Slaying the Backlog Dragon

using Industry Best Practices

Advanced Concepts in Planning & Scheduling

Jan. 29th Monday
1:30pm – 2:15pm
Champions V

J o h n Re e ve , A u t h o r, C R L , C M M S C h a m p i o n
Scott Stukel, CMRP
Director, Energy/Utilities & Asset Management
TRM - Total Resource Management
 BSME, EE/CE Minors – Kettering University (formerly GMI)
 28 Years of experience in Engineering, Maintenance and Asset
Management Practices & Technology
 16 Years of Asset Management & EAM Consulting Experience
 Seasoned Asset Management, ISO-55000, IIMM Practitioner
and Advisor
 Former NASA Deep Space Sr. Engineer & Reliability/RCM
Director
 Guinness World Record Holder, Engineered Worlds Largest
Rice Krispies Treat for Charity/Reality TV Program – 10,314 lbs

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Asset Management RELIABILITY LEADERs

Journey CMMS PRACTITIONERS

MX S/W CONSULTANTs

COST/SCHED. ANALYSTs
Before we start, I’ve got questions

What is your role? [ g o i n g a r o u n d t h e r o o m ]

1. Do you have Planners in the organization?

2. Do you have Schedulers?
3. Are they the same person/role?
What if you have neither?

>>> if NO to all of the above….

4. Do we give up all hope of making a plan?

5. Do we forget about making a Schedule?
Planning, Scheduling and Backlog Management
Main Topics
1.All about Backlog
2. Work Priorities – different techniques
3. Planning, the “well planned” Work Order
4. Schedules and Scheduling
5. Measure and Monitor
6.Improve work force productivity and job safety
---------------------------------------------------------
Question:
What exactly is the purpose of an
asset management system?

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Dif feren t T yp es of B a cklo g

Planning Backlog

Scheduling Backlog

Execution Backlog

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Maintenance Backlog --- Measures the work necessary to prevent the
deterioration of an asset or its function that has not been carried out, but has been
identified to be done.
BACKLOG ACCURACY REVIEWS
When reviewing new work requests….a rigorous examination of the work requested needs to be
carried out. This will remove duplicate work, finished work, unwanted work and modifications
(modifications need to go through the 'management of change' process, modifications need
engineering and fiscal approval, a modification is not maintenance work) out of the list.
ACCEPTABLE BACKLOG SIZE
Author #1 About 2 to 3 weeks of backlog would be usual in an effective and well-regulated maintenance environment.
Author #2 Backlog forward resources (Crew weeks equivalent 4 - 5 weeks)
Author #3 A standard backlog of one week may not be a problem for your organization,….
Author #4 Any (work) backlog, other than deferred maintenance, would be bad.
Author #5 To target. Say, about 4 man weeks.
Author #6 Backlog weeks, which list all deferrable work not yet scheduled for completion. Goal: Four-six weeks.
Author #7 Non-outage CM work order count greater than >50 per facility/area (for sites with multiple areas)…would be
bad.
Whereas, elective maintenance work order count > 450 per facility, would be bad.
Author #8 There is no answer. Which is exact or correct for any industry.
Author #9 To help the planning process it is normal to run with approximately 2 man weeks of backlog per technician.
If you are constantly below that figure then you could be over-manned. If the Backlog climbs to 4 man weeks
then consider overtime working or bringing on additional resources.
Author #10 Jack R. Nicholas, Jr., P.E., CMRP stated that the acceptable range of man-weeks of backlog per technician is 3-
5 where 4 is ideal.
Categorizing the Backlog

• What is maintenance backlog made up of?

 Scheduled PM and PdM work
 Corrective maintenance
 Environmental & Regulatory
 HSE related
 Project Improvement & Project Support
 Admin/Business Support

• As Maximo users, we typically group work using the WORKTYPE

field.
• I use the term “trilogy” to identify 3 critical fields: worktype,
priority and status as essential to work management and
analytical reporting. That said, it is very important to put a fair
amount of thought into this design.
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Why Categorize Work?
 Know if you’re keeping up with incoming & existing backlog
 Forecast needed resources; labor, materials, funding (and even justify more
resources!)
 Identify candidates for focused attention, rehab, or investment

Traditionally Backlog has been measured in effort , i.e. weeks, days, hours..
Modern backlog should be measured in effort as well as cost. This topic also
gets into defect and deferred maintenance tracking.

