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.

Too many organisations neglect the benefits of a clearly defined prioritisation system. Even when they realise the importance the focus is invariably at a department or functional level. I have seen organisations where there are up to three or more prioritisation systems. None of which are inter-related. Along with work order classification, failure coding and integration with business processes, this is one of the key determinants of a maintenance systems future operation.

Planned maintenance is a maintenance concept developed over a span of time, and is made up of numerous functions, all designed to compliment each other. Planned maintenance, then, is a maintenance program designed to improve the effectiveness of maintenance through the use of systematic methods and plans. The primary objective of the maintenance effort is to keep equipment functioning in a safe and efficient manner. This allows production to meet production targets with minimum operating cost.

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.

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.