Identify the Organizations who do (or do not) want a Weekly Schedule

Based on my Experiences, this is the Breakdown

35% -- Either they simply don’t want one, or they don’t see the value. Some leadership teams will create a daily plan and skip the weekly schedule.

30% -- Since this design is an automated calculation, the leadership doesn’t trust the automation aspect.

40% -- This group might like to have one but cannot see how this would ever be possible (with automation). Or, they have a mostly inaccurate backlog; poor prioritization; no rough estimates; small percentage of fully planned jobs; no staff to support scheduling process; and inability to capture ETC values. Lastly, they generate monthly PMs for the “whole month” and are unable to establish weekly process.

50% -- This group would be eager to have a resource leveling program which is easy to use and quick to operate – if it existed!

4% -- This group already has a weekly maintenance schedule but manually created.

1% -- This small group already have a fully automated weekly maintenance schedule but outside the CMMS.

?Manually Created Schedules are Fairly Common

This process is called subjective selection which is based on opinion or “gut feel”. It is an inaccurate process because, with hundreds of work orders in the backlog, they cannot be accurately priority-risk-ranked or resource-leveled (by any human). For the jobs they do select, they will guess safely, and under-schedule crafts which impacts backlog reduction efforts. Even the drag-drop solutions are mired in subjectivity.

More About the Drag-Drop Solutions

Some software vendors sell a 4-quadrant, drag-drop solution which creates 5 daily plans before week start … and call this the weekly schedule. Although it is visually fascinating to look at, it is technically challenging to operate. Hence, each craft supervisor must sit (roughly 1-2 hours) with a scheduler to (1) select work from backlog, (2) pick the day-of-the-week, and then (3) assign worker names. Altogether, this is a misinterpretation of the weekly schedule definition, which is simply a “set of work” for the week. The other downside of 5 daily plans is, this process does not accommodate emergent work which undoubtedly comes up each day and should be added to the daily plan. Consequently, the drag-drop solution requires continual alterations mid-week which is unnecessary busy-work. Unfortunately, the executive level frequently gets confused by the sales pitch because it is labelled as a weekly maintenance schedule. Leadership doesn’t always understand the differences between the types of schedules, or scheduling software.

Vision Statement

10 Benefits of a Weekly Schedule Process - which is Automated

1. Leadership relies on a formal schedule to ensure the right work is selected from the backlog with the help of a ranking factor provided from a risk-based, work order matrix.
2. A formal schedule helps maximize craft utilization, which in turn, optimizes backlog reduction!
3. The weekly schedule meetings encourages opportunistic scheduling.
4. The weekly schedule contains 100% fully planned jobs which enables supporting departments to anticipate needs, i.e., staging parts and preparing lockout tags.
5. The weekly schedule provides a “set of work” from which supervisors draw-up the daily plans before each shift.
6. An automated schedule (i.e., resource-leveled) ensures that multi-craft jobs have been properly analyzed and have availability.
7. An automated schedule is lighting quick (as compared to a supervisor and schedule sitting in a room for hours manipulating a drag-drop screen).
8. Having a set schedule enables leadership to track reactive maintenance, i.e., work started during the week that was NOT on the schedule, i.e., the Reactive Maint KPI.
9. Without a set schedule, you can't conduct weekly schedule compliance.
10. Using the process shown below, the planners are given a "set of work" to plan (selecting the rough estimates).

Note that some organizations have a dedicated crew to perform emergency and urgent work. And when that is exhausted then they perform minor maintenance.

The Ideal Solution is one that is Embedded in the CMMS

This design includes a (1) prebuilt work order matrix, (2) automatic ranking of the backlog each night, (3) automatic resource leveling program [RLP] fired from within the CMMS, (4) Gatekeeper role captures rough estimates, and (5) capture of estimate-to-complete for carryover work. This design is available for implementation through product configuration including an “order of fire” application which accommodates your specific select and sort statements. Contact MGI in Nova Scotia for more information.

Process: The CMMS Creates the First Pass but is followed by WS Meeting Refinement

The following illustration explains how a supporting process might be implemented. One should also note that the time to create a weekly schedule using a drag-drop tool is quite time-consuming whereas the RLP runs in minutes (and can be re-run in the WS meeting). Also note that the RLP is 1st run to create a “set of work” for the PLANNERS to PLAN, and then, after a period of time (e.g., 5 days) the RLP is run a 2nd time to create first pass of the weekly schedule. The 20211101 date represents the Monday date you are targeting for week start.

Key Design Elements

• New field for PLANNING STATUS
• Embedded RLP with order of fire application
• Work order matrix with automatic ranking
• Frozen schedule which supports compliance analysis
• ETC capture
• Rough estimate capture
• Gatekeeper role
• Craft availability, efficiencies, and planned absences are stored inside the CMMS

This Design Approach also Fixes Your Bad Data

The weak priorities have been replaced by an automated WO ranking. Secondly, you now have an entire backlog with estimates - either as rough or formal. This means you can run a proper backlog report showing hours by craft, such as with a pie chart. Thirdly, by using the new WO status synonyms, you won't be making part reservations until the schedule is officially ISSUED (APPR status for some) - which is a great help to the warehouse staff.

Now the Maintenance Supervisor can Make Daily Assignments

EZMaxPlanner: Easy to use scheduling app eliminates the complexity and long learning curves typical of Maximo scheduling tools. Intuitive born-mobile navigation and powerful functionality -- including batch assigning -- makes schedulers and planners immediately productive and streamlines the entire scheduling and assignment process.

The RLP (resource leveling program) would read the backlog and automatically generate a resource-leveled weekly maintenance schedule using WO matrix ranking and craft availability against WO estimates (rough and formal).Then the EZMaxPlanner would allow the Maintenance Supervisor to graphically assign workers to jobs – either one day at a time or several days. Note that the RLP already did the resource balancing for the week.