The Mystery of the Maintenance Backlog

Explained
By mike gehloff On August 20, 2014 · Leave a Comment

The Question:

 Which of the following groups is overloaded with work, and which one can handle more
work?

 A work group with 250 work orders

 A work group with 50 work orders

Which work group had better performance?

 A ten-person crew that completed 40 work orders

 A ten-person crew that completed 17 work orders

The Answer:

It depends. One cannot gauge the workload facing a group by a simple count of work orders.
Not all work orders are equal; each requires a different amount of effort and resources. Thus
the mystery of the backlog.

The backlog calculation is the trick to unravelling this mystery. 

What Is Backlog?

Backlog is a method of calculating the workload based on required resources and available
resources.

The formula for calculating backlog is:

Backlog = Required Hours / Available Hours

Backlog is expressed in weeks of backlog

By itself, the backlog calculation means very little. But when we look at trends and targets,
we can reach some very helpful conclusions.

Example – Total Backlog Calculation

Suppose you manage a 10-person organization (8 mechanics and 2 electricians) and when
you add up the required man-hours on all work orders, you arrive at 2000 hours total. To
make the math simple, let’s suppose that everyone works 40 hours per week (in reality we
would subtract lunch, breaks, training, etc.).

10 People X 40 Hours = 400 Available Hours Per Week

2000 Hours / 400 Hours = 5 Weeks

Backlog = 5 Weeks

Total Backlog Target

So your next question is going to be, “So what?” What do you do with this backlog
calculation? Let’s look at a couple of targets:

 Total Backlog Target:  4-6 Weeks

My experience shows that you should strive to maintain 4-6 weeks of total backlog at all
times. There are two factors driving this target:

1. Having enough work identified to keep the workforce gainfully engaged.

2. Moving work off of the backlog so that requestors see action being taken on their
requests.

If the backlog is too large or too small, then you will not be able to satisfy both of these
requirements.

Making Decisions Based on Total Backlog

As you can see from the example, the final backlog number can be affected by adjusting
either of the two variables:

 Adjusting Required Hours

 Adjusting Available Hours

Given the two choices, adjusting the Available Hours component is always the better
choice. This can be accomplished through overtime, contracted labor, and strategic changes
in the staffing levels.
 Derivations of Backlog

The base formula provided for backlog calculation (Backlog = Required Hours / Available
Hours) can be adjusted to measure different aspects of the organization. Take a look at the
various permutations of backlog listed below. Each is derived by filtering out the Required
Hours and Available Hours based on the requirements of the work order.

Derivations of the backlog calculation include:

 Total Backlog (calculated in our example)

 Mechanical Backlog
 Electrical Backlog
 PM Backlog
 PdM Backlog
 Corrective Backlog
 Outage/Turnaround Backlog
 Ready (WSCHED) Backlog

How would you adjust the base backlog formula to calculate for each of these derivations?

Planners Remain Focused on FUTURE WORK and the Ready Backlog

 Ready Backlog Target:  Minimum 2 Weeks at All Times

I never like to miss an opportunity to make this point. The prime measure of the planner’s
output is ready backlog – total amount of work that has been planned, parts obtained, and
ready to be placed on the schedule.

When people ask me if it is ok for the planner to do x, y, z – my first answer is always “as
long as we have 2 weeks of ready backlog, then maybe.”  2 weeks of ready backlog gives the
scheduling team the data they need to project a schedule 1 week in advance. Of course, if we
are attempting to project further into the future, then we will require even more ready backlog
to pull this off.

If we believe that planners are focused on future work, then the ready backlog is a solid way
to measure our execution on this belief.
Conclusion

I am not sure that there is any one correct way to measure backlog. What I do know is correct
is to find that shortlist of backlog calculations that work for you, and measure them
consistently. Measuring the size and makeup of your backlog can give you some keen insight
into how you are managing your workload in your maintenance organization.

metimes as the Maintenance Planner we feel responsible for everything and capable of
nothing.  It can be a very frustrating and thankless job at times.   I believe that a good portion
of this frustration comes from the lack of clarity around expectations.  Where do I fit in?
What do they want from me? What can I do? 

