One of the major problems faced by majority of the process and manufacturing industry in India is high downtime, the main cause often being machine failures. Frequent machine breakdowns result in loss of production, quality issues, increase in maintenance costs, loss of customers and higher safety incidents. Reactive maintenance takes precedence over proactive maintenance. As a result health of the assets deteriorates requiring frequent replacements leading to increase in capital cost.

A simple yet most efficient, cost effective and time tested approach to eliminate such problems is Effective Maintenance Planning and Scheduling. Maintenance planning and scheduling forms the heart of ''World Class Maintenance Work Management Process.

World Class Maintenance Work Management Process

The methodology is easy to implement and results are visible in a short timeframe. Hence more and more companies worldwide especially in US, Europe, Australia and in the Gulf countries are now following this concept to reap major benefits without any extra cost. As a result many new consulting and asset management companies have mushroomed over the last decade particularly in the western world, providing quality services, training and coaching on the subject matter.

Maintenance planning and scheduling is the process of prioritising and organising work so that it can be executed in the most efficient manner. The principle revolves around getting the right people in the right place with the right tools, spares, services and information to execute the work. The term Planning deals with what is to be done, where is to be done and how it is to be done while Scheduling is who will do and when. Once put in place, planning and scheduling process ensures that all the maintenance work except the emergency jobs is planned, scheduled and published well in advance. Hence all the stake holders and concerned people including those in production and safety departments are well informed and adequately prepared to ensure timely execution of the work.

One of the immediate benefits of implementation of maintenance planning and scheduling is Wrench Time improvement. Wrench Time is defined as the actual time spent by a workman doing value added work. The world class standard for wrench time is 60% to 65%. However this figure is as low as 22% to 35% for most of the companies worldwide including India.

It is easy to find a lot of time being lost in travelling, waiting and searching spares, tools, materials, permits, services, etc., resulting in low wrench time. Interestingly planned maintenance can help improve the wrench time by well over 50 % to 100% within a span of 6 months to 12 months with ease. With an increase in wrench time, additional time becomes available for the maintenance team to carry out more corrective, predictive and preventive work. Consequently there is a momentum shift from reactive to proactive work culture over a period of time resulting in reduced number of breakdowns.

As a thumb rule emergency maintenance work is known to cost 3 to 4 times the planned work while unplanned work costs 1.5 to 2 times the planned work. By following effective maintenance planning and scheduling, there is continuous reduction in emergency and reactive work. This translates into proportional reduction in maintenance costs contributing significantly to the bottom line of the company. Some of the other major benefits of maintenance planning and scheduling are as under:

• Reduced downtime
• Reduced manpower requirements
• Reduced spares and material inventories
• Improved plant safety
• Improved maintenance and repair quality
• Improved employee moral
• Improved work relations between departments
• Improved work life balance

(Deelip Prabhudesai is a chemical engineer with over 31 years experience in management consulting and plant operations in oil & gas, mining, chemicals, pharmaceuticals and flexible packaging sector in India and overseas. Working as a senior consultant with leading consulting groups in US, Deelip has carried out major assessments and projects in the area of asset management saving millions of dollars for the client companies. Deelip can be reached on dprabhudesai@maintcons.in)