I recently posted about the business case for planners and I think there is some confusion about what a planners role and responsibilities are.

How do you define a planners role and responsibilities at your plant?

Terry O

All plants are different, what works fine at my organization maybe not be usefull at yours.
The following are the main Maintenance Planners responsibilities at my organization:
* Analyze all Maintenance Notifications received at CMMS, identify required resources (materials, special tools, skills, outside contractor, rental equipment, etc.).
* Reject any inappropriate Maintenance Notifications and inform reasons to the Area Supervisor / Requestor.
* Plan for Maintenance Orders (PM, Calibration, Corrective, etc) the required details to perform including: steps, resources, estimated time, crew size, and completion dates. (convert notifications to orders at CMMS, add instructions, details, parts, purchase requisitions, etc.)
* Prepare purchase requisitions for parts, services, equipment / tools rental related to orders being planned, or as requested by the Maintenance Management (Supervisors, Engineers, Manager). (( In some plants the planner may have help from a clerk for some of the data entry)).
* Maintain updated at CMMS, Maintenance Orders information and status during the complete planning process.
* Prepare Safety Requirements Lists, Scope of Work, and timelines for:
*** Complex Maintenance Orders
*** Projects assigned to Maintenance Engineering instead of Project Engineering.
* Schedule Maintenance Orders, PM Orders, and Calibration Orders to be completed by the Maintenance crews based on calculated net capacity and priorities.
* Coordinate routine Meetings with Maintenance Engineering / Operation Supervisors.
* Prepare and submit progress reports, KPI.
* Support in the development of maintenance program, task lists.
* Suggest changes to CMMS programming.
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I will like to read comments:
** I'm missing something important?
** do you see here tasks that should be carried out by the Maintenance Supervisor (or who ever the crew is reporting to), or someone else?

quote:

All plants are different, what works fine at my organization maybe not be usefull at yours.

This sentence sounds familiar in one organization with multiple sites that it might have hindered the adoption & adaption of maintenance practices and we have agreed to call our practices as best practices only if they are "worth-duplicating" at other sites.

What are planners' roles & resp's? I thought I have also listed the key points in the other post. Good rules for maintenance planning & scheduling have been written in a book by the same title.

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

quote:

Originally posted by Josh:
This sentence sounds familiar in one organization with multiple sites that it might have hindered the adoption & adaption of maintenance practices and we have agreed to call our practices as best practices only if they are "worth-duplicating" at other sites.

Should I interpret that any plant can run maintenance the same way that other plant does, by the adoption of the "best practices"? That there is an ultimate efficient way to manage maintenance that can be universily applied through the industrial world?

Maintenance is a science: applied engineering, physics, mathematics, etc.

Maintenance management is not.

quote:

This sentence sounds familiar in one organization with multiple sites that it might have hindered the adoption & adaption of maintenance practices and we have agreed to call our practices as best practices only if they are "worth-duplicating" at other sites.

What are called best practices at one site, does not apply at another

I started on a site where the production equipment moved around, and some maintenance crews right behind it. It was on mobile drilling rigs running 5x24 hours between holes. One day for doing PM between moves. Central planner for the Preventive Maintenance program? Forget it, 1x24 hours radio contact, to act according circumstances. 2 times a year one or two weeks in the central shop for big PM.
Now I am in a place where the core equipment don't "run" around, but still not the "assumed best practice method"

We should try to compare similar "operations/plants" when talking about best practices.

Eugene, the planners in our organization had the same responsibilities, but their main task was to monitor and control the Preventive Maintenance Program.
That has grown more to the same scope you are using, but screening of all workorders is not done by the planners, exept for the big jobs. Crew supervisors have their roles and responsibilities also.

Eugene, Sorry, I don't mean as per your interpretation. It's good to hear your view on it.

My experience was that when we tried to propose implementation some good practices at one location to another location (even on a pilot basis), the first thing people said was something similar to what your stated.

Svanels I agree. In my industry PM Program monitoring is a major task due to the applicable regulations above us. In my organization it is under my responsibilities (as supervisor of the Maintenance Planning group) and I depend on the suport from the Planners who provide the reports from the CMMS.

