Daily and weekly meetings between operations and maintenance are crucial in taking the efficiency of your daily maintenance to a higher level. Many organizations deal well with production stops, but have issues with organizing routine work. Coordinating meetings where various departments prioritize work orders (WO) and maintenance is the foundation for a partnership between operations and maintenance. Such meetings create efficiency. Well-organized meetings with clear goals and agendas can completely change the culture for the better in an organization.
Readers may think that their jam-packed schedules don’t need any more meetings. Why not just let the maintenance planners just keep up with the weekly WOs? Everyone can go into the maintenance system and see the status on a WO. Why go old school and hold a meeting when there is e-mail, messaging and technology to connect us? Why do I, as operations manager, have to sit through a maintenance meeting?
In my experience, many organizations have problems with collaboration between operations and maintenance. Mostly it boils down to communication, ensuring everyone in operations knows what jobs need completion the soonest. Maintenance oftentimes doesn’t have the right equipment ready when a job is beginning. Then, both parties think the ”wrong” WO is prioritized. The list of mix-ups goes on.
An efficient, well-structured meeting does take extra time out of the workday. But it’s still the best and most effective way I’ve been able to successfully coordinate daily work. Technology is great, but it’s not as efficient as a live-discussion.
So what does an efficient and well-structured meeting look like and what are we supposed to get out of it?
Weekly meetings for Maintenance (1 hour)
A weekly meeting should take no more than an hour. The maintenance coordinator, maintenance planner and foreman of the operations department should be present. The main topics of the meeting are:
Operations and management place priority on all new work order requests (only bring to discussion if there are disagreements).
Work orders that are to be carried out within 2-4 weeks are moved to the planner for scheduling.
Last week’s completed WO statistics are updated. For example: % of planned jobs, % scheduled jobs, % planned and scheduled jobs.
Status of WOs completed this week is discussed. Solve scheduling conflicts, if there are any.
A schedule for the upcoming week and WOs for every job is offered. This assures us that operations can stop the machines/equipment on decided time and that all WOs are well planned.
The schedule is posted on the wall after the meeting.
Decisions about WO priorities should only change in the weekly meeting. Exceptions may be made for URGENT jobs, using clear, previously agreed upon definitions. If what’s decided and agreed upon in the meeting changes too often, especially by people who weren’t even present, it renders them completely useless. For productive meetings, priority parameters must exist, along with a functioning work order log, and adherence to basic meeting rules.
Daily update meetings (max 15 min)
Most organizations don’t have reliable enough operations to just hold weekly meetings. The weekly schedule needs to be updated on a daily basis. A common mistake is to hold daily meetings first thing in the morning. They need to be held midday, so that a schedule can be made for maintenance around 3 pm in preparation for the next workday.
The daily meeting doesn’t have to be long, and covers just a few topics:
What was completed yesterday?
What is being done today?
A schedule for tomorrow with a title, time and work order assigned to each job.
Numerical values.
A daily meeting shouldn’t have to take more time than 11-12 minutes if everyone is prepared and on time.
Test Yourself
Read the statements below and grade your organization for each.
1. All work orders (WO) have an estimated completion time and proper priority in the maintenance system)
2. Maintenance knows when the equipment is available for production stop.
3. Operations know what WOs are to be carried out each week.
4. The schedule is only interrupted for URGENT jobs. An urgent job means disruption in production, quality issues, uncontrollable safety or environmental risks.
5. Maintenance personnel know which WOs will be carried out tomorrow, before clocking out today.
6. Only prepared jobs are on the schedule.
7. Routine meetings are held between operations and maintenance, as mentioned above.
8.We start our meetings in a timely manner, always no more 30 seconds from the decided time.
9.Our daily meetings are shorter than 15 minutes and weeklies, shorter than 45.
10. Our maintenance personnel complete prepared and scheduled jobs during 90 percent of their shifts. (Evaluated daily with ”cut-off” time by noon for the following day.)
Add up your points to see your score.
0-40 = Examine overall structure and routine work from the foundation up.
41-70 = There is a lot to improve. Analyze what type of improvements would yield the most for your company.
71-90 = Great! You likely have a functioning organization in place, but can probably make improvements on the individual steps that make up your procedures.
91-100=You should charge admission for people to come observe how well you work.
I’m interested in hearing from you. If you have any valuable tips about how to get efficient meetings in place, join the discussion on this topic on our LinkedIn forum. Search for IDCON’s discussion page.
Torbjörn Idhammar
Torbjörn Idhammar was the president and CEO of IDCON INC., a Reliability and Maintenance Management Consulting Firm. Before his retirement from the company, Tor’s responsibilities included training IDCON consultants, product development, sales, and marketing. He provided advice to IDCON’s multi-site and international clients to ensure outcomes and deliverables were met.
Making money, not tons, has become the mantra of the pulp and paper industry in recent years. Consolidation moves in the sector have resulted in more effective management of inventories and supply, but the cyclical tendencies of the business remain. On top of that, the market is now a global one rather than being split up into regions. Managers today have to live up to the challenge of reducing costs to remain competitive in this global market. Mills face the real possibility of closure if manufacturing costs are no longer competitive in the global market economy. Future success will be achieved only by driving down costs and improving operating efficiencies.
