Whitepaper

Best Practices for

Planners and Schedulers

One of the most effective ways to improve plant maintenance operations and wrench time is to
streamline your organization’s planning and scheduling process. Average wrench time performance is
between 25-35 percent, with top performing companies in the 50-60 percent range.

Proper planning and scheduling greatly improves worker productivity, thus reducing downtime, the
period of time that production is not occurring, which translates to lost revenue. Downtime is almost
always the result of an unplanned event — such as malfunctioning equipment — and it can dramatically
affect companies in the form of supply chain disruption, credibility damage, and lost profits.

To maximize uptime and equipment reliability, planners and schedulers must first focus on getting
the most work out of the fewest resources, and then on establishing practices that will reduce reactive
maintenance. Craft time can be wasted during an average day when:

• Materials and tools are not available at the job site. This means time lost going to the warehouse to
get what is needed for the job.
• Safety measures are not taken prior to the start of a job, causing craft personnel to wait around until
safety measures are completed. Likewise, a safety hazard can also be created if tasks are done out
of order.
• The schedule is not posted or communicated well, so crafts are unclear on what job is next.
• Break-in work interrupts routine maintenance activity in mid-cycle.

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Effective planners and schedulers take actions to eliminate these time wasters. One of the most effective
ways to improve wrench time for technicians is a well-executed planning and scheduling process, which
provides visibility to all personnel involved in the process. Developing a focused improvement plan
may include:

• Improving the Bill of Material quality

• Enhancing visibility and coordination with production
• Improving the communication of assignments to craft personnel
• Ensuring materials and tools are available
• Verifying work package and instructions are readily available

By following these best practices, planners and schedulers can concentrate on the ultimate goal,
improving wrench time and in effect, generating greater profits for a business. Furthermore, they follow
best practices to simplify the planning and scheduling process so their time is more effective.

Best Practices of an Effective Planner

Planners are responsible for ensuring that all the materials, equipment, permits and resources are
available prior to a job being scheduled. Other factors to consider include:

Keeping data in SAP

It is vital that a single CMMS, such as SAP, is used throughout the organization. By accounting for craft
hours, materials and equipment in one system, planners can ensure an effective maintenance process
that can be measured. Time is not wasted by exporting data to another system and back into SAP.
Additionally, it provides transparency throughout the organization so that all departments are aligned.

Arranging for parts and permits to be ready

Equipment, permits, tools, and materials should be available for craftsman before any job starts.

Reusing existing task lists and Bills of Materials (BOMs)

Planners can spend hours looking up materials and scoping for documents for a routine work order.
Often times this data will need to be repeatedly entered into similar work orders. By creating a task list or
BOM boiler plate, planners can create a more informed plan and save time by not repeating work.

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Ensuring knowledge transfer

A proven planning and scheduling platform gives all departments access to the same work flow best
practice methods. It also helps avoid loss of knowledge when a senior worker retires or leaves the
company.

Concentrating on future work only

As a rule, planners should be disciplined and only focus on upcoming work. Break-in work should be left
to schedulers.

Best Practices of an Effective Scheduler

Schedulers are responsible for ensuring there are trades available to complete a planned job during
the schedule duration. They should also communicate the work plan and any changes across the
organization. Other factors to consider include:

Keeping data in SAP

By scheduling jobs in SAP, schedulers can determine when and where various crafts should perform
work. This allows schedulers to ensure that tasks are completed in the correct order for safety and
efficiency.

Scheduling based on equipment availability

An effective scheduler ensures that the materials and services needed to complete the job are available.
If materials and services have not been properly planned, then tradesmen will be unable to complete the
job on schedule.

Scheduling craftsman at maximum capacity

Over-extending the workforce can contribute to confusion and missed opportunities on the plant floor.
Effective schedulers assign work evenly between crafts to ensure that time is not squandered and
production is not interrupted.

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Scheduling and publishing jobs and coordination with Craft/

Operations/Production
Publishing the schedule for execution and ensuring communication transparency keeps work visible and
builds trust across the functions. Schedulers should post the schedule in a common area and clearly
communicate the plan across the organization.

Creating a break-in team

“Firefighting,” or dealing with unplanned work, is expensive and negatively affects wrench time, so it
should be eliminated as much as possible. Companies can do this by creating a break-in team that
focuses solely on unplanned maintenance so that routine maintenance never gets pushed to the back
burner.

Summary
Effective planning and scheduling of plant maintenance resources helps improve strategies for
preventive maintenance and asset management. An effective best-in-class plant maintenance planning
and scheduling solution can help increase worker productivity, ensure knowledge transfer between
experienced workforce and new hires, and enable cross-functional collaboration.

Centralizing your plant maintenance scheduling activities through a comprehensive solution that works
in SAP can help save time and effort because you can visually organize all project scheduling, take
advantage of a project overview map, and reduce the amount of overlooked or lost orders through
accurate reports.

About Prometheus Group

Prometheus Group is an enterprise application software company specializing in the usability and
user adoption of SAP Plant Maintenance. Developed jointly with end users, our software enhances
the customer experience with intuitive functionality, graphical visualization, and simple processes. An
SAP Partner, Prometheus Group is committed to developing certified applications that extend and add
value to SAP solutions across industries and business processes. For more information, visit www.
prometheusgroup.com.

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