“Our non-critical work backlog is 3760 work hours”

“Our deferred maintenance backlog is $566,700”

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It is extremely important to Trend Backlog Growth
Ma int ena n ce Pla nnin g
”What do you mean I need to think ahead?
I just get the work order,…. go get stuff, and get er done”

1. The Planning step is skipped altogether, ie. Emerg/Urgent

2. Or, this work might be basic enough to just apply basic estimate Plannable
3. Or, this work requires formal planning Work
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What does a good job plan look like?
The level of complexity depends on several factors:
1. The complexity of the task. Tasks which have multiple steps that must be performed in specific
sequence, or contain unusual operations, must be spelled out precisely.
2. What specific data is needed to complete the task with repeatable results? Critical numerical data, such
as torque values and clearances, specific type of lubricant, or special tools, should always be spelled out
and never left to memory.
3. The criticality of the procedure’s outcome. How important is it that the job is done exactly right? As
the tolerance for poor outcome or any variation in the outcome decreases, the need for specific detail
required to ensure a consistent outcome increases sharply.
Maintenance Planning – pieces and parts
The “well planned” work order should contain:
1. Clear description of the work to be done.
2. Location, Asset, or Cost Center/Charge Code where the work is needed
3. Priority/work urgency
4. Work plan steps and craft/material estimates for:
• Crafts(s) required and quantity
• Hours per craft required + number of staff
• Materials/spare parts
• Tools or special equipment needed to perform work
• Do we capture meter data? or, asset condition?
• Safety/hazard, environmental, regulatory requirements
• Level of Risk?
5. Are outside services required?
6. Asset down required?
7. Cost estimate, usually derived automatically from work plan
Guideline: A well planned work order is crucial to quantifying Backlog!
Error Check: No PM-JobPlan records should exist without a craft estimate.
Question: How would you setup an Asset for Run-to-Failure? 14
What are the different types of Schedule?
A. Project Schedule
B. Shutdown-Turnaround-Outage Schedule
C. 4-week Look-ahead
Which type is a best
D. Weekly Schedule fit for asset/facility
E. Daily Plan maintenance?

Unfortunately, many organizations do not

create any schedule at all. Why is this?
Caution: Sometimes the stakeholders start

discussing what scheduling software to

purchase before they establish requirements

 1. Identify the activities
B uild ing a 2. Duration
3. Priority
4. Sequence
P roject 5.
6.
Determine critical path
Apply resource estimates
Sched ule 7. Perform resource leveling

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This is one idea for work prioritization.
You may have a better one.
P la nn er/s ched ule r Ro le

Planner/Scheduler Activities
1. Screening – The Scheduler reviews the work plan and makes any
necessary modifications to priority, additional estimate details, and/or
designation if work will be performed by a specific crew, specialty, or
tradesperson.
2. Build the Schedule – Oversee Backlog & 4-Week schedule.
3. Track schedule adherence
4. Trend backlog growth [Planner & Scheduler role]
5. Coordinate with Operations & Facilitate the weekly scheduling meeting.
6. Support Supervisors/Leads with executing the schedule.

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Doc Palmer Speaks out on Daily Plan Creation

Supervisors should be making a Daily Plan, each day, from the Weekly Schedule

Best practice is to have the crew supervisor create daily schedules as the week unfolds.
Reason: There is too much churn in the daily execution of maintenance to create the daily
schedules a week ahead of time. Therein, the first-line supervisors should create the daily
schedules, assign names, coordinate lockout/tagout (LOTO), and deal with new urgent work
that cannot wait.

Many/some scheduling practitioners and CMMS programs advocate laying out the entire next
week in advance, specifying specific days for each work order, as well as technicians and hour
slots assigned to them. Their reasoning seems to be that because each work order has a time
estimate, the schedule should dictate exactly when the work should be performed for best
coordination. [JR} just because the scheduling software permits this type of thing, doesn’t
mean you should do it.

More Reasons Why

1. Maintenance time estimates are not very accurate for individual work orders.
2. Maintenance is simply not assembly-line work.
3. Further, most plants have a significant amount of new urgent or emergency work.
I’ve got Questions

1. What do you do if maintenance does not follow the schedule?!

2. What do you do if the backlog is not accurate, i.e. the Statuses
are incorrect? Or priorities are missing?
3. How do you code a job which is on HOLD? If it is on hold, how
do you enter remaining hours (as estimate)?
What is your Scheduling Process?
How do you determine
what should be worked on first?

