Planning Survey

A few years ago working with the Maintenance Group there was some controversy regarding the overall effectiveness of practices, process development and continuous improvement. To gain a good idea of the health of the system as it was we developed and distributed a Planning Survey to key stakeholders for input. The desired outputs were twofold in that one part of the agenda was to encourage the craftsmen and leadership to have a mechanism to express the realities through participation and secondly introduce the scope of the path forward.

Each question was weighted and represented a meaningful challenge to manage. The results allowed us to establish our areas of focus and work on cultural and process priorities.

Planning Survey

The intent of this survey is to help identify the current shortfalls and strengths of Maintenance Planning & Scheduling as we know it today.

Work Order Initiation (Waiting Approval Status)

1. Are all work orders filled out correctly?    
2. Is the justification for work orders and particularly the lead-time allowed questioned regularly?  
3. Are work orders properly coded as to type of work and correct authorization obtained?  

Work Order Planning (Waiting Estimate Status)

1. Is the backlog of corrective work orders under control?   
2. Is work order scope reviewed in the field?   
3. Are sketches and specifications provided when required?  
4. Are estimates being steadily refined?
5.  Are estimates realistic? Is feedback from frontline supervisors provided on a regular basis?  

Preventative Maintenance (PM’s)

1. Are preventive maintenance inspection sheets checked and the necessary work orders scheduled? 
2. Are all PM work orders properly scheduled according to the frequencies?  

Material Procurement (Waiting Material Status)

1. Are the predetermined materials needs specified for all work orders? 
2. Is the delivery of predetermined material arranged for in advance?   
3. Is effort made to improve material specifications and insure its availability on the job hen needed?  
4. Is follow-up maintained on all work orders for materials?  

Urgent and Emergency Work Orders 

1. Do Priority Work Order meet guidelines of a Prioritization matrix?  

Work Order Scope Execution (In Progress)

1. Are contract jobs properly charged to work orders?  
2. Are completed work orders promptly returned to the originator to close?  

Shutdown Planning (Waiting Plant Conditions Status)

1. Is shutdown information obtained sufficiently far enough in advance to plan effectively?  
2. Are approaching shutdowns given attention soon enough to plan adequately?  

CMMS Management

1. Is the planning of work orders up-to-date (i.e., no backlog of unplanned work orders)?  
2. Are work orders “In Progress and “Waiting Material” regularly checked as to status?  
3. Is the backlog reviewed regularly to identify overdue work orders and actions approver?

Level 1 (Re-usable Job Plans)

1. Are recurring jobs analyzed for the purpose of establishing model work order plans?   
2. Is the effectiveness of the estimates and plans checked after job completion?  

Scheduling

1. Is operations notified in advance when to have equipment shutdown or prepared so hat it can be worked on without delay?  
2. Are work orders scheduled according to the priority established by the originator?   
3. If job can not be scheduled within the desired interval, is the originator notified? 
4. Is a full day’s work scheduled every day for every maintenance person?  
5. Is the necessary manpower scheduled for minor repairs?  
6. Are the required number of resources assigned to jobs whenever possible?  
7. Do work schedules account for every resource including absences?

When Working Hard is not enough!

Despite establishing clearly defined strategies and plans Turnarounds are subject to less than appropriate levels of success.

Many of the past posts have discussed the need for integrated processes, practices and tools to act as alignment mechanisms to communicate characteristics of project accomplishments. All of which, provide valuable data to effectively manage a balanced scorecard bridging the gap between strategy and actions. However, an appropriate level of success is not always achieved by the physical completion of hard asset deliverables. While the main leading objective may be accomplished, such as the Unit or Plant start up is successful, the tendency for continuing effort toward the completion of seemingly inconsequential activities is often discounted and not actualized.

