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John,

We used a good bit from the Doc Palmer concepts for our P/S program development.  We also used a ton of industry practice as well.  The ideas behind the P/S calculation Doc provides is sound and does work.  The main focus you should have is getting the culture change accepted first.  This will make those calculations work.  If the buy in isn't there and they are not sticking to the best practices, then it won't go according to that.  Otherwise you will not see the results you seek.

Using Doc's method we have shown how the program can be and we have been working toward it since.  We started our path about 2 1/2 years ago.  During this time we have shown the method to the managers and technicians routinely to socialize with them the needs for planning work.  Once we started doing this and analyzing some real world scenarios, with and without the method, we were able to show the progress.  It isn't fully there yet, since COVID occurred and kind of took us down a ladder rung or two.  However, the concepts are still being used.  We have been steadily getting it back into place, though, and are around our target goal of 30% increase in P/S efficiency.  An incremental improvement model will help to stay on track.

We also have shown the use of the calculation in identifying the number of planners needed within our group based on the efficiency we would like to be at.  This has given us a leg up on justifications with our execs.

Hope that is helpful. 

1. It is a guarantee that you will encounter obstacles in implementing P&S. Some of these will be simple and some will be complex. But there are 2 major components for the implementation of P&S that are mission-critical to the success of any robust (i.e. successful) P&S or Work Management program. The first is the organization and its readiness for P&S. I'll start with the organization's support of the changes that are usually required. This is more than just agreeing that P&S is a good idea. It is truly managing and, most importantly, leading the change. The organization has to know and understand that this is not optional. If you don't have this leadership for the changes that are a part of P&S, I would tell you to not waste your time and  money to start. My experience is that more of these P&S initiatives only get a portion of the expected improvements than those that truly succeed. For those that succeed, the leadership is solid, supportive and they actually lead (or drive) the change. The second major component for success is having the right personnel in the right roles. And the Planner role is only one of those. But obviously it is a critical role. I've encountered poor choices made for Planners and they continuously struggle to do best-in-class planning. And I've seen Planners where managers made the right choices for their Planners and they are excellent. In those cases, the implementation usually goes well. You certainly want to make the right choices for Planners but others, e.g. Supervisors, Schedulers, OMCs, etc. are also critical for the overall Work Management system to work well.   
2. Your other question was about improvements in efficiencies. The answer is Yes, these improvements are possible. And where these improvements are realized, go back and read #1. The readiness for change and the right people in the right seats has everything to do with the degree of improvements that are realized.

Wayne, Richard,

Thank you for your contribution to this discussion. Indeed, the 55% comes form Doc Palmer - 30 technicians becomes 47, and that is based on his own observations throughout his career.

But the consistent them I'm seeing in this conversation is leadership's support and commitment up and down the organization. It seems all of our technical know-how has been figured out for quite some time, but the people challenge will never go away and can never be overlooked.

Hi John,

You may experience pushback from execution. These are the folks that will be expected to carry out the plan. These are also the folks that may be used to operating in a reactive environment with less controls.  Implementing planning and scheduling is now guiding the supervisor how to address the maintenance issue. The plan and schedule will tell maintenance supervision the required parts/materials to be used, when they will work the activities, how long the job is expected to take and the required resources. Supervision will be expected to follow the plan.

In my experience the craft in our facility that has been together the longest (the planners and the supervisors) is the most efficient. Why is that? they work as a team. They understand and respect each other's functions in their roles and communicate extremely well. The supervisors also understand the plan is a guide and is not always perfect. Yes, sometimes the scope of a repair will change requiring a new plan or supervision to be agile and requiring them to adapt on the fly. Of course adapting to the change will depend on how drastic the change in scope is. 

Monitor and control the processes to identify and address gaps. Gaps aren't necessarily all that bad. A colleague and friend once told me, "There aren't problems, only opportunities for improvement!" I think he got this from his time in the Air force.  Develop ways to track things like the work orders and scheduling efficiency, different parts of your processes. Make sure you have the right meetings in place to support each functions success.

Something we are working on is implementing feedback. Try to avoid the blame game if the plan is insufficient for some reason or if it could have been better. Have an avenue for supervision to provide feedback on the plan that will be reviewed by the planner. This supports continuous improvement and should help improve the job plan library as well. Feedback could include comments about the materials being correct/incorrect, if the BOM was incorrect and if activity duration/resources should be adjusted. Really anything that could improve the plan the next time around.

