All Member Open Forum

Although I've found great ideas and experience on ratios of RE/Techs, ME/Techs, or MM/Techs, I haven't been able to find staffing ratios for hourly Maintenance Techs to Plant or industry.  I understand there are variables that impact this ratio, such as current skill-sets of craftsmen, maturity of the organization and team, development and use of processes and repeatable procedures, and the degree to which we are reactive or proactive.

We are a young food processing plant, with  the honeymoon of inherent reliability ending.  We've built maintenance methods from the ground up, and in the beginning, had to accept less-than-hungry Technicians.  As our team is leveling off, and the pruning continues, I feel more excited about our future than ever before.  We're blessed to have steady business during these changing times, and I continue to make business cases for additional staff.  As I campaign for hiring to fill key roles, the conversations are difficult due to hiring freezes, or at least hiring restrictions during this period of shelter in place.

Further constraints are improper initial hierarchy setup, no CMMS SME on site, and no Maintenance Planner.  Getting clean data in, and actionable reports out is excruciating.  Therefore, running reports that would assist in my business cases is absent.  We are using M3 by infor for our CMMS.  I'm looking for sources or benchmarks from the M&R community that would help me underscore proper staffing levels.  Even templated worksheets would give me a launch pad.  One metric I remember seeing was hourly techs/plant hourly employees.  Seems like that ranged from 15% to 30%, depending on industry.  Even 15% seemed high to me.  By that metric, I'm currently staffed at 3.7%.

All inputs are very appreciated.  Thank you.

------------------------------
David Smith, CMRP, REC
Plant Maintenance Manager
Daily's Premium Meats
------------------------------

Hi David:    I was in a bit of a similar situation as the leader of a reliability improvement project across 22 dairy product manufacturing sites at Fonterra, here in NZ.  I asked Christer Idhammar from IDCON, how I could provide justification for hiring more craftspersons at one of the sites that appeared to be grossly understaffed.  He said you can use your work order backlog trend.   Trouble was, we didn't have a backlog trend and we weren't doing all the work using work orders.   He said that if the backlog trend is going up and you need to hire contractors to knock it back down to a reasonable level, and this process repeats itself, then you probably need to hire additional staff to keep the backlog within your target, e.g. 4 weeks worth of work (includes, PMs, corrective and emergency work orders).  
As an alternative we decided to figure out what capital value of plant per craftsperson was being maintained.   The average across 21 of the sites was around $17Million/craftsperson  (this depends on the type of plant being maintained so varies by industry type).  The plant where we wanted to hire the extra permanent staff had a ratio of $26Million/craftsperson.   The GM gave us permission to hire additional permanent craftspersons, based on the Equipment Replacement Value per craftsperson ratio differential with other sites.    Later on in my career, i was became aware of the Utilisation measure for craftspersons.   If the GM had asked me what the utilisation of craftspersons was at any plant i wouldn't have been able to tell him.  We didn't measure that either.   If we were measuring it, i'm certain it would have been in the 25 - 30% range.    World class utilisation for daily /weekly work is around 65% and is 85% for shutdowns.   If the GM knew what best practise was he might have responded to my request by saying, you can hire another planner to increase your utilisation through better planning and scheduling  along with improved scheduling with operations.    He could have told us we could hire additional contract craftspersons to offset the Equipment Value Maintained/ craftsperson ratio.............UNTIL .......we improved our utilisation.  as our utilisation improved we would be required to drop off the contractors, but in the meantime we would be able to control our backlog and get through the work in a timely manner.     Fortunately he didn't ask us about our utilisation, but you need to be prepared to answer the question if asked and you should know it, as a key output indicator of your planning & scheduling efficiency.   I've included two slides.....one that demonstrates the simple method for figuring the Utilisation by observation.  This is derived from a great paper in the SMRP body of knowledge that you can purchase for $40.   The second slide shows the improved utilisation and potential for doubling output of of craftspersons.    Establish some targets, minimum and maximum for your work order backlog.........e.g.  two weeks minimum and four weeks maximum, and of course, very short backlog for high priority work.   This is all fundamental stuff in work flow management.    You need about 25 measurements for utilisation to have a statistically semi-valid measure.   the SMRP paper describes it.    If you have some other companies in the same industry that can share Equipment Replacement Value Maintained / craftsperson you can compare your value with an industry average.........again depends, as you've stated, on the maturity level of the other industry sites.    Good luck.

------------------------------
Rob Probst
Skills4Work Limited
Ohope
------------------------------

Rob, thank you for responding.  I'l  dig into this and if you don't mind, may respond with follow-up.

