quote:

How is carry forward maintenance defined? If it is work that is due but not done, for any reason including when you dont have resources is what many of us call backlog.

Hi Vee
I don't have access to the way carried forward maintenance was defined unfortunately. I will do my best to summarise what it is and what it is not because the latter is important from what I have seen in industry (since leaving aviation nearly 20 years ago).
Carried forward maintenance is maintenance that is required to restore the asset to a level that is near to what it was designed to do in the first place but is not required to keep the machine running. There is a discretionary element. There are two main contributors:
1. Due to redundancy, assets can function with failures and
2. Because some assets deteriorate over time, they can still function according to the requirements, but there has been evidence that deterioration has started and some maintenance is required.
If the asset has failed then obviously there is no discretion. It has to be repaired before next operation. So you can see we are dealing with things that may have some variability in risk and response time.
Now in the aviation business where I worked, every failure (notification, work request) had to be signed off before next flight. It had to be signed off as fixed or not found or signed off as being Carried Forward Unserviceability (CFU). As the engineer in charge, I was one of the people who could sign this documentation. I could only sign this off if I could put on the documentation the time for which this CFU was valid. To do this we had to check the aircraft movements, our shifts, our resources, our spares etc so that I could be confident that what I was signing was not going to be overlooked and stuck on a wish list - and you can guess where that arrangement would have left the serviceability state of the aircraft had there been no control or no discipline.
When people outside of aviation talk about backlog management, from what I have seen, the processes bear no resemblance to what I was charged to do when I signed a CFU. Some manage work requests with more discipline than others but few would go to the extent of looking at a work request and planning it and giving it an ultimate time line at point of receipt.
The other alarming fact I have seen, is that work requests in industry often contain modifications. Now if maintenance managers start including these in the system, chaos will reign. Maintenance budgets do (perhaps should is a better word) not contain funds for modification work and if mods get into the backlog then this will introduce fundamental process problems that will be bad – like real bad.
When you start arguing between improvements (mods) and maintaining the given functionality (maintenance), the focus of the maintenance budget is now plunged into misappropriation and control is "out the window". So interestingly enough, the concept of Carried Forward Maintenance has a lot to do with budgets and financial control as well.
So Vee, at a high level Backlog and Carried Forward Maintenance may seem to be the same thing superficially, but to me, if what I see in industry called backlog management and compare it with what I grew up with in controlled management of plant condition, then I would say there is a world of difference.
Love the conversation
Hope this is food for thought
Regards
Steve
OMCS International.

Steve,

Thank you, that was a useful clarification.

Each industry has different goal posts. High hazard industries such as airlines have airworthiness certification to consider. Similarly, the offshore oil & gas industry has to protect safety-critical systems. the pharmaceutical (and I guess the food processing) industry has to conform to GMP (good manufacturing practice).

The majority of manufacturing and service industries operate in the medium to low hazard areas. The pracrices that are applicable in the airworthiness case need not apply to a light bulb maker, even though the essential principles are the same. The difference is of course the risk levels.

In the general case, it is a much simpler matter to manage the maintenance process using backlog, not as a measure of effectiveness, but to manage the scheduling of maintenance work.

quote:

When people outside of aviation talk about backlog management, from what I have seen, the processes bear no resemblance to what I was charged to do when I signed a CFU.

I am not surprised that they follow a different approach to your CFU. I hope you are not suggesting that one shoe fits all.

You introduced the issue of modifications and budgets. I am sure you agree that modifications are facts of life; they may result from RCAs, reliability studies or process changes to meet market or feedstock changes. Somebody has to execute them. In many cases this is the maintenance department, since they have the skills. If the budgeting process is done correctly, the non-maintenance elements will be stripped out at source. We dont need a CFU approach to do so.

The sooner we accept that maintenance is a process, not merely a department, the better we can understand how it contributes to business success. Scheduling is a key element of this process, and a manageable backlog contributes greatly to proper scheduling. Different industries can live with different levels of backlog. In your airline case, perhaps it is very small, with individual items of work being tracked using CFU. During a Ptocess Plant shutdown, a similar approach is used. Tracking all routine maintenance work during normal operations on a item by item basis is not practical or efficient in many industries.

Well Vee, you have made good points. And I know where you are comming from (darn - the thread may be drying up)
However you said...

quote:

One shoe fits all

I think that the need for the shoe (like quality)is known to be a benefit - the size, fabric and make may be customised.
Reliability is heading down the quality path - at the end of the day all organisations need to reduce variation. It doesn't matter what you produce (light globes - safe passengers). Having processes that treat modification as a maintenance activity will never result in process control. Organisations that do this will always be out of control and have high costs of production.
Steve

Steve

I did not say and do not agree with rhe statement (presumably attributed to me) that

quote:

Having processes that treat modification as a maintenance activity will never result in process control

In my mind, modifications are (emphatically) not part of the maintenance process. I separate the process from who does the work in practice. Irrespective of who actually executes the work, the work can be 'charged' to the right business process especially with a modern (SAP type) ERM. The old ways of departmental budgets do not suit current ways of working.

Thus, if maintainers do modifications, that should be allocated to the 'plant change' or 'modifications' process. If operators do trip testing or lubrication, that should go to the maintenance process.