Unfortunately the completion and archiving of assorted checklists, reports and follow up documentation relative to key deliverables fails to materialize. Understanding the main goal of a Turnaround is to positively increase asset reliability, so... checklists, reports, failure codes, future recommendations and discoveries are essential when providing historical data in which future decisions are leveraged. Notwithstanding, strategies are not personal preferences which the organizational culture occasionally implies when not recognizing the potential consequences of noncompliance. The lagging success factors are a secondary, but fundamental, elements providing an understanding of the internal and/or Joint Venture systems, controls and supporting documentation to reinforce cost alignment. The absence of required documentation may be a trigger to execute an audit and act as leverage to collect perceived overpayment amounts or bring into question asset condition and reliability.

The caveat is the Quality Systems Group, which consistently performs at a high level of competence while many stakeholder groups compromise success by working hard but not fulfilling all requirements.

Managing Change during Turnaround Execution

The ability to effectively manage change is essential to schedule forecasting and managing risk.  Often the process is defined and authorized however rarely truly put into practice.

The results of not implementing and following an effective solution to identify and manage Found Work can severely increase the risk of time, cost and resource overruns. With much time and effort allocated towards defining the initial strategy to establish a consolidated execution plan during the PreTurnarourd phase, it seems foolish to disregard these accomplishments by undermining the premise of the management philosophy.

If anyone is interested in a Turnaround Found Work Process and Log add a comment with contact information.

Planners Toolkit: Reusable Job Plan Data Base

The transition from a reactive environment to a proactive approach to asset management requires, in most cases, a substantial transformation. The process of how work is communicated, documented, approved and prioritized is essential to ensuring effort is managed effectively providing the results in key areas.

During a functional communication session at the latest EAM/CMMS conference I attended there was some good conversation regarding job plans and safety plans. The overall consensus was... in order to understand the health of a backlog each approved work order must be planned with in an reasonable level of accuracy. The topic of backlog management quickly attracted more support and evolved to an after-hours discussion.  The topic of discussion, and debate, moved to the use of reusable job plans to help manage the work order backlog. It seemed to be clear, gauging the interest, many sites struggle with qualifying resource needs and the management of process assets to ensure a healthy consistent environment.  However many recognized resulting actions of  insufficient maintenance practices, impacting performance leading to reduced reliability of resource groups as well as operational assets. They were struggling with ideas on how to better understand their backlogs and the ability to make decisions based on priority, effort and duration. One stream focused on the creation of a reusable job plan database were the Planner could review the initial scope as described, select an accurate job plan from a database, insert and update upon site review. The premise being more time spent in the Unit than on the computer typing. The small efficiencies gained result in consistent planning language, format and required field population for reporting. Planner KPI's can track variances and help manage resource allocation and numbers. With all Work Orders "Planned" to a reasonable +15/-10% accuracy rate it is quite easy to determine base crew numbers, identify specific Work Orders that can impact the backlog and trend backlog utilizing resource hours. The caveat is that all scope still needs to be reviewed and a site visit is required. The reusable job plan is to be used as an efficiency tool with the intent of balancing desk time with time on-site validating scope, time, labor/nonlabor resources, materials and support requirements.  

Reconciliation of Polarized Approaches

The question is...when have we reached the tipping point regarding the alignment of processes with requirements.
In the Maintenance Turnaround world we often are at odds with two seemingly opposing and inherently incompatible sets of values which, ultimately one or the other must be favored. These polarized techniques can be summarized as the Project Management and Management by Command-and-Control.

The Project Management strategy is regularly associated with requiring a framework that is complex and overbearing, utilizing too many processes, procedures and checklists. All of this leaving many with the feeling that the process is managing us instead of us managing the work.

The Management by Command-and-Control would be polar opposite of the PM strategy. Often considered as requiring little planning or processes, relying almost exclusively on experience and somewhat ambiguous performance components to define success. This style has some downfalls including challenges due to the nature of  cultivating an impulsive & instinctive application of delivering value.

The challenge is the reconciliation of the two stereotypes by tailoring a framework that incorporates best practices essential to deliver success matched with sustainable management style to promote productivity with resolve. The Project Management approach will provide the tools while Managment by Command-and-Control can provide appropriate direction of objectivity when responding to the realities of the real world events.

