Fundamentals of Preventive Maintenance Download PDF
ESTABLISHING SCHEDULING:
Why do I need to schedule my guys—we’re too small, my guys know what they need to do, and I’m too busy! These are just a few of the reasons that people give for not planning and scheduling. They also sow the seeds for equipment failures, late-night calls, distrustful production people, and irate bosses. Instead, maintenance managers should view scheduling as the cornerstone of successful maintenance operations.
Scheduling involves planning the activities of the maintenance crew. It does not mean planning the minute by-minute schedule of each technician. Planning means assigning workorders by shift, by day, by task importance, by material availability, by manpower availability, and by production downtime.
ESTABLISHING THE C ONCEPT OF PRODUCTIVE WORK:
This book centers on the concept of total productive work (TPW)—or maximizing the productive activities of the maintenance team through proactive professional maintenance management. Total productive work means scheduling your crew to handle the daily troublecalls while maximizing the number of completed workorders. You eliminate mechanics standing around waiting for breakdowns because they are busy with workorders. TPW also allows you to plan for those daily problems that seem to pop up. Once you accept that you have only so many resources available for all the activities you would like to get done, then scheduling becomes very appealing. Scheduling lets you plan for the daily troublecalls while still completing workorders.
H OW D O I GET STARTED?
First, if you don’t have workorders, then you need to get some. Appendix 4 shows several examples of workorders that I have used. If you don’t like these sample forms, then create your own workorder forms or check if your local printer has examples. To create your own form, simply use the format options available on most spreadsheet or word processing programs to develop a form that meets your needs. Once you find a form that suits you, then make copies and distribute. Copies should, however, only be a shortterm fix. To create a professional-looking form, have a printer make a two-part carbonless form. With a twopart form, you get the original and the originator (or author) of the workorder can keep a copy. If you already have workorders (or once you have created them), then follow the steps in Figure 2-1 to establish a scheduling system. These steps will create a structure for scheduling workorders and allow you to identify how much available time you have for completing workorders. Throughout this chapter, Helpful Tips have been included to guide you through the rough spots that can slow down or stop the program.
You will need this information later when determining where the workorder fits in the schedule. At this point, don’t get hung up on trying to assign numbers with deadly accuracy. Instead, focus on getting the workorders sorted so you can get started scheduling. DEVELOP A SCHEDULE BY DAY AND BY SHIFT Once you have completed the sorting, then the fun of scheduling all those workorders starts! As complicated as some people want to make scheduling, it boils down to simply figuring out where everything fits within the constraints of time, people, and materials. To help this process, use decision rules, such as those listed in Figure 2-3, for scheduling. Before beginning the scheduling process, always think about how many available hours exists on any given shift. When you schedule, match the amount of scheduled work to the available hours.