Planning and Scheduling in the Process Industry

Organizations should have a clear work description of what a planner’s role is. The role may vary between organizations, mainly due to plant size. Some organizations have combined planners/supervisors. Some have dedicated planners for shutdowns/turnarounds. Many have people with a planner’s title, but no planning. So, how do we figure out a planner’s role?

"Listen: I’m a mechanic, not a clerk. Do you want me to do the work OR fill out these work orders? If I wasted all that time filling in those silly blanks on your paperwork I’d never get caught up! Besides, I don’t know why we need ‘em anyway. Let’s just do the work like we’ve always done.” Sound familiar? Maintenance work orders are often seen as an extra burden to the maintainers as well as those who are requesting the work to start with. “Paperwork. Needless paperwork. That’s all it really is anyway. I just want to call the mechanic and get this work done fast!” But without work order history, the maintenance organization is at risk and equipment problems will likely worsen.

While working this April in Holland, I saw a plant utilizing a marvelous Dutch phrase: "Ja, maar", which means "Yes, but ..." Seeing it first-hand helps me understand a principle of successful planning. Many plants can't implement successful planning because they assign the planners many worthwhile activities that are not planning. "Yes, planning is supposed to really help us, but we need the planner to do this other thing that really helps us." Ja, maar.

Few tools are as useful to managing the maintenance workload and effectiveness as the Maintenance Backlog. In many companies today management of the maintenance backlog has been neglected. As a result they are generally drowning in their own data. A poorly managed system has a dramatic effect on the entire delivery of maintenance services.

Planners are oftentimes very talented and great at multitasking; the danger is that they get pulled into duties that take them away from their primary function! This video featuring Terry Taylor, Senior Consultant, discusses what a planner's role should not be.

Wrench time is a measure of crafts personnel at work, using tools, in front of jobs. Wrench time does not include obtaining parts, tools or instructions, or the travel associated with those tasks. It does not include traveling to or from Obviously, it does not include break time. These non-wrench time tasks are often necessary to get work done, but are not "wrench time." The craftsperson is in a delay situation. We should also ask ourselves whether the crafts personnel perform tasks efficiently while they are on tools in front of jobs. This is a legitimate question, but not answered by wrench time. Nonetheless, if we increase the time employees are "on the job," we should get more work done.

Standard job plans. Be sure your CMMS systems have a way to put in a standard job. That true? yeah? Okay, so Tor mentioned yesterday critical and repetitive work...great place to start and even on a repetitive job it may be something that's really simple but if there's a bill of materials that comes with that job, then you create a standard job plan that just has the bill of material, has the work order coding on it, and another CMMS system that we had at my last job you could actually link the standard job to an equipment number in the background so when you went in to create a work order you just put in the equipment number there's a standard job pull down every standard job that was linked to that equipment select it and create your work order.