on the surface. But the plant and production managers were not so confident.

Digging deeper, I looked at the maintenance schedule. Only about 25% of available labor was scheduled; mostly PM days. Nearly everything else the crew did was reactive.

That's the trap in schedule compliance. You can hit 100% compliance when only a quarter of your labor is on the schedule. Meanwhile, unplanned work can eat 60% or more of the hours you pay for.

If you're building next year's budget right now, you might be considering asking for more technicians. Headcount is never easy to gain, so before you ask, find the capacity you're already losing.