Source: STANDARD HANDBOOK OF PLANT ENGINEERING

CHAPTER 2.3
PLANNING AND CONTROLS
William N. Berryman
Engineering Consultant
Morgan Hill, California

SCHEDULING 2.11
COST CONTROL 2.11
RELIABILITY AND MAINTAINABILITY 2.12
BENCHMARKING 2.12
MAINTENANCE MEASUREMENT 2.13

SCHEDULING

Scheduling of work depends on the nature of the business, personnel availability, equipment
availability, and unexpected events. Effective scheduling of maintenance personnel in a per-
fect situation is simple. It is called area maintenance. That means to schedule the proper crafts
to a specific area and complete all the maintenance tasks, rather than scheduling them to
move from area to area, then back to the previous area to accomplish tasks on adjacent equip-
ment.
Travel time is lost time in most cases, but in an effective program it can be used as an
opportunity to identify other maintenance issues, as long as the area maintenance methodol-
ogy is employed.
Scheduling with your internal managers (“customers”) will reduce false starts. Using good
scheduling tools and communicating your planned schedule will reduce scheduling conflicts
with production, operations, and other customer-planned activities. Follow these simple steps:

1. Understand whom your “customers” are (stakeholders).

2. Acquire their schedules.
3. Understand their special needs.
4. Develop a plan.
5. Develop a schedule.
6. Provide customers with a horizon schedule of at least two months.

Develop a “lessons learned” policy and use this tool to improve your scheduling tech-
niques.

COST CONTROL

Maintenance cost control is accomplished by the following means:

1. Understanding the number of equipment sets
2. Defining criticality, so that noncritical or low-cost equipment will not be maintained and
only critical and high-value equipment will be maintained

2.11

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 PLANNING AND CONTROLS

2.12 EFFECTIVE MAINTENANCE MANAGEMENT

3. Proper scheduling of activities (area maintenance—see “Scheduling”).

4. Using predictive technologies appropriately
5. Collecting data for statistical process control (SPC) to evaluate mean time between fail-
ures (MTBF), cost of maintenance, failure rates, and so on
6. Performing root-cause analysis on failures to develop various approaches to maintaining
the equipment, or providing training as required to improve skills based on new technolo-
gies, or identifying poorly designed equipment to be replaced.

RELIABILITY AND MAINTAINABILITY

Reliability is the ability of equipment to function as designed for a given period of time. The
criterion for how long a period the equipment operates at its design specification without fail-
ure is mean time between failures (MTBF).
Reliability metrics for equipment can be established using reliability models. This can be
accomplished either by measuring the equipment device (e.g., air handler, air compressor, or
boiler) or breaking down the equipment into major components and measuring the “parent”
and “children” (e.g., air handler = parent; motor, coil, valves, fan, etc. = children), then defin-
ing the expected life of the components or device and plotting these failures against equip-
ment life expectancy and comparing the information.
You can also contact the manufacturer and request the MTBF data on that specific equip-
ment. Alternatively, benchmarking for the required data can provide the equipment life-
expectancy information needed to build a model. Once the model has been established, the
MTBF data can be extracted from maintenance records, or a computerized maintenance
management system (CMMS) can be set up to provide the data.
Maintainability is the ability of equipment to allow access to perform the required mainte-
nance tasks. This is usually a function of the equipment design and location and any special
tools or fixtures required for access, calibration, lubrication, or other maintenance activities.
Equipment that is inaccessible or even difficult to access is a prime cause of reduced main-
tainability. Generally, equipment should be designed for ease of maintenance. Maintainabil-
ity issues will arise when the equipment is installed or when other equipment is installed
adjacent to it. Make sure all access points are clear; if height of access points is an issue, for
example, ensure that catwalks and lift devices are properly positioned for ease of access.

BENCHMARKING

Maintenance benchmarking is accomplished in two ways, internally and externally. Internal

benchmarking is accomplished within the company, usually against other similar facilities.
External benchmarking is accomplished by benchmarking against another company in a sim-
ilar area.
Benchmarking takes many forms, but in the maintenance environment the areas bench-
marked are usually similar. In most cases, benchmarking begins by defining the goal. Is it
based on cost, equipment reliability, or the number of personnel required to accomplish
equipment maintenance tasks?
The second phase is the data collection method. Is it based on time studies, survey results,
field data collected, or CMMS data results? These are as varied as methods allow. The third
phase is deciding where the data is going to be collected, externally or internally. The fourth
phase is deciding how you are going to use the results.
It is extremely important to plan benchmarking activities well:

1. Keep the goals in mind.

2. Develop a standard for information collection.

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 PLANNING AND CONTROLS

PLANNING AND CONTROLS 2.13

3. Properly target areas for benchmarking.

4. Use standard methods for compiling information.
5. Understand what the final results will affect.
6. Develop a plan to use the information correctly.

MAINTENANCE MEASUREMENT

Measuring maintenance has many facets. It is important to define what is to be measured,

how it is to be measured, why it is to be measured, and how the information is to be used.
Following are some measurements and recommendations for using the data.
1. You might measure preventive maintenance (PM) procedures scheduled versus completed.
The purpose of this measurement is to gauge the performance of PM activities against a
schedule. This information will help determine whether your support staff is large enough.
If you are unable to perform 100 percent of PM every month, your staff is too small; or, if
you measure by craft (e.g., electrician or mechanic) you may find an imbalance in craft
staffing.
2. You might measure corrective activities on equipment. This will provide MTBF informa-
tion and provide data to substantiate whether your PM program is effective. It may also
define such issues as lubrication and incorrect power input parameters (voltage, frequency,
power factor, etc.).
3. Cost measurement is another important type of metric. Measuring the costs of maintaining
equipment is very important and can be accomplished through good recordkeeping or
CMMS architecture. Knowing how long a repair activity takes, what parts are used, the
cost of parts, and the actual downtime are important to good cost measurement.

These are just a few of the parameters, but the list can be as long as the tasks require.

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