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
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