Making money, not tons, has become the mantra of the pulp and paper industry in recent years. Consolidation moves in the sector have resulted in more effective management of inventories and supply, but the cyclical tendencies of the business remain. On top of that, the market is now a global one rather than being split up into regions. Managers today have to live up to the challenge of reducing costs to remain competitive in this global market. Mills face the real possibility of closure if manufacturing costs are no longer competitive in the global market economy. Future success will be achieved only by driving down costs and improving operating efficiencies.
The fix to the problem will take time, because it includes a cultural change. “Right now we have to save what we can in the short term so we do not have time to deal with this now, and on top of that it will cost money to improve our work system” is a common saying in this organization. The time and cost to improve is visible cost, the existing waste is embedded in the work system and invisible.
The fix to the problem will take time, because it includes a cultural change. “Right now we have to save what we can in the short term so we do not have time to deal with this now, and on top of that it will cost money to improve our work system” is a common saying in this organization. The time and cost to improve is visible cost, the existing waste is embedded in the work system and invisible.
You can develop, document, and preach your improvement plans as much as you want, but if those plans do not result in better front line maintenance performance, you have just wasted money and time. Maintenance managers cannot produce expected results without the help of others, especially the frontline. Those organizations that have experimented with autonomous teams lacking front line leadership often fail to deliver sustainable results. If you believe this statement is wrong, I am very interested in hearing back from you.
You can develop, document, and preach your improvement plans as much as you want, but if those plans do not result in better front line maintenance performance, you have just wasted money and time. Maintenance managers cannot produce expected results without the help of others, especially the frontline. Those organizations that have experimented with autonomous teams lacking front line leadership often fail to deliver sustainable results. If you believe this statement is wrong, I am very interested in hearing back from you.
Yesterday you were a happy camper. Today you are told your Maintenance Cost (MC) as a percent of your Estimated Replacement Value (ERV) is 4.9%. According to Consulting, Inc. and your corporate management 4.9% is way too high. Good performers are under 3%, some operations are even under 2%. So, the question is what are you going to do about it Mr. Maintenance Manager?
Yesterday you were a happy camper. Today you are told your Maintenance Cost (MC) as a percent of your Estimated Replacement Value (ERV) is 4.9%. According to Consulting, Inc. and your corporate management 4.9% is way too high. Good performers are under 3%, some operations are even under 2%. So, the question is what are you going to do about it Mr. Maintenance Manager?
When looking at HVAC units for K-12 schools, it is important to install a system that will create the optimal learning environment. Installing a single-room, single-packaged vertical unit (SPVU) ventilator provides important benefits that will keep the air fresh, clean and safe for students. These units are installed in individual classrooms, so they can be adjusted to optimize and address individual needs. Since these operate within a single room, unit ventilators eliminate cross-contamination. Airborne pathogens, such as the flu virus or RSV, will be contained within that room.
When looking at HVAC units for K-12 schools, it is important to install a system that will create the optimal learning environment. Installing a single-room, single-packaged vertical unit (SPVU) ventilator provides important benefits that will keep the air fresh, clean and safe for students. These units are installed in individual classrooms, so they can be adjusted to optimize and address individual needs. Since these operate within a single room, unit ventilators eliminate cross-contamination. Airborne pathogens, such as the flu virus or RSV, will be contained within that room.
Besides being the central hub for maintenance, the storeroom also provides functions that are absolutely critical to the maintenance operation. These functions are so important that when the storeroom is operating in a best practices mode, the rest of the maintenance operation can excel – the storeroom is the enabler. Put another way, if the storeroom is run improperly (such as poor inventory accuracy, parts unavailable when needed due to poor replenishment and procurement practices, etc), the rest of the maintenance operation has no chance of achieving high service levels of equipment availability and reliability.
Besides being the central hub for maintenance, the storeroom also provides functions that are absolutely critical to the maintenance operation. These functions are so important that when the storeroom is operating in a best practices mode, the rest of the maintenance operation can excel – the storeroom is the enabler. Put another way, if the storeroom is run improperly (such as poor inventory accuracy, parts unavailable when needed due to poor replenishment and procurement practices, etc), the rest of the maintenance operation has no chance of achieving high service levels of equipment availability and reliability.
Soon after the BP offshore oil spill in April 2010, quite a bit of soul-searching was done by industry. This led to the first of two direct questions posed by the corporate maintenance reliability (CMR) team: Is reliability engineer a titled position in the exploration and production (E&P) side of other major petroleum producers/ refiners, or is this job function similarly buried in what a discipline engineer or subject matter expert “might” do on a part-time basis in his or her specific area of expertise?
Soon after the BP offshore oil spill in April 2010, quite a bit of soul-searching was done by industry. This led to the first of two direct questions posed by the corporate maintenance reliability (CMR) team: Is reliability engineer a titled position in the exploration and production (E&P) side of other major petroleum producers/ refiners, or is this job function similarly buried in what a discipline engineer or subject matter expert “might” do on a part-time basis in his or her specific area of expertise?
