MRO Today - The death of Bubba and Skeeter

The death of Bubba and Skeeter

A humorous adieu to reactive maintenance

by Joel Leonard

With the advent of technological advances and the movement from reactive maintenance to proactive maintenance, Bubba and Skeeter are officially deceased.

Although they have served the maintenance organization for the last several decades, they leave behind no written documentation of any of their past work orders. Interestingly, as we researched their work area, we discovered several hundred thousand dollars worth of spare parts inventory stashed away in cubby holes.

Despite Bubba’s prediction that computers would be a fad, all other maintenance personnel plan, schedule and document their maintenance activities. They also have a complete history of all of their maintenance activities and, to conserve costs, utilize our centralized spare parts inventory.

Also left behind are Bubba’s and Skeeter’s tool belts and work pants, notoriously worn to expose their posterior cleavage. In addition, they leave behind their fermented spittoon and mounds of tobacco chaw that usually trickled outside of their mouths as they garbled out undiscernable instructions to their colleagues.

We will miss Bubba’s and Skeeter’s dedication to crisis maintenance. As we actually perform preventive maintenance now, our emergency maintenance requirements are minimal.

We did learn that Bubba and Skeeter were not totally adverse to technology. They used the company’s $50,000 infrared camera to detect which cheerleaders were re-engineered and utilized the ultrasound listening device to detect deer flatulence on hunting trips. We also found that Skeeter converted the CMMS CDs into fishing lures.

Before your business becomes extinct, find ways to terminate your Bubba and Skeeter maintenance practices.

Bubba and Skeeter maintenance checklist
Answer these questions to see if they live in your plant:
• Does anyone on your maintenance staff think that RCM stands for Richard Childress Motorsports?
• Seriously, are more than 50 percent of your maintenance activities reactive?
• Is your CMMS implemented?
• Do you have a formalized maintenance training program?
• Do have accurate equipment history records?
• Do you have a centralized spare parts inventory system?
• Do maintenance and operations work with or against each other?

Joel Leonard is president of PulsePointe Technologies, a South Carolina firm that provides training in maintenance and reliability methods. To learn more, call .

This article appeared in the December 2002/January 2003 issue of MRO Today magazine. Copyright, 2003.