Any well-functioning maintenance organization needs to have a good grasp of its schedule and scheduling system, that can only happen if a robust maintenance planning scheme is in place. Without active planning of maintenance orders, dealing with the day-to-day operations of the maintenance operations can be confusing and slow, but when urgent requests or emergencies appear, things can get really bad fast.
Maintenance planning is an extremely important component in any well-managed maintenance firm or department. To better illustrate, imagine yourself in the following situation: you are a parent of 8 small kids, and each of them has their own schedules, house chores, school activities, specific groceries necessities, etc. Now imagine you don’t have a family calendar, no to-do lists, no one can find anything in the house, and stuff is just lying everywhere. You only know what to do 15 minutes before, and the children are the ones letting you know.
That is a maintenance organization without maintenance planning. The results of not having a proper maintenance planning scheme are the same, but this time the results are devastating, and the stakes are a lot higher. Rising costs, lack of supplies and spare parts, missing tools, constant last-minute emergencies, delays, the list goes on.
What is maintenance planning?
Maintenance planning can be described as the end-to-end process that identifies and resolves any issues ahead of time and stipulates measures to contain such issues from arising entirely. Maintenance planning is easy to understand if you use the “what, why, how” approach. So, it goes like this:
What works need to be done? Why is this being done? How are we doing it?
Answering those questions can give you an idea of how to plan your maintenance schedule and operations. But things are not always that simple, and the answers to the “What, why, how” framework can be very complex and the practical solutions very hard to implement. But after that, the next step is scheduling the best course of action for the particular maintenance order.
As a very basic example, let’s say you need to repair a broken window in our house. So, you should replace the broken glass (the What), because it’s easier and cheaper than replacing the entire window (the Why), and you’re using the tools you already have and doing it yourself (the How).
Why is maintenance planning so important?
Now, we all know that maintenance planning is a great idea, but why is it so critically important? Well, without any planning you cannot set goals, without goals you cannot track results. Also, without planning, you cannot account for emergencies or other risks that you might face. You need to plan ahead if you wish to measure the performance of the maintenance, the time it took, what supplies and spare parts you used, and how much was gained or lost with that maintenance order.
Those metrics are all used to gauge the effectiveness of the maintenance being done, and thus better decision-making during all of this process is possible. Effective maintenance planning can save a lot of money, resources, and time.
Maintenance planning is also very important for your maintenance scheduling. If you already know beforehand what needs to be done, why, and how, then setting up the proper time and people to do it is a lot easier. Maintenance planning streamlines all of the other processes, and that can be a game-changer.
How to do effective maintenance planning?
Well, you do it by creating a maintenance plan. That is a document detailing all the aspects of the planned maintenance work, schedule, deadlines, etc. Each organization will have a different one to best suit its needs, but generally, it’s separated into 5 steps:
- Description of the work that needs to be done. This should be straightforward enough so that everyone in the organization understands;
- Scheduling the work: separating the appropriate amount of time required for the maintenance to be done;
- Adding workers or contractors to the task: delegating maintenance tasks to the personnel in charge of such maintenance;
- Describing which spare parts or special tools are needed for the job;
- Attaching the appropriate work permits, if applicable.
If you are still using a pen-and-paper system, that is a lot of work for a single maintenance order. Now imagine how long it would take to fully plan all of the maintenance orders being done in an entire organization or department.
Now, if you wish to implement maintenance planning effectively, the only way is to go digital and automate the little things.
That’s where we can help you! Get to know ONEVIEW. Scheduling, assigning workers, assessing inventory, measuring results, everything you need in order to plan effectively in a single tool, ready to use on your smartphone. Not convinced? Well, then see for yourself: schedule a free demo with OneView today.
