| By: Ralph
Hedding PE at Strategic
Asset Management Inc.
Editors note:
This is the fifth article in a series of articles by
Dave Army and Ralph Hedding.
Click
here to read Part 1: The
Identification of Work.
Click
here to read Part 2: Prioritization
Click
here to read Part 3: Long Range
Scheduling
Click
here to read Part 4: Look Ahead Scheduling
Click
here to read Part 6: Preventive Maintenance
I was looking for a set of brake
shoes for my Triumph TR-6 last Saturday, going through
boxes and bins of parts accumulated in my garage over
the years. During this search I found a new alternator
for a 1986 Alfa, fuel injectors for a ’76 Z car, a
set of distributor points for a ’64 MGB, but never
did find the brake shoes. I know they are there,
somewhere. This took up most of the daylight hours and
I never got to do the job. All of the “extra”
parts were for cars that had left my possession over
the past twenty years. The “pack rat” in me had
struck again.
During a break in my search, I
thought of the many clients that experienced very
similar scenarios in their day-to-day business of
executing work. In the last issue of The SAMI Times I
discussed the barriers to work productivity; materials
barriers are always significant issues. Solving these
issues are critical, but doing so requires a sound
approach, a managing system, performance indicators, a
plan, and a lot of perseverance. Hand-in –hand with
materials management barriers are issues in
pre-planning work prior to execution. For the purpose
of this discussion, we will assume that a proper
planning and scheduling process is in place, and the
root cause of the barrier is poor materials
management. |