This separation of duties can be described with a time continium:

* Planners: the focus in in the future, plan the jobs to be executed in the next two weeks, next months, the next shutdown. The planning horizon may vary, but it is definetily in the future.

* Maintenance Supervisors/Team Leaders: Their focus is the present. Which jobs the Planners plan for my crew for today, for this week. Any emergency to attend?

* I (Maintenance Systems Engineer) had to deal with all:
* supervise the Planners (future)
* monitor compliance with PM Schedule
*** review the past,
*** alert the Supervisors: Hey, you got just five days in this month left and there are this bunch of PMs orders still standing (present).

I also have change control duties of PM Program.

quote:

Originally posted by Josh:
My experience was that when we tried to propose implementation some good practices at one location to another location (even on a pilot basis), the first thing people said was something similar to what your stated.

Its frustating when people did not even try an idea you proposed and you know from the previous test that will bring benefits to their organization.

Eugene,
Your are experiencing a typical situation that I come upon on a regular basis.

quote:

Coordinate routine Meetings with Maintenance Engineering / Operation Supervisors.
* Prepare and submit progress reports, KPI.
* Support in the development of maintenance program, task lists.
* Suggest changes to CMMS programming.

Coordinate routine meetings with Maintenance and Operations is a Schedulers task.

Prepare and submit progress report and KPI
Support the development of maintenance program
Suggest changes to CMMS
These are the responsibility of the Reliability Engineer.

The planner works for the Maintenance dept. and should be a former crafts person.
The scheduler generally works for operations and is a go between for maintenance and operations and should have been an operator.

Develop your processes and define who, by position not name, is Responsible, Accountable, provides Support and provides Information. Embed this in your procedures.

S.Hatfield:
What I'm noticing here is, as Svanels wrote before, that a view to the organization is required prior to compare the division of responsibilities. For examples:
* I got Maintenance Planners, Maintenance Supervisors, a Maintenance Systems Engineer, but not Schedulers in my org chart. My solution: the Planners are also the Schedulers.
**** Other alternative, redistribute department clients between planners, reduce from 4 to 3 planners, assign one to be the Scheduler?
* Svanels did not have dedicated Maintenance Planners as described here, his solution: The resource equivalent to my Maintenance Supervisor performs the planning function.
* I got no Reliability Engineer, the responsibilities you have assigned to him/her maybe are splitted 70/30 between me (Maintenance Systems Engineer) and the Planners.

Eugene,
And that is where the problem lies.
Not picking on you but it seems you have a disorganized organization. This is typical in a lot of instances.

These are all separate functions and would most likely provide your employer a more efficient and productive organization.

There is no clear identification of job functions but all are trying to do their best.

No offense taken, I run with two backpacks:
* one with the not so good things/experiences I have still to work with.
* one for the good things/experiences I got that others may benefit from them.
Life is rebalancing the weight from one backpack to the other.

The other post " the business case for planners " (and future article by Jerry) tried to discuss the justifications for dedicated Maintenance Planners, how many should be in a organization based on the crew size, backlog orders, other factors.

If to improve organization, the Scheduling responsibilities should not be in the Maintenance Planner job description; how do you justify the new position.
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Terry:
Are we still on the topic or should I open a new one for the Schedulers Business Case? I think it is difficult to discuss the Planner without defining along the Maintenance Supervisor(team leader etc) and now the Scheduler.

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

Wow.. I love this discussion
A new player entered: the scheduler please no offenses.

My situation:
"Small" maintenance department.
4 sections: Maintenance Control Center (call it the planners group)
3) MRC's (Maintenance Responsibility Centers) call it maintenance execution.

Planners group, lay out and control the future work, Preventive Maintenance, release PM and PdM workorders, are the guardians of the CMMS, KPI's etc , just like Eugene outlined.

Maintenance execution receives PM workorders from Planning and non PM jobs from all other internal clients (operations, Stores (yeah they have forklifts, and all other sections that have registered assets that need maintenance.

