Maximizing Uptime : The Art of Maintenance Planning & Scheduling

Planning: Maintenance planning should define the “what,” “why” and “how.” This means specifying what work needs to be done with what materials, tools and equipment; why a particular action was chosen (why a valve is being replaced instead of a seat) and how the work should be completed

Scheduling: Maintenance scheduling refers to the details of “when” and “who.” when the work should be done and who should perform it.

Rationale Behind Maintenance Planning & Scheduling

That DuPont study and the many studies since then have repeatedly shown that maintenance productivity is often poor, and typically as low as 20% -30%. We know from those same studies that with an effective maintenance planning & scheduling process you can grow your productivity to 45%. And as you continue to improve you can increase your productivity to world-class levels of 55% or 60%.

Dubai Electricity and Water Authority (DEWA) announced that the application of periodic PM activity to its power transmission networks contributes to achieving 100% in the reliability and availability of the power transmission system in Dubai and reducing the average maintenance costs by approximately AED 2 million annually. This also has helped DEWA to be the ‘Best in Class’ among global utilities since 2018.

Benefits of maintenance planning & scheduling

• Increase in reliability
• High wrench time, will enhance the productivity
• Reduce the spending for maintenance – cost savings
• Increase in uptime & Productivity
• Increase the integrity of critical equipment.
• Improved safety by performing work in a prepared way
• Optimized inventory & resource management
• Reduce delays & lost time during completion of job
• Increase in coordination of personnel resulting reduce the downtime
• More job satisfaction & greater sense of ownership among your team.

Maintenance Planning and Scheduling Principles

Principles of Maintenance Planning 

• Protect the planner
• Focus on future work
• Component – level files
• Use planner judgement for time estimates
• Recognize skills of the tech
• Measure the performance with work sampling

Principles of Maintenance Scheduling

• Job plans are needed for scheduling
• Scheduling & Job priorities are important
• Schedule based on the highest skill available
• Schedule for every work available work hour
• Daily work is handled by the crew leader
• Measure the compliance by schedule performance

Implementation of Maintenance Planning & Scheduling

• Identify & prioritize the work: Prefer using risk matrix to access risk involved in the job to prioritize
• Planning: Planner duty to prepare most effective, efficient and safest way to do the job
• Schedule: Scheduler jobs to group work in an optimized, coordinated sequence & performed at the right time by the right people
• Execute: Execute in the way to increase the work efficiency and maximize the productivity of maintenance crew
• Close out: This step covers the reporting of technical history, work history and areas of improvement

Performance Insight Walks

The aim is for leaders to see planning & scheduling process in action for themselves. These “Go See” walks highly effective to

• Find out what works well and why
• Find out what frustrate
• Discover opportunities for improvement