by Arne Oas

At the initial sale or installation of a Computerized Maintenance Management System (CMMS), vendors invariably estimate substantial returns on investment. This will often prompt customers to respond, “How can you make claims that my maintenance department will improve so dramatically? My people are too busy now to do any more work!”

In an effort to explain the real or perceived chasm between the two sides, the chart on this page should be cited to reveal the areas of lost maintenance time and how those areas impact an average worker.

Most studies over the last 20 years have confirmed, and most consultants would agree, that the average maintenance worker only spends 30 percent of his or her time in actual “wrench-turning” capacities. I believe that this is a fair portrait of an average worker’s year.

Poor utilization of a maintenance worker’s time is usually not his or her fault. Nothing is more detrimental to maintenance performance and morale than poorly planned jobs. Properly planned maintenance reduces the wait and delay times that maintenance workers encounter when doing unplanned work.

But what does the chart really mean? An eight-hour day is 480 minutes. Thirty percent of that is less than 150 minutes. I firmly believe that these 150 minutes are the key to understanding performance management and almost all of the associated promises of CMMS-related maintenance productivity improvement.

Think about it. To achieve a 10 percent increase in productivity, all you need to do is give each worker 15 more wrench-turning-time minutes a day!

If you could do any of the following, do you think you could add the 15 minutes?

• Properly identify preventive maintenance and repair work, and allow coordination with production before the work is scheduled. In addition, use the CMMS to provide a listing of all materials needed and major tools required before a worker leaves for a job. Proper planning gives the workers all the information about their work, tool and material requirements for the day. This reduces production wait time, material drawing time, job preparation time and travel time.

• Use the CMMS to collectively pre-sort work by location, cost centers, departments and skill requirements. This permits all work in an area to be scheduled for maintenance as a group. It also reduces the travel time spent going back and forth to do jobs.

• Effectively schedule each day’s work (what can reasonably be expected to be done) for each worker. This reduces slack time associated with waiting for the next assignment and eliminates the “fire-fighting” approach.

Does it work? Using a supporting CMMS application with good planning and scheduling techniques can help you achieve remarkable results in a six-month period. I’ve seen it happen in numerous facilities. There, the total work time available showed an average improvement of 46 percent.

I will provide more information about “how” to improve and measure the results in my upcoming MRO Coach columns.

Arne Oas is the senior maintenance consultant at Management Resources Group. If you have a maintenance management software question, contact Coach Oas at , or e-mail .

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