Respectfully,

------------------------------
David Smith, CMRP, REC
Plant Maintenance Manager
Daily's Premium Meats
------------------------------

Original Message:
Sent: 04-25-2020 12:13 AM
From: Rob Probst
Subject: Maintenance Technician staffing levels

Hi David:    I was in a bit of a similar situation as the leader of a reliability improvement project across 22 dairy product manufacturing sites at Fonterra, here in NZ.  I asked Christer Idhammar from IDCON, how I could provide justification for hiring more craftspersons at one of the sites that appeared to be grossly understaffed.  He said you can use your work order backlog trend.   Trouble was, we didn't have a backlog trend and we weren't doing all the work using work orders.   He said that if the backlog trend is going up and you need to hire contractors to knock it back down to a reasonable level, and this process repeats itself, then you probably need to hire additional staff to keep the backlog within your target, e.g. 4 weeks worth of work (includes, PMs, corrective and emergency work orders).
As an alternative we decided to figure out what capital value of plant per craftsperson was being maintained.   The average across 21 of the sites was around $17Million/craftsperson  (this depends on the type of plant being maintained so varies by industry type).  The plant where we wanted to hire the extra permanent staff had a ratio of $26Million/craftsperson.   The GM gave us permission to hire additional permanent craftspersons, based on the Equipment Replacement Value per craftsperson ratio differential with other sites.    Later on in my career, i was became aware of the Utilisation measure for craftspersons.   If the GM had asked me what the utilisation of craftspersons was at any plant i wouldn't have been able to tell him.  We didn't measure that either.   If we were measuring it, i'm certain it would have been in the 25 - 30% range.    World class utilisation for daily /weekly work is around 65% and is 85% for shutdowns.   If the GM knew what best practise was he might have responded to my request by saying, you can hire another planner to increase your utilisation through better planning and scheduling  along with improved scheduling with operations.    He could have told us we could hire additional contract craftspersons to offset the Equipment Value Maintained/ craftsperson ratio.............UNTIL .......we improved our utilisation.  as our utilisation improved we would be required to drop off the contractors, but in the meantime we would be able to control our backlog and get through the work in a timely manner.     Fortunately he didn't ask us about our utilisation, but you need to be prepared to answer the question if asked and you should know it, as a key output indicator of your planning & scheduling efficiency.   I've included two slides.....one that demonstrates the simple method for figuring the Utilisation by observation.  This is derived from a great paper in the SMRP body of knowledge that you can purchase for $40.   The second slide shows the improved utilisation and potential for doubling output of of craftspersons.    Establish some targets, minimum and maximum for your work order backlog.........e.g.  two weeks minimum and four weeks maximum, and of course, very short backlog for high priority work.   This is all fundamental stuff in work flow management.    You need about 25 measurements for utilisation to have a statistically semi-valid measure.   the SMRP paper describes it.    If you have some other companies in the same industry that can share Equipment Replacement Value Maintained / craftsperson you can compare your value with an industry average.........again depends, as you've stated, on the maturity level of the other industry sites.    Good luck.

------------------------------
Rob Probst
Skills4Work Limited
Ohope
------------------------------

COOL.  HAPPY TO SUPPORT IF YOU HAVE ANY FURTHER QUESTIONS OR COMMENTS

------------------------------
Rob Probst
Skills4Work Limited
Ohope
------------------------------

Original Message:
Sent: 04-25-2020 06:17 PM
From: David Smith
Subject: Maintenance Technician staffing levels

Rob, thank you for responding.  I'l  dig into this and if you don't mind, may respond with follow-up.

Respectfully,

------------------------------
David Smith, CMRP, REC
Plant Maintenance Manager
Daily's Premium Meats
------------------------------


Original Message:
Sent: 04-25-2020 12:13 AM
From: Rob Probst
Subject: Maintenance Technician staffing levels