Although planning, scheduling and work execution are different functions in the maintenance organization, if you can have them operate as a team I think this will lead to the greatest chance of success. Communication, planning and buy in are key! Good luck!

Hi John,

You may experience pushback from execution. These are the folks that will be expected to carry out the plan. These are also the folks that may be used to operating in a reactive environment with less controls.  Implementing planning and scheduling is now guiding the supervisor how to address the maintenance issue. The plan and schedule will tell maintenance supervision the required parts/materials to be used, when they will work the activities, how long the job is expected to take and the required resources. Supervision will be expected to follow the plan.

In my experience the craft in our facility that has been together the longest (the planners and the supervisors) is the most efficient. Why is that? they work as a team. They understand and respect each other's functions in their roles and communicate extremely well. The supervisors also understand the plan is a guide and is not always perfect. Yes, sometimes the scope of a repair will change requiring a new plan or supervision to be agile and requiring them to adapt on the fly. Of course adapting to the change will depend on how drastic the change in scope is. 

Monitor and control the processes to identify and address gaps. Gaps aren't necessarily all that bad. A colleague and friend once told me, "There aren't problems, only opportunities for improvement!" I think he got this from his time in the Air force.  Develop ways to track things like the work orders and scheduling efficiency, different parts of your processes. Make sure you have the right meetings in place to support each functions success.

Something we are working on is implementing feedback. Try to avoid the blame game if the plan is insufficient for some reason or if it could have been better. Have an avenue for supervision to provide feedback on the plan that will be reviewed by the planner. This supports continuous improvement and should help improve the job plan library as well. Feedback could include comments about the materials being correct/incorrect, if the BOM was incorrect and if activity duration/resources should be adjusted. Really anything that could improve the plan the next time around.

Although planning, scheduling and work execution are different functions in the maintenance organization, if you can have them operate as a team I think this will lead to the greatest chance of success. Communication, planning and buy in are key! Good luck!

• Total labor hours available
• Percent of work scheduled
• Percent schedule compliance
• Percent of labor allocated to PM/PdM
• Percent PM/PdM compliance
• Percent corrective maintenance
• Percent reactive maintenance
• Average number of work orders completed per person per day

The obstacles are many, and the results vary.  Even the most reactive plants will sometimes do an excellent job of planning and scheduling some particular large repair, and some plants with planning and scheduling systems in place don't use them particularly well (but with better results ongoing than those with none).

65% wrench time is a target, but many pieces have to be in place to get there and to stay there consistently. But it isn't necessary to get all the way there to make staffing the planning position worthwhile.  If a planner is put in place to support ten technicians, then their wrench time productivity only has to increase from 35% to 39% to justify the position, not all the way to 65%. And that much improvement is pretty easy.
All those extra technicians won't show up on day one of implementing planning but somebody will, some of the time, and more will follow.

The choice is simply that of choosing to do maintenance on a disorganized, immediate response basis, or of doing on an organized, managed basis. It would seem to be an obvious choice, but many in industry don't even seem to know that maintenance can actually be done on an organized basis. So plant wide education is a primary requirement.

The other major piece is prior knowledge of developing equipment issues before they need an immediate response, so that there is time for planning and scheduling to actually happen. Various kinds of Preventive Maintenance Inspections have to be in place first for planning and scheduling to show real results.

The obstacles are many, and the results vary.  Even the most reactive plants will sometimes do an excellent job of planning and scheduling some particular large repair, and some plants with planning and scheduling systems in place don't use them particularly well (but with better results ongoing than those with none).

65% wrench time is a target, but many pieces have to be in place to get there and to stay there consistently. But it isn't necessary to get all the way there to make staffing the planning position worthwhile.  If a planner is put in place to support ten technicians, then their wrench time productivity only has to increase from 35% to 39% to justify the position, not all the way to 65%. And that much improvement is pretty easy.
All those extra technicians won't show up on day one of implementing planning but somebody will, some of the time, and more will follow.

The choice is simply that of choosing to do maintenance on a disorganized, immediate response basis, or of doing on an organized, managed basis. It would seem to be an obvious choice, but many in industry don't even seem to know that maintenance can actually be done on an organized basis. So plant wide education is a primary requirement.

The other major piece is prior knowledge of developing equipment issues before they need an immediate response, so that there is time for planning and scheduling to actually happen. Various kinds of Preventive Maintenance Inspections have to be in place first for planning and scheduling to show real results.