I believe that most training efforts are wasted unless it is focused on the needs of each individual. After training craftspeople, they should immediately apply the new skills. As the saying goes, “If you don’t use it, you lose it.”
There are many examples where the above has not been practiced. For example, in the last 15 to 20 years, most mills, plants, and mines have spent considerable effort in negotiating more flexible work rules with their unions.
However, after agreeing to more flexibility on a piece of paper so that, for example, millwrights could perform basic welding and pipe fitting, operators could perform some inspections and essential equipment care, and so on, most organizations soon discovered that not much changed in reality.
For example, operators did not do any maintenance work and a pump job still took two millwrights and two pipe fitters to complete.
The fact is that most organizations have a flexibility agreement on a piece of paper, but no flexibility in reality. The most common reasons for this are:
Lack of training craftspeople in additional skills: With few exceptions, organizations spend a lot of time and money on new contracts, but never train their craftspeople in the new skills they need to become more flexible.
First line supervisors do not change the way they assign work. First line supervision often takes the easy path.
Instead of assigning work so that cross training takes place as on-the-job training, supervisors continue to schedule work according to the old craft lines so that no new flexibility is introduced.
MULTI CRAFT OR MULTI SKILL?
To be successful in improving crafts skills and to increase your work flexibility while maintaining high proficiency in critical skills, I advise that you first determine governing principles. For example, are you implementing multi craft or multi skills?
Multi craft means a craftsperson is trained for multiple crafts. For example, a person who is both an electrician and a millwright is multi craft.
Multi skills means a craftsperson is trained for a craft along with additional skills from another craft. For example, an electrician with skills in aligning a motor and a pump or an operator with mechanical inspection skills is multi skills.
Personally, I believe that the right thing to do is to implement multi skills, since it is more likely to result in flexibility and proficiency.
INCENTIVE FOR TRAINING CRAFTSPEOPLE
To motivate people to learn more and to use more skills, I believe that there must be an incentive beyond self satisfaction.
For example, the most successful multi craft mill that I have worked with required its craftspeople to have proficiency in one craft when hired. After three years, an additional craft had to be acquired in order to maintain employment, with three crafts for each craftsperson as the ultimate goal.
However, the incentive to learn more involved not only job security, but also increased pay. Starting pay was about $15 per hour, but, after learning and using three crafts, the pay increased to about $26 per hour.
This particular multi craft mill produces over 500,000 tpy with 65 craftspeople. Overtime is 15% and contractor hours in maintenance are 14%. These figures put this mill in the league of world-class reliability and maintenance productivity.
It is one of the few mills I have worked with where true multi craft training has been very successful, although a major concern at the mill is that the instrumentation craft is having more and more difficulty keeping up with new technologies while maintaining multi craft skills.
IMPLEMENTATION
In implementing a training program that will support better performance-whatever level of flexibility you strive for-I recommend you do a craft skills analysis. The objective of this analysis is to develop individual training plans for each craftsperson.
Start by documenting what skills are needed to maintain the equipment in your mill area. Then compare this to the actual skills of each individual in the maintenance crew.
The gap that presents itself forms the basis for the individual training plans. Most probably, you will not need everybody in the top skills segment because everybody will not be able to acquire and maintain those skills. So, you might end up with three skill levels in your organization.
I recommend that you do this analysis with much involvement from the craftspeople, because they are the best source of information. There are also many experts, as well as literature, in this area that can help you.
As a result of the analysis, you will now train only the people who need and will actually use the training.
Christer Idhammar
Christer Idhammar started his career in operations and maintenance 1961. Shortly after, in 1985, he founded IDCON INC in Raleigh North Carolina, USA. IDCON INC is now a TRM company. Today he is a frequent key note and presenter at conferences around the world. Several hundred successful companies around the world have engaged Mr. Idhammar in their reliability improvement initiatives.
Christer Idhammar
Christer Idhammar started his career in operations and maintenance 1961. Shortly after, in 1985, he founded IDCON INC in Raleigh North Carolina, USA. IDCON INC is now a TRM company. Today he is a frequent key note and presenter at conferences around the world. Several hundred successful companies around the world have engaged Mr. Idhammar in their reliability improvement initiatives.
Awards:
He received the coveted EUROMAINTENANCE Incentive 2002 award during the biannual EUROMAINTENANCE 2002 conference in Helsinki in June 2002. Among 19 member European countries he was nominated and received the award from EFNMS – European Federation of National Maintenance Societies – for outstanding achievement and worldwide accomplishments in the field of reliability and maintenance.