Hi David:    I was in a bit of a similar situation as the leader of a reliability improvement project across 22 dairy product manufacturing sites at Fonterra, here in NZ.  I asked Christer Idhammar from IDCON, how I could provide justification for hiring more craftspersons at one of the sites that appeared to be grossly understaffed.  He said you can use your work order backlog trend.   Trouble was, we didn't have a backlog trend and we weren't doing all the work using work orders.   He said that if the backlog trend is going up and you need to hire contractors to knock it back down to a reasonable level, and this process repeats itself, then you probably need to hire additional staff to keep the backlog within your target, e.g. 4 weeks worth of work (includes, PMs, corrective and emergency work orders).
As an alternative we decided to figure out what capital value of plant per craftsperson was being maintained.   The average across 21 of the sites was around $17Million/craftsperson  (this depends on the type of plant being maintained so varies by industry type).  The plant where we wanted to hire the extra permanent staff had a ratio of $26Million/craftsperson.   The GM gave us permission to hire additional permanent craftspersons, based on the Equipment Replacement Value per craftsperson ratio differential with other sites.    Later on in my career, i was became aware of the Utilisation measure for craftspersons.   If the GM had asked me what the utilisation of craftspersons was at any plant i wouldn't have been able to tell him.  We didn't measure that either.   If we were measuring it, i'm certain it would have been in the 25 - 30% range.    World class utilisation for daily /weekly work is around 65% and is 85% for shutdowns.   If the GM knew what best practise was he might have responded to my request by saying, you can hire another planner to increase your utilisation through better planning and scheduling  along with improved scheduling with operations.    He could have told us we could hire additional contract craftspersons to offset the Equipment Value Maintained/ craftsperson ratio.............UNTIL .......we improved our utilisation.  as our utilisation improved we would be required to drop off the contractors, but in the meantime we would be able to control our backlog and get through the work in a timely manner.     Fortunately he didn't ask us about our utilisation, but you need to be prepared to answer the question if asked and you should know it, as a key output indicator of your planning & scheduling efficiency.   I've included two slides.....one that demonstrates the simple method for figuring the Utilisation by observation.  This is derived from a great paper in the SMRP body of knowledge that you can purchase for $40.   The second slide shows the improved utilisation and potential for doubling output of of craftspersons.    Establish some targets, minimum and maximum for your work order backlog.........e.g.  two weeks minimum and four weeks maximum, and of course, very short backlog for high priority work.   This is all fundamental stuff in work flow management.    You need about 25 measurements for utilisation to have a statistically semi-valid measure.   the SMRP paper describes it.    If you have some other companies in the same industry that can share Equipment Replacement Value Maintained / craftsperson you can compare your value with an industry average.........again depends, as you've stated, on the maturity level of the other industry sites.    Good luck.

------------------------------
Rob Probst
Skills4Work Limited
Ohope

HERE'S A COUPLE OTHER DOCUMENTS FROM THE SMRP BODY OF KNOWLEDGE.  THESE WERE FREE TO MEMBERS SO I'M PRETTY SURE IT'S OK TO PASS ON. 

The SMRP Guide to Work Sampling    is in the Body of Knowledge  Pillar 4.   It's the document that defines the method for calculating utilisation that i described in the first response i made to you.  When i accessed it , a couple years ago, it cost $40.   well worth the expenditure.

------------------------------
Rob Probst
Skills4Work Limited
Ohope
------------------------------

------Original Message------

Although I've found great ideas and experience on ratios of RE/Techs, ME/Techs, or MM/Techs, I haven't been able to find staffing ratios for hourly Maintenance Techs to Plant or industry.  I understand there are variables that impact this ratio, such as current skill-sets of craftsmen, maturity of the organization and team, development and use of processes and repeatable procedures, and the degree to which we are reactive or proactive.

We are a young food processing plant, with  the honeymoon of inherent reliability ending.  We've built maintenance methods from the ground up, and in the beginning, had to accept less-than-hungry Technicians.  As our team is leveling off, and the pruning continues, I feel more excited about our future than ever before.  We're blessed to have steady business during these changing times, and I continue to make business cases for additional staff.  As I campaign for hiring to fill key roles, the conversations are difficult due to hiring freezes, or at least hiring restrictions during this period of shelter in place.

Further constraints are improper initial hierarchy setup, no CMMS SME on site, and no Maintenance Planner.  Getting clean data in, and actionable reports out is excruciating.  Therefore, running reports that would assist in my business cases is absent.  We are using M3 by infor for our CMMS.  I'm looking for sources or benchmarks from the M&R community that would help me underscore proper staffing levels.  Even templated worksheets would give me a launch pad.  One metric I remember seeing was hourly techs/plant hourly employees.  Seems like that ranged from 15% to 30%, depending on industry.  Even 15% seemed high to me.  By that metric, I'm currently staffed at 3.7%.

All inputs are very appreciated.  Thank you.

------------------------------
David Smith, CMRP, REC
Plant Maintenance Manager
Daily's Premium Meats
------------------------------

David,

I have worked with Rob Probst over the years and another method we used at one of the Fonterra plants (and we have used it in other plants as well), is to look at how many maintenance hours you have used in the past.  If you can look back (3 years? , if not, use months) and add all maintenance hours (or estimate) OWN HOURS + OT + CONTRACT.  Then you can adjust if you have used own maintenance for large projects recently, or if you have bigger than usual overhauls coming up. 

We weren't sure this method was going to work, but plants seem to use maintenance hours VERY consistently.  If you lower staff, contract and over time goes up immediately.... which makes sense, unless you improve work systems. 

I wouldn't use ration, because the factors you mentioned.  Skills, type of equipment (highly automated or not for example, small vs large, a lot of rotating or none), quality of work systems in place.  These things does not skew the numbers 10, 20 30%, but rather 50, 100, 150%.  

Backlog could work like Bruce said, since it shows future work.  The problem is that most plants don't have an accurate backlog at all.  If you do (can be done even without the CMMS), that is a good indicator as well.... The backlog should show you the same picture as looking at the past (unless you added/removed large amount of equipment or improved wrk systems greatly).

