Equipment hierarchy is the foundation on which the technical database is built. Since the technical database is a key element in allowing efficient planning and scheduling, the equipment hierarchy is a building block of the entire work management system. Nearly every business unit from accounting to purchasing and from operations to maintenance will benefit from a well-organized and complete equipment hierarchy.
The technical database plays a critical role as an enabler to the planning and scheduling process. The results of a poor technical database are often hidden but can be substantial. To function well, all eight components of the technical database need to be accurate, accessible, and applied during the planning and scheduling process. Benefits of complete bills of material, well labeled equipment in the field, and easy access to original equipment manufacturer procedures will lead to high quality standard job plans that are produced quickly and reliably.
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.
Having the part available in the network has a huge impact on service performance. This also means choosing which parts not to hold is equally crucial, because remember, you can’t have them all. Life is about making choices. If anything, good tools will allow parts planners to present the executive team with several scenarios from which to choose. They can then make a choice based on solid calculations and foresight into cost versus service performance.
Planning should be done before work is scheduled. You can say that all work is always planned before you do the work. That is a fact. The question is how efficient can this be done?
If you need to implement a new planning and scheduling program, you’re probably discovering that the task can be rather daunting. But there are ways to achieve an environment that will support a planning and scheduling program that works with what you already have in place and takes into account what your team is able to manage throughout implementation and beyond. If you take a closer look at what you already have, putting the final touches on a successful planning and scheduling program may not really be that big a beast to tackle.
ONCE UPON A TIME in a maintenance department, a work order woke up in the morning, feeling very lazy, unable to open his eyes or get up to walk. It’s been a long time for him in the same room, nobody knocks on the door to say hello, how are you, or to release him so he can show his presence. He looks in the mirror and finds he has changed a lot since being created and kept in the backlog. Looking at gray hair covering his head, he tries to remember his lifecycle since that day when he became a pending order waiting for spare parts to arrive. This spurred his friends to give him the nickname, “Nomat.”
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.
Planning and scheduling functions are the key deliverables of the planning role. This is where the most gains in execution have the potential to be made and acted upon. In some larger organisations these are split, allowing more adequate resources for each role. The difference between planning and scheduling needs to be clear within each company. These are differing areas worthy of differing measurement and improvement initiatives.
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Torbjorn Idhammar is the blog manager for MaintenanceWorld.com.
A maintenance and reliability management consultant, Torbjorn has spent 25+ years in the profession and provides advice to clients around the world.
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