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Ready Work captured for 5.4.9 ready backlog KPI?

  • 1.  Ready Work captured for 5.4.9 ready backlog KPI?

    Posted 08-18-2022 08:06 AM

    Hello,


    I'd like to ask your help to advise me on the "SMRP KPI 5.4.9 Ready backlog" from the SMRP Best Practice 6th edition. I am trying to set up a rule to capture "Ready work" from SAP.

    •  SMRP's formula: Ready Backlog = Ready Work / Crew Capacity. Target 2 – 4 weeks.
    • SMRP's definition for Ready Work: Work that has been prepared for execution (e.g., necessary planning has been done, materials procured, and labor requirements have been estimated).
    Now, my team defines "Ready work" by including 1. all overdue work orders planned for execution AND 2. the planned works (works with the due date within the next 4 weeks) planned for execution; however, the period for the Ready work is not defined in the SMRP matric and some people may include the planned work with any period e.g. next 2 weeks or 6 weeks. Personally, I think it may include overdue works and 1-week lookahead works prepared, as it may be implied under the qualification #3 in the matric about weekly scheduling (I may be wrong). 


    The longer period we monitor, the higher the Ready backlog result is. The result can vary depending on the monitoring period.

    Please advise what is the lookahead period to capture the Read work.

     

    Thank you.

    -------------- 
    Akaradech A.

    Reliability Engineer

    PTTEP



    ------------------------------
    Akaradech Apornsuvan
    Senior Engineer, Reliability and Integrity
    PTT Exploration & Production plc.
    Bang Rak
    ------------------------------


  • 2.  RE: Ready Work captured for 5.4.9 ready backlog KPI?

    Posted 08-19-2022 08:21 AM

    Akaradech,
    Time horizon has nothing to do with the Ready Backlog metric. The only thing that matters is that all work that is defined as "ready" is indeed ready - all planning has been done, all parts have been procured and verified to be on site, etc. All work orders in the backlog should be subject to the metric, regardless if they are due to be done in the future. 

    Hope this helps. 

    Bruce



    ------------------------------
    Bruce Hawkins, CMRP, CAMA
    cu77tiger55@yahoo.com
    ------------------------------

    Original Message


  • 3.  RE: Ready Work captured for 5.4.9 ready backlog KPI?

    Posted 08-19-2022 09:52 AM
    Estimado, lo que yo hago en SAP es utilizar los estatus de usuarios.
    Backlog listo, (materiales, lista de trabajo, HH, hojas de seguridad, MAF, etc)
    Backlo Plenado, faltante de alguno de estos puntos.
    El Programador de mantenimiento, Busca en SAP un determinado estado de usuario y lo coloca en programa, lo que tiene este status, el que el planificador colocar, ni lo mira practicamente.
    Espero te ayude
    Domenico

    ------------------------------
    Domenico Allegrucci CMRP
    Tecnico Universitario en Mantenimiento Industrial
    Mining solution S.A.S
    Perito Moreno
    ------------------------------

    Original Message


  • 4.  RE: Ready Work captured for 5.4.9 ready backlog KPI?

    Posted 08-22-2022 07:01 AM
    I agree with Bruce's response. What I will add is this...BACKLOG IS NOT PAST DUE WORK!  A large percentage of operations that I work with believe that backlog is bad and their interpretation of backlog is any work past due.  We want backlog.  Ideally 2-3 week's worth of "Ready Work" for each discipline and 4-6 weeks of "Total Backlog".  The first is what and how we build our maintenance schedules and the later is the playground of our maintenance planners.

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    Andrew Gager CAMA, CMRP, CPIM, CRL, CSSGB
    CEO / President
    Wake Forest NC
    ------------------------------

    Original Message


  • 5.  RE: Ready Work captured for 5.4.9 ready backlog KPI?

    Posted 08-23-2022 01:04 AM

    Bruce, Domenico and Andrew,
    Great!, your comments are helpful. Thank you. I've got the answer to my question. I agree that having proper backlogs is not that bad.  We are trying to picture this with "Ready work" to our team but this is new and we still have a long way to go. 



    ------------------------------
    Akaradech Apornsuvan
    Senior Engineer, Reliability and Integrity
    PTT Exploration & Production plc.
    Bang Rak
    ------------------------------

    Original Message


  • 6.  RE: Ready Work captured for 5.4.9 ready backlog KPI?

    Posted 08-24-2022 09:36 AM

    Someone wrote in this thread, "A large percentage of operations that I work with believe that backlog is bad and their interpretation of backlog is any work past due.  We want backlog.  Ideally 2-3 week's worth of Ready Work for each discipline and 4-6 weeks of Total Backlog.