Big jobs like turnarounds, temporary outages, jobs that only can be executed during outages, are prepared by planning group, ofcourse together with the clients (biggest client is operations (oil refinery).

Maintenance Planning and MRC supervisors participate in meetings with Operations where upcoming events and current bottlenecks are discussed.
Planning notifies Operations about upcoming PM jobs, when acknowledged, workorder is sent to execution (MRC). MRC got a time frame, and have to negociate exact hour with Operations. Plant running 1x24, so permits, hotwork, confined space, all must be place. If after certain time PM workorder is not in or status have not changed, Planning comes in to kick @ss.

My biggest headache is that there are so many functions created in maintenance that if I introduce all of them, I don't have welders, mechanics, millwrights, Electrical/Instrumentation mechanics (these guys have ampmeters in one hand and a pipewrench in the other), enough.

Consider this.

Materials, Planning, Scheduling are there to support maintenance.

Maintenance supports operations.

Operations produces product.

Materials has the responsibility to notify planners when and if they have the needed parts. Also to put kits together for the job.

Planners have to know the job. Usually there is a mechanical and an electrical maybe a instrumentation planner. They should be the one to close out the job and responsible to ensure accurate data in the CMMS. They provide support and may be the one to monitor KPI's. The owner (accountable) person that should be the Reliability/Maintenance engineer.

Schedulers must know more on the operations side. They provide support by knowing when they can shut down or scale back operations to allow the required time to do the maintenance. They are responsible for making sure the equipment is safe for maintenance to do work.

Mechanics, electricians, instrument techs are responsible for doing the physical work and providing accurate data and feedback to planners (information) .

The Reliability/Maintenance engineer is accountable for all the above and is supported by those positions.

There are generally only 3 functions that come directly from maintenance. The mechanic, the planner, and the maintenance engineer. In some cases the maintenance tech or the PDM person.

Is this too many? The size of the operation will determine the number of personnel. These are essential functions to any organization.

The problem is often right people are on the bus, just in the wrong seat.

Hm.. questions

1) What type of maintenance is predominant in the Organization? Area maintenance or centralized maintenance.

2) What is the weight of the scheduler? Is he authorized to shut equipment down for maintenance, cut back the throughput? Is he actually making the product? He is responsible for making sure the equipment is safe for maintenance to work? How? is he going to depresurize a pump? In our organization this "scheduler" would be the operations supervisor on duty, also the highest authority on the plant after normal working hours, whose primary responsibility is production.

quote:

The reliability/maintenance engineer is accountable for all above

If a pump breaks down and the process stops, the bosses call, who do you think they ask for? Reliability/Maintenance engineers?, forget it. The blows are coming directly to maintenance and operations. Who are running around to get the plant back on-line?

Hmm.. If production stops, Operations is in trouble, If equipment stops, maintenance is the target. The rest (stores, reliability engineer, procurement, process engineers, safety etc.. is supporting (just like maintenance).

Question 1. It does not matter. You tailor the organization as needed. The Responsibility, Accountable, Support, Information makes up what is known as a RASI chart and is by position.

Question 2. In general terms No! The scheduler is generally the coordinator between ops and maintenance. I never said he personally would depressurize a pump he is responsible for ensuring the equipment is safe before the maintenance crew goes out and stands around for a couple of hours. Do a time study on this you may be surprised. In your organization the scheduler would have the authority to scale back or stop production would he not? In your words he is the duty operations supervisor. Does he not have authority?

I don't know about your organization but, do you not have a organizational hierarchy.
Like the Maintenace techs work for the Reliability/Maintenace engineer who works for the maintenance manager/supervisor......so forth and so on. Everywhere I have worked the engineer gets it first then gravity takes over. Crap flow down hill. Kind of along the same lines of "Times Arrow"

These are functional roles that have accountability, responsibility support and information functions. Without this structure how can one begin to optimize reliability.

Without reliability at its optimal best, how can you improve on or have decent availibility, efficiency and quality?

What is your OEE?

My point is structure and accountability do make a difference in the bottom line. Its a team sport where the goal is to make a profit, stay in business and keep a job hopefully until we can retire.

