Planning and Scheduling: Planners Should Not

The work process we call maintenance planning can almost always be improved in any given mill or plant. In fact in most plants we visit maintenance planners don’t plan. Planners do all kinds of tasks except work order planning.

All of the work of backlog management, planning and priority targeted capacity scheduling are focussed on efficient execution. To ensure that the tasks that need to be done, as per the true requirements of the plant, are done in a timely manner with as little waste of human and material resources as is possible.

The consistent use of accurate engineering standards represents a huge opportunity to simplify the planning process. Engineering standards cover a wide range of topics from design to operation and maintenance activities. Many already exist and are commonly used across industries. Plant-specific standards take an initial time investment to create, but once written can be reliably used to speed up the planning effort, provide clear instructions to work crews, and help standardize critical and frequent activities.

Underground mining operations, similar to many industrial enterprises, have long recognized the potential benefits of maintenance planning. However, underground mining operations’ efforts to implement maintenance planning have generally met with little success. One finds that after an initial period of enthusiastic support implemented systems and procedures fall to disuse. Most companies, upon the collapse of their maintenance planning, convince themselves that underground mining is so "unique" that to accurately plan, schedule and measure maintenance work is impractical.

Companies often ask if maintenance planning and scheduling will work if they have a decentralized maintenance organization. Yes, it will. In fact, they need planning and scheduling just as much as a centralized shop. Let's review why.

Estimating lays the foundation for planning, scheduling, and management of business critical projects. It is also critical for budgeting, bidding and contracting. Achieving consistent, quality estimates is critical to business success. However, many companies lack systems and procedures to ensure consistency in estimating across the enterprise and easily define, benchmark, and refine corporate estimating standards. The potential long term benefits of instituting an effective solution to this problem are enormous.

No other element of the technical database provides as much value to planning as an accurate bill of materials. Bills of material are a list of parts that are used on the equipment. When developing BOMs, focus on parts used for routine maintenance, repair, and operation of the equipment. Individual parts should contain a minimum amount of information including: a consistent and organized name, manufacturer and their item number, price, lead time, and quantity needed for the equipment.