Richard Palmer and Associates

Richard Palmer and Associates has produced the award-winning Maintenance Planning and Scheduling Handbook (MPSH) Scheduler to speed creation of a weekly schedule using the methodology of the handbook. The spreadsheet allows you to compile the best schedule for each crew’s labor hours in a matter of minutes.

The MPSH Scheduler is simply an “app” for your company’s CMMS. Although the scheduling process outlined in Chapter 6 can be easily executed with paper forms, the MPSH Scheduler is simply an Excel spreadsheet with some macros to manipulate the work orders.

Instead of spending three or four hours manually scheduling at the end of the week, the spreadsheet allows you to compile the best schedule for each crew’s labor hours in a matter of minutes. You can then print out the schedule for each crew or send them an Excel spreadsheet. The spreadsheet even prepares a SQL of the schedule you could use to select out the work orders in the CMMS itself.

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The accompanying presentation shows the relative benefits of planning versus scheduling maintenance work. Effective planning and scheduling both depart from traditional views of either activity.  continue reading…

Evaluating maintenance performance with schedule compliance helps plants manage effective and efficient maintenance. This presentation uses cause maps to illustrate common causes of low schedule compliance and then relates a manufacturing facility’s specific experience with schedule compliance, specifically within a coal-fired steam generation unit. continue reading…

It really is all about scheduling. Planning work orders alone does not improve productivity because of Parkinson’s Law. This law states that work expands to fill the time available. This means that without some schedule guidance, we wouldn’t increase our productivity simply through having efficiently planned jobs available to us. continue reading…

Using planning to coordinate the forces within the maintenance department dramatically increases crew productivity.  The accompanying presentation illustrates why planning makes a difference in routine maintenance and then applies these principles to plant outages, also known as shutdowns. The presentations covers: continue reading…

The accompanying chart shows the six principles of maintenance planning. Each principle covers a fundamental crossroads type issue. The principles cover protecting the planners, focusing the planners, utilizing equipment files, the accuracy of time estimates, the level of detail required in a job plan, and the concept of wrench time and its proper measurement. The second chapter of the handbook thoroughly covers these vital issues of maintenance planning and the chart itself fills the inside front cover of the handbook.

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The accompanying chart shows the six principles of maintenance scheduling. The principles are not so much fundamental issues as they are part of a framework. The principles cover the craft skill and time estimates from job plans required, the credibility of the priority system, the week as the proper advance timeframe, the filling of 100% of the labor hours, the role of the supervisor in the daily schedule, and the measurement of schedule compliance. The third chapter of the handbook thoroughly covers these vital issues of maintenance scheduling and the chart itself fills the inside back cover of the handbook. continue reading…

Let us presume you have superb communication and teamwork.  You have good storerooms and ready spares.  Technicians have first class hand tools and a tool room plus equipped shops in which to work.  Training is conducted at all levels and many improvements are made to work processes.  There is also a CMMS with an equipment database.  Management is supporting PM, PdM, and project work.  Work order planning (including scheduling) is supposed to bring it all together.  But how do you measure the leverage of work order planning?  How much does it help? continue reading…

WIIFM means “What’s in it for me?”

We must know why a craftsperson, a supervisor, a manager, and a company would want maintenance planning if we are to successfully implement a planning program. What is in it for each of these persons or levels in the organization? continue reading…

We have heard a lot about “wrench time” in the last few years.  Increasing productive work is the objective of planning and scheduling and is best measured by so-called wrench time.  You do not necessarily have to measure wrench time to obtain the benefit of planning and scheduling, but you could if you wanted to fairly easily in-house.  This presentation discusses the concept of wrench time and how you could go about running a quick in-house study. continue reading…