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A common thread with ‘Lean’, ‘5S’ and other methodologies is the elimination of waste. Here is a basic application of that approach that concentrates on communication and the standardisation of working practices to eliminate ambiguity, purge the non value added and enhance value added.
A Lean approach to Maintenance instructions
The approach targets the standardisation of working methods through the agreed definition of a set of key words and phrases for your operations. Once defined and adopted into your maintenance instructions (typically Planned Maintenance routines), the terminology eliminates ambiguity, ensures better quality feedback and greatly reduces the chances of tasks being misinterpreted or missed.
Background
We all tend to assume that the training we received and the maintenance terminology we grew up with is foolproof. The trouble is we and our teams almost certainly experienced different training and slightly different terminology. This can be demonstrated by the following exercise (apologies to any who have been subject to my training and seen this);
- Give each of your technicians an identical retracting biro.
- Pick a common term from your Planned Maintenance work sheets (e.g. ‘examine’).
- Tell the technicians they have 5 minutes to examine the pen.
- Observe what they do.
I will guarantee you that not all the technicians will do the same ‘examination’ on that pen. Some will strip it down to component parts, some will just look it over and there will be all manner of variations between the two. So what, it’s a pen – so what if it is the most important asset in your plant?
On the basis of this exercise, do you think the PM instructions will be carried out identically by all technicians, if so on what are you basing that assumption? And the elimination of ‘waste’ doesn’t stop there…
- Ever had equipment fail for something that you thought was covered or should have been picked up in a planned or preventive maintenance schedule?
- Ever wondered why the accuracy of your time estimates on jobs varies so much?Ever wondered about the inconsistency in consumable spares (belts, bearings, etc)?
- Ever had a job handed over only to find the failed item refitted?
- Having trouble capturing specific details of failures onto your CMMS?
A one day workshop to help you address this waste
The workshop consists of…
• The problem - communication/ standard practices/ must do rules/ work flows/ records and recording/ customer expectation v delivered and identifying opportunities in your operations.
• Discussing an example of current maintenance instructions and terminology…
o Eliminating the unnecessary / Identifying the necessary
o Identifying key activities
o Define/refine keywords and phrases
• Knock on opportunities
• Planning implementation
o Defining success
o Application Method
o Tools
The Benefits
CSA have applied this method as an integral tool on a number of projects. In all cases the ‘standard’ terminology has quickly been adopted by the maintenance team and has also…
• Ensured repeatable performance/ established and stabilised the level of maintenance carried out
• Optimised and clarified PM routines and defect/rectification reporting
• Improved the clarity of fault capture for cmms/trending
• Enhanced the accuracy of estimated time to do defined work (PM or standard corrective tasks)
• Standardise customer/service expectations/levels
• Clarified handovers between shifts for ongoing jobs
Please use the form to request further information on this course pricing,
venues and dates.
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