I agree entirely with your idea of separating modifications from maintenance, but not with the solution. In my view, the ERM offers a simpler and more effective solution.

If the equipment defect does not severely affect plant operations, safety etc because of redundancy etc or it does require a shutdown to do it, then I guess the industrial plant can backlog or carry forward the job to rectify it to the next opportunity or shutdown. We call this inactive backlog job.

How does aviation industry get jobs ready for their maintenance work force? How many PM manhours do they have ready for execution by the workforce at any one time? How many carried forward maintenance manhours exist at any one time?

Modificationwise, if the maintenance dept has to do it or after being asked to do it but no budget, then declare no budgets allocated for it. Then I suspect the modification requestor or plant management will provide the budget through budget transfer or supplementary budget but minor mdification costs may be can be absorbed by maintenance. Also I expect the modification process form requires a budget or account code to be specified to charge the cost to be incurred.

I think maintenance can do minor to medium size modifications especially if these are meant to enhance reliability and/or proposed by maintenance personnel themselves rather than contracting out these works which could double or triple the costs especially during shutdown and unnecessarily lengthen the completion time, provided internal resources can cope with them and active PM backlog is reasonably optimum. Of course, maintenance should carry out the modifications after approval.

This message has been edited. Last edited by: Josh,

Re-phrasing about (process)modifications.
Maintenance is the preferred internal sub-contractor for executing the modification.

The The client is the equipment owner advised by the Management of Change Team, which also will do the management part, probably (process/maintenance) Engineering.

It is tempting to let maintenance do all the change, because it "looks" cheaper on the realization, but if something goes wrong, to say it rude, whose "butt" is on fire? Without a proper system in place, this would not be nice place to work.

How many kinds of backlog there are? Which of these are backlog?
* Planned jobs that are not yet scheduled, (execution date not assigned).
* Previous scheduled jobs that were not done or not completed and require reschedule.
* Steve's Carried Forward Unserviceability (CFU)
* Anything else?
----
If a planned job has a scheduled date in the future, it is part of the backlog?
----
Maintenance Requests/Notifications not processed yet by the Maintenance Planner are not yet backlog?

quote:

I did not say and do not agree with rhe statement (presumably attributed to me) that

My apologies Vee... I misread what you wrote.

We like to classify backlog into 2 types ie active or inactive.

Active backlog jobs include all works which have been planned and scheduled but not carried out yet ie ready for execution by the workforce at any time based on front-end loading concept to improve productivity and wrenchtime.

Thus any jobs that are not yet planned and scheduled are excluded from active backlog. The planning and scheduling performance is meansured by the Jobs planned & scheduled.

Inactive backlog jobs include those which are planned and scheduled for next opportunity or shutdown.

Darth,

quote:

----
If a planned job has a scheduled date in the future, it is part of the backlog?
----

I have seen the term 'forelog' used for such items.

Darth,

YOur question:

quote:

If a planned job has a scheduled date in the future, it is part of the backlog?

In my view, only once it has changed from a schedule, to a work order or some other electronic or paper document.

Anytime the:
Target Completion Date is less or will be less OR has the potential of being less than the
Actual Completion Date.
Intresting presentation here->
http://www.datapaste.com/pub/maximo-backlog.ppt
Let me know what you think!

quote:

Originally posted by Vee:
Steve,

Thank you, that was a useful clarification.

Each industry has different goal posts. High hazard industries such as airlines have airworthiness certification to consider. Similarly, the offshore oil & gas industry has to protect safety-critical systems. the pharmaceutical (and I guess the food processing) industry has to conform to GMP (good manufacturing practice).

The majority of manufacturing and service industries operate in the medium to low hazard areas. The pracrices that are applicable in the airworthiness case need not apply to a light bulb maker, even though the essential principles are the same. The difference is of course the risk levels.

In the general case, it is a much simpler matter to manage the maintenance process using backlog, not as a measure of effectiveness, but to manage the scheduling of maintenance work.

quote:

When people outside of aviation talk about backlog management, from what I have seen, the processes bear no resemblance to what I was charged to do when I signed a CFU.

I am not surprised that they follow a different approach to your CFU. I hope you are not suggesting that one shoe fits all.

You introduced the issue of modifications and budgets. I am sure you agree that modifications are facts of life; they may result from RCAs, reliability studies or process changes to meet market or feedstock changes. Somebody has to execute them. In many cases this is the maintenance department, since they have the skills. If the budgeting process is done correctly, the non-maintenance elements will be stripped out at source. We dont need a CFU approach to do so.

The sooner we accept that maintenance is a process, not merely a department, the better we can understand how it contributes to business success. Scheduling is a key element of this process, and a manageable backlog contributes greatly to proper scheduling. Different industries can live with different levels of backlog. In your airline case, perhaps it is very small, with individual items of work being tracked using CFU. During a Ptocess Plant shutdown, a similar approach is used. Tracking all routine maintenance work during normal operations on a item by item basis is not practical or efficient in many industries.

I hear a lot about Aviation industry, Oil & Gas industry, Power industry. I work for in an ERF Plant (Energy Recovery Facility)that incineratets Municipla Solid Waste and generates about 30 Mw of electricity. In comparing KPIs, equipment failures etc which Industry benchmark will be near enough to this for comparisons?

Regards

William

I thought the KPIs are quite universal in nature across the various industries.