Lets take a moment to talk about what you, the Maintenance Planner, can do to
contribute.   Here are a just a few of the ways that you add value to the organization every
day.

3 Ways the Maintenance Planner Adds Value

No. 1:  Maintenance Planners Can Increase Wrench Time

Don’t take this the wrong way, but the typical maintenance worker’s day is filled with
waste.   No fault of their own, but our inability to plan and schedule work causes this waste to
occur.   Take a look at the chart below:
  

We typically consider wrench time:

(definition of wrench time: wrench time is that time spent by maintenance personnel
physically interacting with the equipment, ie- making repairs, doing inspections, doing
lubrication, etc.)

in a typical organization to be 35%.  In reality this number is commonly much lower, even in
the 20% or lower range.

Where does the remainder of the time go?  To many other non-value added activities such as
travel time or coordination delays.  This is you Maintenance Planner!  Meet your enemy.

Your contribution is to shrink as many of these other factors as possible and add them back to
the wrench-time component.  Research shows that we can achieve wrench-time values as
high as 50% or 60% with a focused approach to planning and scheduling.

Maintenance Planner you are the accelerant!  You make a team working at 30% efficiency
work at 50% efficiency….that’s like your adding the horsepower of .7 workers for every
worker on your team.!

Way No. 2:  You Can Increase Maintenance Schedule Compliance

Better-planned jobs yield better executed work.  It is simple as that.  The more research and
detail that goes into each job increases the accuracy of our time estimates, which increases
our ability to comply with our schedule.
The end result of schedule compliance is we get more of the most important work done in
any given week.  This will reduce (or at least minimize) the impact of future failures.  The
devils in the details here: greater efforts by the maintenance planner produce better time
estimates, which enable superior execution.

No. 3:  You can contribute to a Safer more Efficient Workplace

Sometimes the job of the Maintenance Planner can seem as a clerical nightmare.  My job is to
fill out the paperwork and account for parts and people’s time.  WRONG!

Here is what you add to the equation as a Maintenance Planner:

Safer Execution Because you identify the hazards in advance

Efficient Execution Because you specify the people, tools, and parts
that will be needed.

Less Rework Because you collaborate with the workers on the

best methods to be used when the work is
executed.

Not a bad contribution.

Conclusion

Its easy to loose our way in the this profession we have chosen.  Few really understand how
we fit in, and it is so easy to become distracted by the turmoil that surrounds us each
day.   Save this short list to somewhere safe and pull it out on those days when have one
of those days when you cant remember why you agreed to take this crazy job in the first
place.

Tagged with: Equipment Maintenance Plan • known best practices • maintenance best practices •
maintenance management • Maintenance Planning • maintenance procedures • Maintenance
Scheduling • Wrench Time

Maintenance Planning and Scheduling?

With all of these Emergencies?
By mike gehloff On May 7, 2014 · 1 Comment
 2 Reasons Why a Maintenance Work
Schedule is Important:

Ask any manager working in an industrial setting if the would like to see a weekly work
schedule developed and they will of course reply to the affirmative.
Now sit them down and explain the amount of effort and coordination that it will take to
achieve this and most will run for the hills as if  both the Hatfields and McCoys are chasing
them.

The individual activities we carry out to develop and execute a weekly maintenance schedule
are actually quite straightforward and simple, but the coordination and discipline required to
carry them out represents of the biggest challenges facing the organization.

So why bother?   There are two simple reasons that we must develop and execute a weekly
maintenance schedule to the best of our abilities.  We do this in order to:

1. Ensure that the Most Important Work Gets Completed First

2. Maximize Wrench-Time

How do you figure out what is the ‘most important work’ for Maintenance
Scheduling?

In theory this would be simple.  Make a list:

 List all of the work that must be completed by the maintenance department (corrective,
construction, preventive, predictive, etc.),
 And if we have a system for prioritizing this work, then we should be able to pick list these
jobs in order of importance.
 If we had such a list, the we would logically pick from the top of the list each time we needed
to find something for our people to do.

The problem with this idea, is that this list of prioritized work is quite long and complex, and
quite often- shifting based on recent events.

