What methods are companies using to determine wrench time? Or is wrench time even an item that companies focus on?

Wrench time we define as the time the craft is reporting doing a certain job. In our CMMS, the mechanics etc. have to report the time they spent on an assigned task. Thus it is actually ther hands-on time they spent. Time for housekeeping, lunch, training, meetings etc. is not included. The hours can be traced back to a workorder.

We currently use wrench-time as it is defined generally in maintenance management "life": that is only the time craftmen are actually working. Travel time to the job location, spare parts and tool pickup, waiting for materials/permit/clearance, even technical discussion regarding job are NOT included in wrench time. That is completely different to time charged on work order in my recent company.

The idea of defining and measuring wrench time is to pinpoint organization inefficiency and find priorities for improvement.

To measure wrench time, you need to organize or contract job study. There are several methods of job study that can be applied.

For me, work sampling has the best ratio - costs incurred to precizeness of results.

Measurement of 'wrench time', while an excellent tool for validating and pinpointing labor inefficiencies caused by poor or missing business processes, is not being used widely within manufacturing.

The reasons for this disuse of a good management tool vary, but the primary reasons are:

1) Maintenance management does not want to report the degree of inefficiency of their resources thereby suggesting faulty management.
2) The data collecting process requires observations of actual work practices and unless this process is explained properly to the workforce there is 'push back', skewing the results.

I personally have performed two dozen 'statistical activity surveys' in a number of different environments, the results of which clearly indicated opportunities for improvement through better planning and scheduling, materials management, work site preparation and/or communications.

In one case we were able to increase 'hands on' (the time spent using the tool of the trade) activity time from a dismal 23.6% of the average workers' day to 30.3%, a 28.3% increase in 'wrench time'. Do the math...Number of workers x 1.3 increase in wrench time = Equivalent number of workers. Those 'extra' available effort hours can certainly find other work to be performed.

This increase in efficiency was accomplished through a number of actions that were identified/validated by the survey, including modification of one particularly bad practice where the maintenance workers were previously not allowed to pick MRO material from the storeroom without a signed stores requisition from the maintenance planner. In today's electronic world that may not pose a problem, but without a modern CMMS that action required the worker to travel to the planner's office, then to the storeroom, while the rest of the crew on that job waited. Needless to say that practice was adjusted.

I consider 'wrench time' a valid KPI of continuous improvement of workforce productivity as long as the process used is consistent and as long as everyone understands the process is not used for fingerpointing and blame placing, but rather a solution for guidance of management practices.
However, no two 'wrench time' surveys use the same exact methodology, so comparing one's wrench time against another's without analysing the methodology is problematic.

I endorse Joyo's observations fully, based on those from my own experience.

There was a school of thought which attributed poor wrench time to worker attitudes. Most people accept now that Planning, Scheduling and Work Preparation accounts for the bulk of the lost time. 'Waiting for' something, be it Work Permits, Tools, Materials, Spares, Instructions or guidance from Supervision accounts for most of the lost time in most cases. More activity sampling is not likely to produce different answers. The causes are out there in the open, let us go and fix them first.

V. Narayan.