A few weeks ago, someone asked me, “How many hours should a planner plan for each week?” This is a great question, but I can only give a touchy-feely answer. A strict numerical approach to productivity might miss the point of why planners exist (to promote crew productivity). I want the planner to keep the unplanned backlog under control by adjusting the time spent on the level of detail put into each job plan.

It’s common knowledge that increasing the share of planned maintenance over the time spent on breakdowns should be a top priority for forward-thinking maintenance organizations. The financial benefits of that strategy, however, may not be readily apparent.

Priority, as defined in the Franklin Dictionary, means “coming before in time, order, or importance.” When prioritizing maintenance work, one must consider its importance to the entire company in question. My experience shows that, in the real world of most maintenance departments, you can classify priorities in two groups: Emotional priorities and real priorities.

Historically, maintenance textbooks have defined a shutdown as “an unplanned equipment failure event that causes an operational production line, process, area or section of a plant to be temporarily turned off or closed for emergency repair, and resumed to operational status immediately following the repair of the failed equipment.” Turnarounds are defined as “a planned event that required the closure of an entired operational plant or facility to perform one or many pre-planned technology or system upgrades, equipment upgrades, and maintenance restorations, within a defined time period.”

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.

There is only one reason to support a planned maintenance program. Planned maintenance increases profits!  The primary objective for any business is to produce profits for the owner.  Profit oriented goals apply to an elderly couple operating a corner grocery store, as well as to large corporations.  Even maintenance consulting firms have to operate at a profit.

As a result of recent audits and reviews of various medium to large-scale industry. I have found the following to be a general observation regarding systems of work. As technology for maintenance has moved forward there has been an increasing demand on the time of the maintenance-planning department. All are key to progressing the maintenance delivery systems towards world-class status. Organisations may use various positions to analyse this function.

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.