It is very difficult for any individual to have a complete and clear grasp on priorities at any
given moment.   For example:

Maintenance supervisors who find themselves in a position of assigning work to their people
will assign what is fresh and recent in their minds, but not necessarily the top job from our
prioritized list.
Through the use of a weekly scheduling process, we force the organization to take a moment
to look at the entire prioritized list;

both operations and maintenance together, and come up with a weekly maintenance schedule
that represents both their shared priorities as well as their capabilities for the coming week.

When we make it up on the fly, the most recent flare up floats to the surface, which is not
necessarily the most strategically important activity to be performed.

What is Wrench Time?

Be very careful who you talk to about wrench time and how you approach it.   If you are not
careful, you will end up with a situation where the top of the org chart thinks that our
maintenance technicians do not work hard enough, and a bottom of the org chart that thinks
you are unjustly calling them lazy.   Neither is actually true.

Wrench time is defined as:

That portion of a tradesperson’s day that actually spent affecting the assets in a positive way
(in its simplest form – a wrench on the equipment).   Most estimates place this percentage of
time in the 20%-30% range, with top performers often considered as those who operate in
the 50% – 55% range.

So even amongst the best organizations, at least 45% of the time is lost to non-wrench-time
activities such as:

 travel time,
 trips to the storeroom,
 waiting for instructions,
 waiting for equipment, etc.

We will never completely eliminate these activities, but with discipline, we can shrink them
and bring our performance into 50% range.

What is one of the common traits amongst those top performers?   They all develop a
weekly maintenance work schedule that is agreed upon, widely communicated, and
followed as closely as possible.

The worst thing in the world you can do is to hand a tradesperson one work order and say
“come find me when you are done with that one and I will give you your next
assignment.”  Engaging your employees with this lack of the big-picture leads to big losses in
productivity and morale (and you will be lucky to operate at the 20% wrench-time marker).

Develop a schedule that covers 100% of available time and actively (face to face)
communicate this schedule to the effected employees in advance, and you will automatically
see a boost of productivity within your organization.
What About Emergencies?

The counter-argument to the “Schedule to 100% Availability scenario is: “how will we
handle emergencies?”  The answer to this is quite simple if you can accept a few simple facts
about planning and scheduling in emergencies.

Fact Number 1:  It is ok to break the schedule – as long as it is done in a formal and
controlled fashion.   Have clear definitions of what is an emergency and what is not.   If you
add an emergency job to the schedule – something must come off.  Lets just control it and ask
why – maybe we can do something to prevent this particular emergency from occurring again
in the future.

Fact Number 2:  We are not going to achieve 100% schedule compliance.  From a young
age, we are conditioned to look for perfection in our performance.  The weekly scheduling
process is one that requires us to be open and honest about our performance.  More desirable
than 100% compliance (which is usually a sign of making the numbers fit the crime) is a 5-
10% improvement over last year’s performance.

Conclusion:

  Make no mistake about it, the discipline required to develop and execute a weekly
maintenance schedule is significant, and quite possibly the hardest thing that we have do to
within the maintenance organization.   We always feel like we can cut a corner today – and
catch back up tomorrow.  Sadly tomorrow never seems to come.

 
 

When doing something that is difficult, it is often beneficial to remember why we are doing
it.   Maximizing wrench time and prioritizing work will lead to asset reliability performance
that we can all be proud of.

My thoughts regarding job descriptions for Maintenance Planners and Supervisors go back to
basics and ask - "What are we trying to achieve with the roles these people fill?"

My take on the aim of maintenance is to -

1. keep operating equipment in the condition to deliver full design duty (reliability),

2. ensure plant and equipment run properly when it is required for operation
(availability),

3. correct our equipment and machines when the design duty cannot be achieved and
then return them to design specification (capability), and

4. maintain assets most profitably for the life of the organisation. (life cycle profit).

The maintenance crew, Maintenance Planner and Maintenance Supervisor need to work with
Operations (their customer) to meet those aims simultaneously.

