Organizational Turnaround

Before we get too far... the Turnaround I will alluding to is the tweaking of a maintenance organizational structure that was operating in fire-fighting mode. The turnaround respective has been the journey from reactive maintenance to proactive planning, scheduling and reporting; essentially, maturity.

During the past few years I spent a significant amount of time reading many technical manuals, SOP's, procedures and theories focusing on facility maintenance, turnarounds and project management. An equal amount of effort spent on developing and maintaining procedures, work processes, estimating and reporting functions tailored to meet the specific requirements of the management group. Yet the greatest challenge was getting everyone on the same page and building confidence in a systematic approach that ensures reasonable outputs.

Rewind a couple of years...
As a maintenance contract company we were launching into a new relationship with an owner we had no real experience working with... all we really knew is that we were asked to provide more than we were accustom to delivering; as we were primarily a resource provider with a limited management infrastructure. The environment was suspicious and resilient to what we were offering. Our plans for change were clear, however our framework was not as defined as we didn't fully understand the cultural boundaries and thresholds. With this we experienced limited buy-in by most all stakeholder groups, both from our newly adopted folks as well as other contractors and customers. Struggles were a daily occurrence as the overriding philosophy was..."we fix things that are broken...we fight fires, that's it". The ideologies we prescribed seemed to be perceived as a risk to the environment, individual freedom, control and security.

Our mandate was simply to effectively manage our contractual obligations and perform to a level of competence we promised.

To be successful we needed to integrate our corporate methodologies...then establish and maintain a framework tailored that would meet our goals. First was to establish an organizational structure, develop communication, and responsibility outlines. Once the resource management framework was determined the Planning, Scheduling and Reporting configuration process was formulated. This platform would allow us to qualify base resource requirements, decrease safety incidents, decrease over-time and increase productivity. The greatest hurdle seemed to be the decreased overtime and the reconfiguration of crews to meet the objective needs of the facility. The next step was to understand the current work system and mentor an improvement initiative. This included a detailed work prioritization matrix, work order approval methodology, planning templates, re-usable job plan database, scheduling management plan, a reporting structure and a backlog management plan bolstered by thresholds and triggers. We also knew, in order to be effective it was important to map out the process which craft crews functioned. This defined process ensured the planner received required information to develop an efficient work plan that could utilize support and lead disciplines effectively. The craft resources now have time to review the scope for the week, gather materials, tools and safely manage work activities without the risks associated with emergency situations. However with all of the changes we are conscious that, in order to truly be successful we need to maintain and update the organizational framework components and supporting elements as our stakeholder group changes and grows.

Finally what I have learned is, with the right tools in place along with a well trained and efficient base craft team utilizing the approved processes maturity will be achieved.