09.

3 - THE PRINCIPLES OF
MAINTENANCE
SCHEDULING

MECHANICAL ENGINEERING DEPARTMENT

NATIONAL INSTITUTE OF TECHNOLOGY – BANDUNG
Effective maintenance scheduling can reduce production
downtime. Improve your maintenance and shutdown scheduling
by implementing six principles of scheduling:
Principle 1: Develop job plans that provide details such as number of
persons required, minimum skill level, and estimated labor hours.
Principle 2: Adhere to weekly and daily time schedules. Prioritize work.
Principle 3: Forecast a weekly labor hours schedule for each crew based
on technician skills available for the week.
Principle 4: The weekly schedule assigns work for every labor hour
available. Use the details of job plans to match labor hours available with
estimated labor hours.
Principle 5: The maintenance crew supervisor schedules and assigns daily
work. Use current job progress, job priority, and other relevant information
as a guide for planning the daily schedule.
Principle 6: Measure schedule success. Use schedule compliance with the
one week schedule as the measure of scheduling effectiveness.
Principle 1:
Plan For Lowest Required Skill Level

Job plans providing number of persons required, lowest

required craft skill level, craft work hours per skill level,
and job duration information are necessary for advance
scheduling.
Principle 2:
Schedules and Job Priorities Are Important

Weekly and daily schedules must be adhered to as closely

as possible. Proper priorities must be placed on new
work orders to prevent undue interruption of these
schedules.
Principle 3:
Schedule from Forecast of Highest Skills Available

A scheduler develops a one

week schedule for each crew
based on a craft hours
available forecast that shows
highest skill levels available,
job priorities, and
information from job plans.
Consideration is also given
to multiple jobs on the same
equipment or system and of
proactive versus reactive
work available.
 Principle 4:
Schedule for Every Work Hour Available

The one week schedule assigns

work for every available work
hour. The schedule allows for
emergencies and high priority,
reactive jobs by scheduling a
sufficient amount of work
hours on easily interrupted
tasks. Preference is given to
completing higher priority
work by under-utilizing
available skill levels over
completing lower priority
work.
Principle 5:
Crew Leader Handles Current Day’s Work

The crew supervisor

develops a daily schedule
one day in advance using
current job progress, the
one week schedule and new
high priority, reactive jobs
as a guide. The crew
supervisor matches
personnel skills and tasks.
The crew supervisor
handles the current day’s
work and problems even to
rescheduling the entire
crew for emergencies.
Principle 6:
Measure Performance with Schedule Compliance

Wrench time is the primary

measure of workforce
efficiency and of planning
and scheduling
effectiveness. Work that is
planned before assignment
reduces unnecessary delays
during jobs and work that is
scheduled reduces delays
between jobs. Schedule
compliance is the measure
of adherence to the 1-week
schedule and its
effectiveness.
THANK YOU