It is surprising that organizations remain frustrated by their maintenance planning office, but the issue goes beyond planning and scheduling; it is fundamentally a maintenance work management process problem.
Some may see this as a semantic issue, but in the opinion of Tim Beavon, expert at Pragma Academy, it is most likely the root cause of the problem: “We set our planners and schedulers up for failure and then act surprised when they fail because we did not properly establish the maintenance work management process from the start.”
Maintenance planning and scheduling involve multiple stakeholders who often overlook how their actions impact planners and schedulers. Recognizing the broader work management issue, rather than just a planning and scheduling problem, is key.
“Maintenance work management is about doing the right work, at the right time, with the right resources, in the right way,” shares Tim Beavon.
Principles of Maintenance Planning and Scheduling
In the Maintenance Planning and Scheduling Handbook, Doc Palmer defined twelve principles of planning and scheduling that we often overlook in our enthusiasm and focus on planner and scheduler activities.
Palmer’s principles should be embedded in the mindset of reliability engineers, engineering managers, section engineers, and maintenance supervisors across the industry. These are principles over which planners and schedulers often have little control, yet they are fundamental to their success.
The Importance of the Weekly Scheduling Meeting
We know that the planner should focus on future work, while the maintenance supervisor should manage the present day—or the schedule.
Planners are often pulled away from future work due to interruptions and distractions that can—and should—be handled by the maintenance supervisor. Everything from spare parts not arriving on time to contractors failing to complete site access requirements, such as COVID-19 screening, becomes the planner’s problem. This often happens simply because the planner originally identified the need for the spare part or contractor.
The purpose of the weekly scheduling meeting is to ensure that the plan is realistic and practical, and that all arrangements and logistics for spare parts and contractors have been addressed. Once the maintenance supervisor is satisfied that everything is in order, they should take ownership of executing the agreed schedule for the week. Many organizational processes fail to account for these factors, making it all too easy for planners to be pulled into resolving current-week scheduling issues.
Skills of an Ideal Planner
Do you promote your best technicians and supervisors into planning roles? Planners should be problem-solvers within the plant, leveraging their hands-on experience to ensure that the right work is done in the right way. This commitment to quality and doing the job properly is what makes them so valuable.
Developing skilled tradespeople for planning roles leverages that expertise across multiple technicians—often multiplying its impact across teams.
The planner must understand trade skills, while the scheduler should assign work to the lowest appropriate skill level.
The planner is responsible for defining what needs to be done, while the maintenance supervisor is responsible for how the work is executed. It sounds simple, but consider the impact of reliability engineers, maintenance managers, or section engineers when defining the tasks to be carried out.
Reliability engineers can analyze asset types in isolation, using tools and techniques to determine precisely which tactical maintenance should be performed. However, they do not always consider the available skill levels within the organization, such as what tasks can be performed by apprentices versus fully qualified tradespeople.
By clearly distinguishing skill requirements, we provide planners and schedulers with the flexibility to allocate work effectively—utilizing apprentices where appropriate and freeing up experienced personnel for precision work, rapid response to critical failures, and root cause analysis.
Work Prioritization
Priorities matter, and the maintenance supervisor is responsible for day-to-day execution. While assigning priority is an important aspect of the planner’s role, alignment between the planner and the maintenance supervisor is critical when determining work priorities.
Maintenance supervisors are the first point of contact for operations when issues arise in the plant. Their role is to prioritize work within the current scheduling period to ensure that tactical maintenance is executed as planned, while allowing the planner to manage as much forward-looking work as possible.
When plannable work is executed within the current schedule instead of focusing on tactical maintenance, plant reliability suffers.
Conclusion
Maintenance work management goes beyond planning and scheduling. It requires assessing which roles throughout the process contribute to challenges in accomplishing work effectively.
At Pragma, we address unique asset management needs by designing tailored strategies and delivering integrated solutions. The key takeaway is that continuous improvement is supported by understanding specific organizational challenges and creating solutions that address them. Learn more on our website.
