These
improvements were very good. However, the maintenance
foremen were confident that short frequent shutdowns
and maintenance linestops would allow for high energy
levels and improved focus, leveraging individual
productivity. The newer approach would prevent the
pitfalls of multi-tasking and student syndrome. With
multi-tasking, a key resource rotates among several
jobs, doing a little portion on each and taking longer
to complete them all. Student syndrome is the tendency
to start jobs late when work estimates are
conservative; this happens if details are not well
thought out causing estimates to be vague. By avoiding
these problems, the foremen consciously lowered the
estimates of the time needed to complete many tasks.
The foremen proposed four
3.5-day shutdowns and ten maintenance linestops for
the annual plan. This request was entered into the
forward 12-month production plan. The linestops were
spaced approximately one per month. The shutdowns were
evenly spaced about two months apart and avoided a
seasonal volume increase.
This plan would require a total
of 4 X 3.5 days + 10 X 0.5 days = 19 shutdown days; it
would represent an improvement of 9 to 9.5 production
days per year because some product changeover time
would also be reduced.
With this strategy, the number
of shutdown work hours a key mechanic could complete
would improve to 4 X 39.5 hours + 10 X 9 = 248 hours
relative to the total shutdown time of 19 X 24 hours =
456 shut-down hours for a mechanic work ratio of 54
percent.
|
248
work hours
456
hours total |
= 0.54 or 54 percent. = 1.47 |
The increase in the
key mechanic work ratio from 38 percent in the
original plan to 54 percent in the revised plan is an
improvement of 42 percent for the key resources.
|
54
percent
38 percent |
=1.42 |
With this plan more of the
original shutdown work would be accomplished by the
existing work area mechanics by completing the external
non-shutdown work between planned downtimes.
The original strategy requires
4000 hours of overtime and about 7200 pay hours from
external resources. The revised strategy results in 2440
hours of overtime and 4100 pay hours from external
resources. Just imagine the improvement in this area’s
annual maintenance budget which directly flows into
operating income.
Furthermore, the number of
shutdown days was reduced from 28 to 19. If this plan
was accepted, annual production could be increased by
2.5 percent. All in all, the revised plan represented a
significant win-win strategy for the plant.
