Focus on Reliability

Welcome to another guest post from our friend, Trent Phillips.

We pleased this week to have a guest blogger to provide insights to the People and Processes Focus on Reliability blog.  Please welcome my good friend, Trent Phillips from Novelis.  With this post, Trent addresses a common topic that I frequently hear almost everywhere.

When it comes to the weekly Maintenance Scheduling meeting, I generally see two separate spectrums.  The first is no meeting or no attendees, and ultimately, no real schedule.  On the opposite end, I see the long drawn out review of the entire backlog, most of which we don’t have materials for or resources to do in the current week. That might be OK if you have very little backlog.  Most don’t.  I believe you would agree that we spend way too much time in meetings reviewing the same items week after week.

From the People and Processes Youtube channel, I have embedded this video on Maintenance Planning

 

There is so much similarity in all that we do within the Maintenance Planning and Scheduling world that compares to other separate and distinct functions. Let me explain.  Borrowing from Root Cause Analysis process methods, I trust you are familiar with the Ishikawa diagrams (also called fish bone diagrams or cause-and-effect diagrams).  These diagrams are one method that is used  for product design, quality defect avoidance or variation, or to identify factors that lead to some event, hence the use in Root Cause Analysis.

The categories typically include:

• Man (people)
• Methods: How the process is performed and the specific requirements to perform the tasks, including time estimates.
• Machines: Any equipment, tools etc. needed to do the job
• Materials: Consumables, parts required
• Measurements: Data generated from the process

All of these items combine together to create some output or event. In the case of Maintenance Planning and Scheduling, hopefully they combine to maintain or restore the reliability of equipment as an example.  See in all we do, it's important to remember that every product i.e. maintaining equipment is the result of a process.  Let's break them down individually for Maintenance Planning and Scheduling,

• Man - People or staffing, which crafts, skill requirements, number of people, contractors or vendors.
• Methods - The job plan task steps and sequence. Items like permits, manuals, and so forth.
• Machines - What special tools, man lift, ladder, etc.
• Materials - What consumables or parts do I need to restore the equipment
• Measurements - What do we need to know to improve the job plan, or in the case of a condition-based monitoring task, take measurements to find something in act of failing to allow planned restoration?

Interestingly, all of these items roll up to complete a great the Job Plan and Job Package  that should be created by the Maintenance Planner. If I didn't have time to complete all of these items, which three should I focus on first to ensure that I could drive craft effectiveness? From a Maintenance Scheduling perspective, I need the manpower requirements, estimated hours, and the materials.