A Maintenance Department's primary duty then becomes is to - "Provide equipment

capability, reliability and availability to Operations through application of the maintenance
service for the greatest operating profit." You might think it is okay use 'for the least
operating cost' instead of 'for the greatest operating profit'. But if you ask for cost
minimisation, people will reduce every single cost they can, instead of looking for the
opportunity of doing things smarter and make more profit.

The Maintenance Planner role is to support these aims through doing their duties. A
Maintenance Planner's responsibilities would include the associated work necessary to do
their primary duties of:

 Maximising operating profit through using planned maintenance where it is more

effective than alternatives. (A possible measure of success might be ‘number of
planned jobs verses the total number of jobs’ in a week or month)

 Maximising equipment reliability through using planned maintenance most

effectively. (A possible measure of success might be ‘how long each piece of
equipment ran at full design capability after planned maintenance was done’.)
  Quickly returning equipment to design capability through using planned maintenance
most effectively. (A possible measure of success might be 'time to repair from the
second the equipment stopped to the second after it was recommissioned, tested and
proven stable in-service’.)

 Maximising equipment availability through most effectively using planned

maintenance. (A possible measure of success might be ‘lost production time due to
planned maintenance per week or month’.)

You can now list the secondary duties needed to support each of the primary duties.

From the above primary duties, one of the Planner's secondary duties would include
managing maintenance data collection and information gathering to more effectively provide
the planned maintenance service in future. This does not mean the act of typing it into the
CMMS. It means the analysis of data in the CMMS to learn how to improve the service
delivery. They do not need to enter it if they don't have the skills or time, but they are
responsible to get it entered so they can then analysis it as appropriate.

One important item of management with regards Maintenance Planners is to make sure they
report to the Maintenance Manager and not the Maintenance Supervisor. If they report to the
Supervisor they will end up 'fighting the daily fires' and not planning for the future.
Delivering a successful, trouble-free future is where they need to focus to produce the most
benefits for the organisation. The maintenance planner focuses on making next week and next
month a success. The maintenance supervisor focuses on making today and this week a
success. Clearly those two people need to work together closely if maintenance is to be run
efficiently, for least cost.

For the Maintenance Supervisor role the same logic applies as it does for the Planner.
Their main duties are to ensure the crew works most effectively (least truly necessary cost)
and efficiently (least truly necessary manning levels) to meet the aims of the maintenance
department.

Their primary duties would become -

 Maximising operating profit through using the maintenance crew where it is more
profitable than using alternatives. By implication, if alternatives to the crew were used
then they would need to be supervised to maximise the profit for the organisation. (A
possible measure of success might be to trend each week or month the 'cost of
maintenance / number of men in the crew'.)

 Maximising equipment reliability through using the maintenance crew most

effectively. (A possible measure of success might be to trend each week or month
'number of breakdowns / number of men in the crew'.)

 Quickly returning equipment to design capability through using the maintenance crew
most effectively. (A possible measure of success might be 'total time to repair all
equipment / number of men in the crew'.)
  Maximising equipment availability through most effectively using the maintenance
crew. (A possible measure of success might be ‘operating cost due to repair, including
knock-on costs and lost opportunity costs’.)

The secondary duties flow from the primary duties and this is where you would include
things such as coaching/mentoring people; specialist technical support/guidance they need to
provide; determining training needs of persons in the crew; and so on.

The other query you mentioned was ‘who should buy the day-to-day maintenance parts?’ By
'day-to-day parts' I assume you mean materials for unplanned jobs and breakdowns.

I would recommend that materials for unplanned/breakdown jobs are not ordered by the
Maintenance Planner. The Maintenance Planner is focused on making the future successful.
They need to be working on planning and preparing jobs that are to be done in a couple of
weeks and more ahead. That precludes maintenance planners getting involved in daily issues.

The people who are responsible for managing and supervising the day-to-day issues should
buy the parts needed to address day-to-day issues. That will be the Supervisor, the Team
Leading Hand and even the Maintenance Scheduler. Leave the Maintenance Planner alone
when it comes to sorting our daily problems—that is not part of their duty statement!

Hope the above helps you.

My best regards to you,

Mike Sondalini
Managing Director
Lifetime Reliability Solutions HQ