Reliability & Maintenance Tips: Balancing Backlogs and Streamlining Shutdowns
Owe Forsberg, CAMA, CMRP Vice President and Senior Consultant, IDCON INC
Tip #1: Calculating the Backlog
Are you finding it difficult to manage your maintenance and reliability resources? Do you feel like you cannot catch up on the work order backlog?
Backlog Management is the main objective in managing maintenance in a plant or facility. The key results of backlog management are completing work in a?timely?manner and managing the long-term demand for resources.?
What’s timely?
Timely is defined as being proactive to avoid production losses, increased manufacturing cost, and possibly lose market share. In my experience, many plants struggle to measure the backlog of maintenance work. This is often because it can be difficult to calculate the backlog and use that to measure if maintenance has enough resources to get work done and to meet business requirements.
How do you calculate crew weeks (or weeks of backlog)?
Example: You have 10 techs and they have a regular work week of 40 hours.
10 techs x 40 hours/week = 400 hours/week = 1 crew
The best practice for the process industry is to have a backlog of 4-6 crew weeks in total for weekly and daily work. If it’s 6 weeks and if no additional work orders are added it will take 6 weeks for the crew to finish all work orders during regular work hours.
Some industries like pharma and food may have best practice targets of about 2-4 weeks.
NOTE:?Your weekly and daily backlog should be calculated separately from the shutdown.
For?shutdowns, the issue becomes more about: ‘Can we operate reliably until the next shutdown?’
I visited a plant experiencing an increasing trend of equipment breakdowns. After reviewing the data, we discovered that the monthly budget target was limiting the maintenance team by cutting out some work that was necessary for the monthly shutdown. We calculated the downtime and available resources and found it would take more than a year before some of the work would be completed at the monthly shutdown. This did not support the?reliability goals?of the plant.
Balancing the Backlog
Picture the backlog as a series of tanks that have an inlet and outlet. If you add the same number of gallons as you remove, then you have balanced the level or volume in the tank. The same principle applies.
Analogy of backlog?
The total backlog is 6 weeks (or 6 crew weeks). There should be no backlog of work requests. In the example above there are 400 hours or work orders and PMs added. At the same time 400 hours of work is completed every week, therefore the backlog is in balance and within the target of 4-6 weeks.
Why Calculate the Backlog?
The biggest benefits:
Why is there resistance to calculating?
Tip #2: 6 Phases of Shutdown and Turnaround Management
At IDCON, we divide plant Shutdown and Turnaround management into 6 phases. The goal of the six phases is to drive unscheduled downtime to zero as well as increasing Overall Production Efficiency (OPE) to create the opportunity to increase output.
This newsletter will briefly summarize four of the six phases.?To learn more about all the Phases, you can either buy our?Shutdown Turnaround Optimization Process Practical Guide?or join us for our next?training course. You can also watch our Shutdown/Turnaround playlist on YouTube.
Phase 1: Strategic
The Strategic Phase of Shutdown/Turnaround Optimization Process (S-TOP) focuses on the frequency/interval and duration of the shutdown, organization and management of the shutdown, the use of contractors, long-term strategy for shutdown, and a strategy for the current shutdown. At the end of the Strategic Phase (if the steps are followed), you will have increased run time, decreased frequency of shutdowns, optimized outage duration, and good coordination with the overall business plan.
Phase 2: Work List
The purpose of the Work list Phase (or scope review) in the Shutdown -Turnaround Optimization Process (S-TOP) is to make sure that the correct work is selected.
In this phase, your organization identifies the work that is critical to support production reliability:
This phase is critical to the determining the time required for the plant production to be offline.
Phase 3: Planning
The purpose of the Planning Phase in Shutdown/Turnaround Optimization is to plan the jobs from the worklist created in?Phase 2, the start-up and shutdown activities, and the safety and environmental procedures.
If executed correctly, the Planning Phase will result in downtime reduction, mitigation plans, the most critical jobs being planned first, and contracted jobs being planned.
Tradespeople will be able to complete work efficiently, knowledgably, and on time; downtime and shutdown duration will be optimized; and coordinated use of resources will be optimized.
What activities are done during the planning phase?
Phase 4: Scheduling
The focus during the Scheduling Phase is on integrating schedules, the critical path, shutdown execution management, logistics, and organizing resources (including contract management). Executing the Scheduling Phase correctly will result in shutdown preparedness, efficient and high-quality work, better communication, developed contingency plans, and resource leveling and scheduling.
Creating a process with common goals is vital to achieving?world-class reliability and maintenance.
Consultant Spotlight - Owe Forsberg, CMRP, CAMA
Owe Forsberg is the Vice President and a Senior Consultant with IDCON INC. He brings 30 years of progressive experience in multiple phases of Manufacturing, Facilities Management, Business Operations, Maintenance Engineering, and Product Management. He is a Certified Reliability and Maintenance Professional (CMRP) and a Certified Asset Management Assessor (CAMA).
Owe has proven analytical and problem-solving skills, as well as comprehensive experience in analyzing and streamlining business operations while applying system and engineered technologies to increase productivity, quality, efficiency, and customer satisfaction.
He focuses his attention on our worldwide clients and leads our team in the development of training and consulting tools.
His development projects include a Deep Dive Preventive Maintenance Assessment tool, a Deep Dive Materials and Spare Parts Assessment tool, an assessment guide, and a Shutdown Turnaround Optimization Process guide.
Owe is an expert in assessing, coaching, and supporting the implementation of improved Reliability and Maintenance practices at IDCON client sites. Our clients rely on his practical advice and coaching across the organization - from the boardroom to the plant floor.
Upcoming Training
Shutdown Turnaround Optimization Process
Raleigh NC or Online
November 18 – 19, 2024, January 23 – 24, 2025 and May 21- 22, 2025
Are your shutdown/turnarounds costing you valuable production time???
IDCON’s Shutdown Turnaround Optimization Program training teaches you how to stay on budget and minimize downtime through a 6-step process that focuses on countdown actions, tools, and resource optimization. You’ll receive IDCON’s Shutdown Turnaround Optimization – A Practical Guide with your course registration, a $99 value.
Shutdown Turnaround Optimization Process - A Practical Guide
Whether you call it a Shutdown, Outage or Turnaround the fact is that these events have a serious impact on the financials of an operation. The key to a successful event is to have a well-thought-out strategy and plan.?
This practical guide puts you in the driver seat as the Hakataramea Plant's shutdown manager and planner. You'll complete exercises that will give you practical tools and insights to developing short- and long-term strategies for your plant's next shutdown/turnaround or outage.?
Don't just read the book! Join us for our Shutdown Turnaround Optimization Process Training for even better outcome.?
Our seasoned instructors will give you even more tools and techniques.??