    This statement helps us distinguish between inwardly focused maintenance in contrast to maintenance as integrated logistic support (ILS). The expression of what "we want" is not the same as what "the plant wants." We could expect that the plant wants maintenance work to smoothly flow through the stages of maintenance workflow in the shortest feasible overall maintainability interval. They would want that criteria to decide what we see is an appropriate backlog.

    Additionally, ILS would regard backlog as a poor means of control. It is the wagging tail of the dog that should be observed only as the daily difference between new work and a largely constant daily executed workload. Our issue is if the smooth rate of largely first in first out execution, derived for each category of work, matches new work over the long run. In that case, backlog will be net to some baseline of slack in the backlog. Smooth and slack would be derived for work categories rather than overall. But beginning to end the issue is the plant.

    ILS

    To the point that what the plant wants is the objective, I will describe ILS from 75,000 feet.

    Think of a plant as a "system" of equipment that produces goods. Around a primary system of production equipment there is also a system of production support that provides all necessary resources (people, inventory, delivery equipment, and so on) for the operation of the primary system. If the production support is not done optimally the primary system will fall short of what it is capable of.

    Now let's extend the idea to include the maintenance of the primary system as needed to be called to serve, remain in service or return to service. In turn, maintenance has a support system to allow it to be able to optimally serve the primary system.

    Accordingly, integrated logistic support (ILS) is the lifecycle management and development of maintenance and its support logistics as a system, integrated with the primary system and its logistics as well as integrated with itself.

    Within the definition of ILS, we can see that what we want should be what the plant wants, limited only by what is possible with respect to good ILS.




    Original Message


  • 7.  RE: Ready Work captured for 5.4.9 ready backlog KPI?

    Posted 08-27-2022 01:53 PM
    Hello Akaradech --

    I would suggest you consider changing the vocabulary you use for these discussions.   In many production environments "backlog" is quite simply a list of everything that's overdue.  If you start talking about a 'queue' of ready work, I think you can avoid a lot of misunderstandings.  A backlog of overdue maintenance is a bad thing, but a queue of ready work is very good. 

    I sincerely hope this helps. 

    ------------------------------
    Daniel K Corman, CMRP
    Houston, Texas, USA
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    Original Message


  • 8.  RE: Ready Work captured for 5.4.9 ready backlog KPI?

    Posted 08-28-2022 12:09 PM

    Daniel makes a good point.

    However, all of the typical discussion of backlog and its control are actually the RIGHT answer to the WRONG problem.

    The right problem is to deliver a smooth weekly flow of each type of work to sustain the plant at its planned performance. What is allowed in backlog should only be necessary as the flywheel by which the maintenance workflow is made cost effective by smooth functioning-erratic flow drives up maintenance cost. The backlog should be a short as possible without losing flywheel effect. To keep at optimally short, protects plant service level because if longer on average than optimal, plant uptime is unnecessarily at risk.

    Maybe the root cause of this historic focus on the wrong problem is because we have not yet demanded of ourselves that we learn how to work with data to the depth that smoothed work per week per each category of maintenance work can be derived and, in turn, the range of expected backlog. Therefore, we cling to the discussion of backlog, because we can, rather than tackling one the most basic issues in industrial engineering.




    Original Message


  • 9.  RE: Ready Work captured for 5.4.9 ready backlog KPI?

    Posted 08-31-2022 08:08 AM
    It sounds to me like your organization is making this whole matter of backlog way too complicated. It is really very simple and Bruce outlined it very well.

    I will say the same thing but perhaps make it easier to understand ..  
    Backlog is all identified work to be executed in the future.
    Backlog work is either NOT READY to Schedule or it is READY to Schedule. Ready work was explained by Bruce.

    In measuring the size of your backlog you do measure it with respect to labor. One Crew Week is the number of crew members times 40 hrs/week. Backlog is measured in number of Crew Weeks of labor. You don't want your backlog to be too high or too low. It should be tracked on a monthly basis to see if it is staying in range.

    Just keep your backlog simple …..

    ------------------------------
    Terry Taylor
    Taylor Reliability Consulting
    St. Johns, Florida
    ttaylor@taylorreliability.org
    919-537-2812
    ------------------------------

    Original Message


  • 10.  RE: Ready Work captured for 5.4.9 ready backlog KPI?

    Posted 08-31-2022 08:22 AM
    It seems like we've lost track for the purpose of backlog. The primary purpose is to have enough work in backlog such that as new arriving work increases and decreases the preparation for and execution of the work can occur smoothly without swings in the workflow and maintenance crews. This goal allows the plant maintenance to be cost effective whereas matching preparation execution to the swings in new work makes life difficult for the plant and its cost structure.