There is of course a organizational hierarchy, which is described as the maintenance centric model by Terry Wireman

In theory maintenance, operations and engineering (departments in our case) are on the same level in the hierarchy and reports to a plant manager. From a maintenance point of view this is the best approach.

You are describing what is called the Engineering Centric model, which is usefull if you have a lot (too much ) of engineers.
Great if you have high specialized craft. I would love to have a boss like motordoc in this setting.

The worst one is the production centric model (which I call underdog model), again from my point of view, where you will encounter the (90% operator and 10% welder) individual. Typical in organizations where they forgot about maintenance. However in a truly cristalized and effective TPM setting, this would be the best option.
Again not that I am against TPM, but you will need a cultural revolution to achieve this. Somehow the orientals managed to achieve this stage earlier then their "western" counterparts. I wouldn't be surprised if western miltary organizations are in the top 10 if it comes to TPM. With allmighty unions (sealots of job descriptions, seniority and related stuff) this would be very difficult task to implement.

Unfortunately we do not live in an environment where the engineers and other high scholed proffesionals are raining from the sky, so the maintenance centric model works best for me.

OEE? huh.. Overall Equipment Effectiveness?, that is for the higher gods (in their scarce spare time). The "clercs" who have to dig the data, are learning to use a vibration analyzer. (Lean Maintenance)

I myself am a mechanical engineer, in the management role of maintenance superintendent in charge of the maintenance planning and execution.

The mentioned "scheduler", is the guy in the central control room who's hand is in reach of the red button.
The maintenance "scheduler" is the Maintenance Supervisor on the job after permission is granted by operations.

Svanels,
I understand what you say. However, just because maintenance, ops and eng are on same level does not mean purpose of each is not the same in relative functionality. Yes, it does take a cultural change this part is critical to success because every one has to buy into the change or you will be doomed to failure.

Actually what I described is none of what you mentioned. Certain aspects are. It actually takes the best of all the various philosophies and unites them. It is Reliability Centric.

You don't necessarily have to employe TPM to utilize operator care. Look at Ron Moore's book "Making Common Sense Common Practice" Pull what works for your organization and incorporate it.

If you have a CMMS you can embed a lot of the data required for OEE or any other analysis you desire in your normal ay of doing business on a day to day basis. Map your current processes then map your desired processes. This allows you as a team to discover how your organization could be doing things vs how are currently doing them. It is a discovery process no matter if you have educated trained people raining from the sky or not. I agree with Demmings' statement that went something like "Humans want to do a good job and will if given the tools to do so." This is really managements purpose to give your employees the tools to succeed.

Some sources data indicate that reliability decreases by around 20% due to Maintenance, operations and sales/marketing/management. This is 20% in each area. Yes those values are arguable but, probably not too far off base as an average.

I have worked in facilitating this program where one site had a $40M plus cost savings and it allowed that business unit to not be sold off.

Another business unit with the same company was about to be sold due to under utilization and losses due to no reliability program and because someone in sales and marketing decided they would advertise that the product would be shipped withing 72 hours of recieving an order. They were operating under TPM.
OK, A piece of equipment malfunctioned. Operations overrode maintenance and would not allow work to be done to correct the problem. Quality rejected the product. They were overridden as well. Product shipped. Product sent back by purchaser. People lost jobs, plant not in good standing with corporate office. The company I worked for at the time was contracted to come in and make evaluation and recommend corrections. I don't work there any more so I don't know the actual outcome but do know it works. We found many things that were contributors. All of them boiled down to one thing. People and their attitudes due to the way they were treated.

The problem with numbers and KPI's is that, not every segment in the corporation agrees on it.
The financial branches focuss on other numbers then the technical side or production. An performance indicator based on Return On Investment (the holy grail for finance and engineering projects) does not has the same impact in a maintenance organization, where an analysis of overtime x normaltime would indicate the efficiency of the maintenance workforce. If we throw in things like accident rates and absenteism, we could draw conclusions which can lead us to determine true root causes of undesired events.
Not that I do not agree with you, but focussing only on RCM, in my opinion doesn't though the "soft skills" needed of doing business.