Want More Wrench Time

May 26, 2009
(Planning and Scheduling)

How long does it take a technician to get a missing part when the job has either not been planned or is poorly planned? (By the way… all, yes ALL, jobs are planned… It’s just that some are planned better than others). Let’s see… what exactly is the process for the technician in an organization that has a poor planning, scheduling and work execution process?

wrench time roadblocks

 

 

Okay, I admit, this may not be the exact sequence of events or time spent during each event, and there was a very feeble attempt at some humor in there. The fact remains, that if the job isn’t planned and then scheduled, the potential for delay is tremendous. I haven’t seen too many instances where the tech could get a 20 minute job done in less than an hour, but as you can see in my example above, it doesn’t take much to get a technician—and there may be more than one on a particular job—off task. What may have been a minor oversight can cost you big, because those seemingly minor individual time losses tend to compound on themselves and add up in a hurry. There are as many methods and techniques to implement and institutionalize an effective Planning and Scheduling system as there are steps for the mechanic the get his parts-the key is following one.

Your maintenance tip for today is that you can have an immediate impact on your company’s bottom line by managing your Planning, Scheduling and Work Execution Practices.

Tip provided by Dave Koelzer
VP Process Improvement
Dimension Technology Solutions, Inc.
http://www.dts-global.com

 

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Comments (1)

  • Dave,

    Your descriptions of time wasted by technicians is not too far off. If this were a real list of sequenced events a technician performed trying to accomplish a job, I see a lack of supervision too. However, you are correct that planned work goes much further toward efficiency and effectiveness than unplanned work. Your scenario requires a real paradigm shift at this pretend site and that is the most difficult thing of all to accomplish. Thanks for your tip. I enjoyed it and learned from it.

    Randy Fizer

    1) Posted 9:11 am, 04 June 2009 by Randy Fizer

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