There is no “Silver Bullet” when it comes to planning.  

How’s that for an opening statement?  It amazes me that when I visit facilities all over the globe that there is such a discrepancy in opinions over what constitutes planning.  One would think that when it comes to maintenance, work is identified, prioritized, planned, scheduled and executed.  Not so!

In order to obtain the most efficiency from the work force, work should be planned.  As I have discussed earlier, planned activities provide the feedstock for a healthy schedule of work for the next week.  Getting back to basics, what should a work plan consist of?  Perhaps this is a more relevant question.

Most likely, what I say from this point on, will be a candidate for debate.  After all, these are personal preferences, based on my experience.  Experience, you say.  Well, when I was wet behind the ears, my first job was that of a planner.  At that time we didn’t quite know it as such.  I was a new management assistant in the maintenance department (no, not an engineer) and fresh out of college.  I was shown how to walk a job down, talk to the crafts people for their input, determine the parts required and plan the activity, step-by-step.  This was fun!  Were mistakes made?  You bet, and there were plenty.

What have I learned over all of these years?  Primarily, the organization should have a clear, concise, and universal understanding of the roles and responsibilities of the planner.  This assumes that the organization has chosen to have a planning function.  The very fact that you’ve taken time to read this article probably means that there are planners somewhere on your site. 

What I have found, that is most disturbing is that planners are mostly misunderstood.  At some sites, when you ask the question “What does the planner do?” answers have mostly been varied.  My view of planning is founded on the premise that the planner is a strategic element in your overall maintenance program.  The planner should be firmly rooted in the future.  Firefighting badges should never be awarded to planners because of their day-to-day routine.  Furthermore, planners should not be assigned directly to the line organization.  When this happens, the planner soon finds himself deeply immersed in real-time activities.  Worse still, the planner often ends up as the “go-for” for the line manager.  This further emphasizes the misconceived value that the organization places on the planner’s role, i.e., the planner is expendable.  After all, he isn’t working on anything that’s important or broke!

We can argue loud and long about the relative position of the planner within the organization.  Let me ask you this question, “How important do you think planning is to the future of your company?”  If the answer is, “pretty damn important,” then you shouldn’t be populating those positions with crafts level personnel.  This is not to denigrate the importance or knowledge base of craft persons; however, placing planners at a relatively high level within the organization conveys the message that planning is important.  This doesn’t mean that the planner needs to be a degreed engineer.  Even though engineers have some value and could eventually become a good planner, why not promote someone up from the field, who possesses “subject matter” expertise.  Depending on the size of the organization, it might make sense to have both types in the planning group.  A final word of caution.  Please don’t assign planning responsibilities to personnel who have failed at other assignments, that are retired in place or that can’t find any other position.  Planners and the planning group needs to have the respect of the site community.  Enough said!

So, what are the planner’s roles and responsibilities.  Primary roles are to:

• Manage data
• Plan and coordinate work activities
• Schedule work
• Support the analysis process and
• Look into the future

The planner supports and in some cases is directly involved in all phases of a Stage 1 Work Management Process; Identification, prioritization, backlog management, materials management, planning, scheduling, execution and trending, reporting and monitoring performance.

If you find the planner involved in:

• Supervising people,
• Functioning as the foreman’s “right hand man,”
• Serving as a purchasing agent or expediter, or
• Living “in the moment”

...you should re-examine the relative importance of the planner and the planning function within your organization.  It would be clear to me, that someone isn’t getting the message.

In the next article, I’ll talk a little about what planning should look like.  Again, this is from my perspective and is subject to debate.  If you’d like to challenge me, or better still discuss tactics to move from reactive to proactive, please give me a call toll free at (800) 706-0702 or drop an e-mail.  I welcome your input.

- Dave Army

Click here for part's 1 through 6 and other maintenance management resources and links