Why Should We Bother With Maintenance Scheduling?
“Why should we bother with scheduling?” “Is planning the job not enough?” “How is scheduling going to increase our productivity?” Plenty of my clients and students have asked me these questions. So, here’s the bitter truth: Even if you had world-class planning… It won’t be enough to achieve high productivity. Because planning alone will only […]
5 steps to manage maintenance backlogs
A lot of people have very fixed ideas about maintenance backlog. Some people see backlog as any work that was due in the past. Others also include work that is rescheduled for the future (which is technically called forelog). But I like to make things as simple as possible. In my simple view, backlog is […]
5 Common Mistakes in Maintenance Planning
Maintenance planning is one of the key elements of creating a highly effective and reliable plant. Without it, you’ll find yourself in a reactive maintenance environment where your crew constantly runs from one emergency to the next. When you implement maintenance planning, it’s okay to make mistakes. After all, planning is a process that demands […]
Maintenance Key Performance Indicators to Measure Performance
If you want to know how good your maintenance performance is, then you need to look at maintenance Key Performance Indicators (KPIs). Maintenance KPIs are performance measures that guide your organisation towards achieving your maintenance objectives. But with the many KPIs that we have in the industry, it might get confusing. That’s why you need […]
What is Emergency Maintenance and How to Deal With It?
Emergency maintenance is a pain to deal with. It’s the kind of work that, when identified, is so urgent that it must be done immediately, even though it’s not part of your frozen schedule. And often it is 3 to 5 times more expensive than properly planned work. That’s why we do our best to […]
Overtime is E.V.I.L
Most technicians see overtime as a good thing. They get more pay. They get more time to finish the job. And they get to show how diligent they are at work. The downside is the stress of working more hours. But to some people, that stress is worth the extra pay. I get it. I’ve had my […]
Maintenance vs. Production
Let’s talk about the elephant in the room… If you’re a maintenance professional, I’m sure you’ve felt the tense atmosphere between maintenance and operations. When I speak to maintenance teams, these are some of the common complaints about their Operations colleagues… Now, when I speak to the Operations team and hear what they say about […]
High-cost ≠ High Reliability
Many organisations believe that achieving high reliability is expensive. But it doesn’t have to be. The inconvenient truth is— A vast majority of plants around the world still experience low reliability despite the high costs of their maintenance. These plants invest in… … shiny new software … complicated frameworks … expensive contractors But don’t see […]
3 Ways to find money in Maintenance
There is a common misconception that maintenance is nothing more than a ‘cost centre’. What most organisations don’t realize is that there are big opportunities to increase a plant’s profitability through maintenance and reliability. If you want to start improving your plant’s profitability, then there are 3 strategies you can implement: The first is implementing […]
Maintenance Planning is NOT a desk job
Do you know what it takes to be an effective maintenance planner? All too often organisations hire planners that have insufficient experience. But if you want to get results from your planning and scheduling efforts, you need to hire the right people for the job. People with the right attitudes. The right skills. Among other […]