    You have crews. Therefore, how much work needs to be in backlog ready to schedule to allow the steadiness? Rather than measure backlog by crew size we should monitor backlog with respect to does it match new work to completed work. 



    Original Message


  • 11.  RE: Ready Work captured for 5.4.9 ready backlog KPI?

    Posted 09-01-2022 08:24 AM
    I respectfully disagree, Richard. In effectively managing the maintenance function, we don't want to match the work done to the crew size. Quite the opposite; we want to match the crew capacity with the workload.

    Incoming maintenance work varies by nature. There is one element (PM) that is relatively steady and predictable, but the rest varies. We may find things that need to be corrected on our predictive routes. Operators may break things. We may have variable seasonal demands (e.g., winterizing). New capital expansions may occur that require maintenance and repair work to be done. We want to know about ALL the work that needs to be done by the Maintenance crew so that we can plan for it and execute it in a timely fashion before something bad happens. We NEVER want to constrain the incoming work demands, we want to identify those needs and respond to them. We use Ready Backlog to vary the crew size as needed to get that work done. We can vary the crew size by working overtime, adding contractor resources, hiring additional people, not replacing people due to attrition, etc.

    In summary, we measure ready backlog to ensure that our workforce capacity is balanced with the workload demand. Too little ready backlog, we can't build  a schedule for next week that fully loads our crew, and we waste labor resources. Too much ready backlog, and we don't get the work done in a timely fashion and operational availability may suffer.

    ------------------------------
    Bruce Hawkins, CMRP, CAMA
    cu77tiger55@yahoo.com
    ------------------------------

    Original Message


  • 12.  RE: Ready Work captured for 5.4.9 ready backlog KPI?

    Posted 09-01-2022 09:29 AM
    Bruce, Very well said.

    Unfortunately. there are books out on the market on maintenance planning and scheduling that promotes scheduling to the workforce. It may be what a supervisor/ scheduler sees, but it makes no sense from a management perspective.

    To gain efficiencies in maintenance, we should schedule to the workload.  The workload can be reduced by good lubrication, operating practices in the long run.  But a valid maintenance repair doesn't go away, it has to be done, and sooner is almost always cheaper than later.  By having the fundamental thinking that we need to reduce the incoming maintenance work with essential equipment care, and execute remaining repair work more effectively will drive improvements.  To schedule to a fixed number of available hours will lead to fill-in work, work that doesn't get done, etc.   Also, the workforce is flexible with overtime and contractors.

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

    Original Message


  • 13.  RE: Ready Work captured for 5.4.9 ready backlog KPI?

    Posted 09-01-2022 10:25 AM
    I agree 100% with both Bruce and Tor's points.  I will add one more. When I work with Planners, I want them to continually monitor the "90 day look-ahead" backlog.  Manage the backlog hours in those weeks to "Level-Load" the hours in each of those weeks by moving start dates in and out.  Planners should be working in the future not today or even next week honestly.

    ------------------------------
    Andrew Gager CAMA, CMRP, CPIM, CRL, CSSGB
    CEO / President
    Wake Forest NC
    ------------------------------

    Original Message


  • 14.  RE: Ready Work captured for 5.4.9 ready backlog KPI?

    Posted 09-01-2022 01:43 PM

    Bruce,

    Here is my point of purpose. The role of maintenance is to allow the plant to sustain its strategically decided mission. Let's look at what that means. There is a workload that must be conducted by maintenance to support the plant. Without regard for backlog, the occurring workload over time must be converted to conclusions for the smooth level of work over time and, thus, to be executed per week. When the persistent workload, determined as steady state, is known, the craftforce to serve it can be derived as a steady state. If we don't take the steady state, the reactive state will prove costly to the enterprise ROI. Our purpose is to manage-plan, organize, control and execute-for the smooth outcome rather than manage backlog.

    The next part of the point is that weeks in backlog is the tail to the dog of smoothed execution. The objective for backlog is to hold weeks of work in backlog at the minimum that still allows the executed workload to be held at steady state each week. Beyond the cumulative time it would take for each step to the maintenance workstream from recognition to completion the only addition should be the buffer time to assure we will never run short of work as necessary to execute at steady state workload with the craft body designed to conduct it. If the backlog is set by rule of thumb rather than derived and consequently longer than necessary, the plant can experience reduced performance every time the holes in the cheese line up. Or to paraphrase what my kid brother used to say, "The longer work remains in the backlog the more we are giving the ^&#&*'s just one more chance to get at the plant."




    Original Message


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