Understanding Project Managment type processes provide us with the tools to help manage our Turnarounds and Projects with consistency keeping in mind they do not tell us what is important. Where as the Management style focuses on objectives, strategy, empowering of people, hence, not telling us how the work will be done.

The key, like many things, is finding the appropriate balance for your team to meet the required objectives without comprimising relationships.

Schedule Updating and Cost Control

Through the utilization of tools, processes and expert judgment, along with a good change order process, we can determine within reasonable accuracy the projected duration, effort and cost of a Project or Turnaround.
Once we have created a baselined the scope, schedule and budget we are ready for the execution phase to be initiated, right?

From an SPI (Schedule Performance Indicator) perspective...theoretically...yes, all should be well and good. However the challenge of activity update accuracy often creates a new dimension to project control. When creating the schedule baseline, approved estimating tools along with subject matter experts were employed to decompose the activities to a level of accuracy to meet the needs of the Work Package. Unfortunately, during the execution phase the level of completeness is compromised and the schedule is at risk of being undermined due to inaccurate estimates of remaining duration or activity percent complete. It seems that more often than not, extra effort is required to effectively evaluate completeness of given activities, even when not started or finished. Appreciating craft personnel are experts at the safe inspection, cleaning and repair of assets to endure another cycle of heavy usage, the relevance of adequate schedule updates is often seen as secondary. Notably much of the effort is focused on the functional aspects of the work package with the practice of updating scheduled activities within a high level of confidence is demanding at best.

From a CPI (Cost Performance Indicator) perspective reporting actual cost via the Work Order (deliverable) process involves discipline from all resources completing timesheets. When a passive approach is applied the variance within planned vs actual cost are not  accurately represented. The reliability of information is then, not trustworthy, effecting budget controls and estimating. This becomes increasingly more challenging when components of the scope are joint venture activities, as reconciling costs after the fact is nearly impossible. Even with a flexible management group with excellent understanding of the effort required to support the work completed...one party could be subjective to unrealistic costs incurred due to inaccurate timesheet charges. The end result is rework and a negative view of the project team.

It seems that much of the Project Management methodologies, processes and practices concentrate on the development and establishing of tools and techniques that enable a clear pathway for the stakeholders involved in the management of the scope. The fact is...we cannot underestimate the realities we cultivate when not deploying the initiatives and expectations to the resource level. The seemingly innocent indiscretions of any stakeholder group or individual can easily, negatively all areas of the project including budget, schedule, quality.

Through the years, I have learned, as a scheduler, the importance of touring the site at least once per day. The increased presence in the field develops a relationship with the craft people, enables better understanding of the status of work packages and provides a platform to ask relevant questions during the daily Turnaround Status Meeting.

Being involved in Turnaround projects adopting daily costing aligned with schedule updates aids in more cost accuracy.

Quality & Safety...true constraints in the Facility Maintenance Enterprise

Often in the Project, Turnaround and Facility Maintenance world we emphasize the importance of managing the traditional elements that impact our environment. While scope, time and cost are extremely relevant to enable us to understand, track, report and ultimately provide a baseline for conventional analysis, it is becoming increasingly critical to establish systems that champion Quality and Safety.

Many organizations have recognized that quality and safety are key to an organizational success; so...why does it seem like these components are sometimes regarded as complimentary. Too often management groups, committees and individuals feel leveraged to make compromises without understanding potential outputs that sometimes lead to catastrophic events.

Over the years we all have either been intimately involved and/or can recall events that changed our perspective and influenced our ability to manage ourselves and our environment. Understanding this, it is, ultimately the responsibility of the entire organization beginning and ending with each individual to embrace Quality and Safety management. This idea of being ambassadors of change highlighting the relavence of risk is an essential component in organizational  maturity. There will always be, and always should be, debates regarding the cost of quality, marginal analysis, cost benefit analysis and risk. As it is the focus on each elemental component without losing sight of potential impacts of short and long term risk that will enable improved managment of true sustainable performance.