By Terrence O'Hanlon

How is maintenance work planned and scheduled at your facility?

Is it based on reacting to emergencies and unexpected shutdowns? Is a great deal of time spent searching for spare parts? Are repairs rushed, making it difficult to perform a quality repair? Do maintenance craftspeople lack the skills and tools required to do the job? If you answered yes to any of these questions, there may be huge benefits available from implementing a basic maintenance planning and scheduling program.

Failing to plan and schedule maintenance is a common shortfall in many maintenance departments in a variety of industrial settings. The maintenance planning and scheduling function is often overlooked or poorly defined.

There is an urban legend about a group of people who built an entire house in only 24 hours. When asked how they could accomplish this task, the foreman answered that they had spent three days planning.

We interviewed a number of practitioners and consultants who all stated that any successful maintenance and reliability operation is built on the basic foundation of maintenance planning and scheduling.

According to Tracy Strawn, senior maintenance and reliability consultant at the Marshall Institute, Raleigh, NC, "Maintenance planners are change agents. Even though they typically have no direct authority, they have a great deal of influence over others through their conversations, their actions, and their attitudes."

What a planner and scheduler does
To understand these functions, look at two simple definitions:

o Planning-how a job will be done and what resources will be required
o Scheduling-when a job will be performed

A maintenance planner and scheduler finds the best ways to minimize wasted travel time between jobs, makes sure all the required materials and procedures are available, and then schedules the tasks.

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