In 2008 he received the Salvetti Foundation Best Speaker all categories award among 154 speakers at Euromaintenance 2008 in Brussels, Belgium
In 2013 he received the “Best presentation award” among 120 speakers at Reliability 2.0 conference in Las Vegas.
When you ask front line supervisors or team leaders if all people in their teams are performing to the same standards or if some are doing more work and achieving more results than others, you will often get the same answer. All over the world, the most common answer, after some analysis, verifies that about 30% of the people do 70% of the work.
When you ask front line supervisors or team leaders if all people in their teams are performing to the same standards or if some are doing more work and achieving more results than others, you will often get the same answer. All over the world, the most common answer, after some analysis, verifies that about 30% of the people do 70% of the work.
Unfettered expression and spiritual satisfaction? How does this relate to managing a maintenance department, especially one in the U.S. Postal Service? Open your mind. Take a page from the Zen Buddhist monks who preach: When you are quiet and listen, you become aware of sounds not normally heard. USPS maintenance leaders are listening and beginning to understand that maintenance success doesn't come through closed minds and closed doors.
Unfettered expression and spiritual satisfaction? How does this relate to managing a maintenance department, especially one in the U.S. Postal Service? Open your mind. Take a page from the Zen Buddhist monks who preach: When you are quiet and listen, you become aware of sounds not normally heard. USPS maintenance leaders are listening and beginning to understand that maintenance success doesn't come through closed minds and closed doors.
It is not uncommon that many reliability and maintenance improvement initiatives fail to deliver expected results. Why is it so? Some of the most common causes I have observed include:
It is not uncommon that many reliability and maintenance improvement initiatives fail to deliver expected results. Why is it so? Some of the most common causes I have observed include:
Why do improvement efforts fail or perhaps not sustain the gains? There are many reasons, but those most often stated are “lack of commitment” and not “following the process”. But why is there lack of commitment, and why aren’t processes followed? Here are a few of the reasons that I’ve seen:
Why do improvement efforts fail or perhaps not sustain the gains? There are many reasons, but those most often stated are “lack of commitment” and not “following the process”. But why is there lack of commitment, and why aren’t processes followed? Here are a few of the reasons that I’ve seen:
When a piece of production machinery broke down at the Whirlpool plant in Findlay, Ohio, several years back, it was accepted practice for the machine operator to call maintenance and then sit back and wait for the problem to be fixed. Critical information and knowledge was not shared between the operator and maintenance technician. Like many companies, these workers were stuck in traditional roles - operators run the machines, maintenance fixes the machines, and the two do not cross. As a result, productivity opportunities were missed.
When a piece of production machinery broke down at the Whirlpool plant in Findlay, Ohio, several years back, it was accepted practice for the machine operator to call maintenance and then sit back and wait for the problem to be fixed. Critical information and knowledge was not shared between the operator and maintenance technician. Like many companies, these workers were stuck in traditional roles - operators run the machines, maintenance fixes the machines, and the two do not cross. As a result, productivity opportunities were missed.
Many managers are unaware that best-in-class companies routinely design-out maintenance at the inception of a project. That, clearly, is the first key to highest equipment reliability and plant profitability. Whenever maintenance events occur as time goes on, the real industry leaders see every one of these events as an opportunity to upgrade. Indeed, upgrading is the second key, and upgrading is the job of highly trained, well-organized, knowledgeable reliability professionals.
Many managers are unaware that best-in-class companies routinely design-out maintenance at the inception of a project. That, clearly, is the first key to highest equipment reliability and plant profitability. Whenever maintenance events occur as time goes on, the real industry leaders see every one of these events as an opportunity to upgrade. Indeed, upgrading is the second key, and upgrading is the job of highly trained, well-organized, knowledgeable reliability professionals.
The true translation — might it be proper to say a new and improved translation? — is being used today by Cervecería Cuauhtemoc Moctezuma, one of the largest brewers of beer in Latin America. Known throughout this company as Mantenimiento Alto Desempeño (MAD), or translated as High-Performance Maintenance, the concept of TPM is alive and well at the company's six plants in Mexico. Perhaps the best example is at CCM's brewery in Tecate, located a short drive from the U.S.-Mexico border on the Baja California peninsula.
The true translation — might it be proper to say a new and improved translation? — is being used today by Cervecería Cuauhtemoc Moctezuma, one of the largest brewers of beer in Latin America. Known throughout this company as Mantenimiento Alto Desempeño (MAD), or translated as High-Performance Maintenance, the concept of TPM is alive and well at the company's six plants in Mexico. Perhaps the best example is at CCM's brewery in Tecate, located a short drive from the U.S.-Mexico border on the Baja California peninsula.