BIG PS.  Since Rob Probst have been active here.  MAke sure to read his book "BOHICA", it is a novel set in a maintenance department, fun read.. https://www.amazon.com/Bohica-What-Managers-Always-Workers/dp/1452535531/ref=sr_1_1?dchild=1&keywords=bohica+probst&qid=1587992136&s=books&sr=1-1 

------------------------------
Torbjorn Idhammar
President & CEO
IDCON, Inc.
http://www.idcon.com
Raleigh NC
------------------------------

Original Message:
Sent: 04-27-2020 08:14 AM
From: Bruce Hawkins
Subject: Maintenance Technician staffing levels

David, as a consultant in this field, there are two things I look at to see if maintenance staffing is in the ballpark: work backlog (in person-weeks) and the ratio of Replacement Asset Value per craftsperson. Backlog is by far the more accurate measure; the craft resources have to be balanced with workload or Covey's quadrant 2 work (important but not urgent) will not get done. The level should be maintained between 4 to 6 weeks. I find that the ratio of RAV to craft is around $5,000,000 in poorly managed operations and about twice that in very well-run operations.

Of course, the definitions of all the factors are available from SMRP, free to members.

Hope this helps,

Bruce

 

Bruce Hawkins, CMRP, CAMA | Director | Operational Certainty Consulting

Emerson Automation Solutions | 1100 Louis Henna Blvd.| Round Rock | TX | 78681 | USA

M 843 743 5962  

Bruce.Hawkins@Emerson.com

 

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Original Message------

Although I've found great ideas and experience on ratios of RE/Techs, ME/Techs, or MM/Techs, I haven't been able to find staffing ratios for hourly Maintenance Techs to Plant or industry.  I understand there are variables that impact this ratio, such as current skill-sets of craftsmen, maturity of the organization and team, development and use of processes and repeatable procedures, and the degree to which we are reactive or proactive.

We are a young food processing plant, with  the honeymoon of inherent reliability ending.  We've built maintenance methods from the ground up, and in the beginning, had to accept less-than-hungry Technicians.  As our team is leveling off, and the pruning continues, I feel more excited about our future than ever before.  We're blessed to have steady business during these changing times, and I continue to make business cases for additional staff.  As I campaign for hiring to fill key roles, the conversations are difficult due to hiring freezes, or at least hiring restrictions during this period of shelter in place.

Further constraints are improper initial hierarchy setup, no CMMS SME on site, and no Maintenance Planner.  Getting clean data in, and actionable reports out is excruciating.  Therefore, running reports that would assist in my business cases is absent.  We are using M3 by infor for our CMMS.  I'm looking for sources or benchmarks from the M&R community that would help me underscore proper staffing levels.  Even templated worksheets would give me a launch pad.  One metric I remember seeing was hourly techs/plant hourly employees.  Seems like that ranged from 15% to 30%, depending on industry.  Even 15% seemed high to me.  By that metric, I'm currently staffed at 3.7%.

All inputs are very appreciated.  Thank you.

------------------------------
David Smith, CMRP, REC
Plant Maintenance Manager
Daily's Premium Meats
------------------------------

Hello David,

It sounds like you guys did your homework developing Preventive Maintenance and Condition Monitoring routines thoroughly in terms of task duration and man hours needed for these routine work which should be known by now. Also you should know their frequency, meaning how often this happen as part of your weekly schedule routines. Here you will calculate the amount of man hours you will need to execute the routine work only.

The routine work are the easy part of your calculation (called Zero Manning Hours), which is what you know and it is in a fixed intervals.

What is not too straight forward, it is  the Reactive Work you may have during the week or month or year. However you can calculate or estimate as a percent of the time you guys are spending man hours on Reactive Mode compared to Planned work I.e. Reactive Man Hours will be 0.25 of the Routine work man hours. 

The other variable is about the time you guys spend on Backlogs which are also Planned Work but they are not necessarily happening in a fix intervals (non routine work), which should be estimated as well probably based on history.  Best way probably an average per week 

Finally, if we assume that your major repairs are done with Contractors, you would not take them into account in your calculations unless you do this with your team as well.  Again here  you can estimate base on history and consider a factor as a percent of the routine work.

Remember that you are trying to calculate the right staffing based on all the activities you have in place currently. If you had the chance to do a Life Cycling Costing (LCC) Analysis, this is the same process however the objective from LCC is the calculation of Maintenance cost during the life span of one specific equipment.

I hope this helps and I am not confusing you in how you can do this for your plant. If you have a question about this process let me know I would happily share my experience with you.

Best Regards

Rene Davila

------------------------------
Rene Davila
Regional Maintenance Manager
Omya Inc
Broomfield CO
------------------------------