If the backlog has 1000 work orders

what goes on the weekly schedule?
Everything may be important but you
can’t do everything, everyday.

Backlog
Management
Using a
Risk-based
Prioritization
Matrix
Prioritization Matrix – for ranking the open
backlog
Asset Criticality Ranking – example #1
Asset Criticality Ranking – example #2
Other considerations for Matrix
Benefits of Planning & Scheduling

The Business Case for Planning & Scheduling

It’s all about the bottom line… or is it?

How do you respond?

Simply stated, a 10% increase in productivity for a 50 tradesperson
maintenance organization would yield approximately 9,600 more hours to do
work. That’s approximately 5 more tradespersons worth of work output!
– Will that enable you to significantly reduce overtime?
– What could that do to your backlog?
– What initiatives could you undertake? (PM Optimization, Predictive
Program, Capital or Special Projects, etc.)
– What are the secondary benefits? (operations efficiency, increased
equipment availability/throughput)

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Benefits of Planning & Scheduling

The Business Case for Planning & Scheduling

It’s all about the bottom line… or is it?

But wait, there’s more…

Effective maintenance Planning & Scheduling conservatively results in 10-15%
reduction in Inventory Expense.
– For an organization that spends $1M per year in maintenance
materials, this would yield approximately $100-150K savings annually!
– In addition, you can expect to reduce amount of inventory required to
be held in the warehouse, resulting in a reduction of carrying and
handling costs.

Can you afford not to implement effective Planning & Scheduling?

Do you know where your backlog is and have a plan to manage it?

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Path Forward
That all sounds great, but how do we get there?
Here’s How:
1. Understand where you are, where you want to go, and what benefits
you can expect to achieve.
2. Develop a workable implementation plan and get management
behind it.
3. Execute your plan.
4. Train and empower your people.
5. Measure progress and continuously improve.

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What should my ratio of supervisor,
planner/scheduler, or maintenance engineer to
craftsperson be?

• Supervisor to Craftspeople 1:10

• Planner/Scheduler to Craftspeople 1:20
• Maintenance Engineer to Craftspeople 1:40

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Measure your progress to continuously improve

• Institute actionable, realistic metrics & KPIs to measure

progress and identify needs for focused improvement
– “Metrics” is a collective term used to categorize reports, charts,
graphs, etc. intended to measure aspects of an organization’s
activities and performance
• Communicate progress to stakeholders & management and
facilitate action
• Planning & Scheduling Group plays the key role in making it
happen

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Planning & Scheduling Metrics/KPIs
Key Performance Indicators – Work Planning
Name Description Definition Benchmark Current Value Targeted Goal/
Value (if available) Timeframe
Percentage of Planned What percentage of completed work Count of planned work orders > 85% Not available TBD
Maintenance orders were planned divided by count of all work orders

Planning Effectiveness
Ratio of Planned & Scheduled
Maintenance
Difference between planned work Total hours planned divided by +/- 10% Not available TBD
hours and actual hours spent to total maintenance hours
complete work
Ratio of Planned & Scheduled Total hours of planned & scheduled 85-95% Not Available TBD
Maintenance to total hours worked work divided by total hours

Key Performance Indicators – Work Scheduling

Name Description Definition Benchmark Current Value Targeted Goal/
Value (if available) Timeframe
Schedule Compliance* Ratio of work completed to work Work Completed divided by work > 90%, Not Available TBD
scheduled scheduled Upward
trend

PM Schedule Compliance* Ratio of PMs completed to PMs PM work Completed divided by PM > 95%, Not Available TBD
scheduled work scheduled Upward
trend

Scheduling Effectiveness Difference between weekly hours Actual work hours divided by +/- 10% Not Available TBD
scheduled for work and actual hours scheduled hours (weekly)
taken to complete work

* Schedule compliance metric needs to take into account minimum schedule or total availability to discourage schedule manipulation to boost compliance
numbers, initially the weekly schedule should leave 10-15% of available time free to handle emergencies or schedule injections

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 Shifting
focus to
Reliability

Something
to
Remember