What Are the Do's and Don'ts of Maintenance Planning and Scheduling?

Maintenance planning and scheduling is the most important part of an organization's growth. For maintenance planning, several types of strategies are planned. It can be proactive maintenance or reactive maintenance.

It can be mixed up as well, such as for some assets preventive maintenance or predictive maintenance can be used, and for some assets condition monitoring maintenance, or emergency maintenance can be used.

As we said according to business strategy maintenance strategy is used.

According to Markets and Markets,  “The global predictive maintenance market size is expected to grow from USD 4.0 billion in 2020 to USD 12.3 billion by 2025, at a Compound Annual Growth Rate (CAGR) of 25.2% during the forecast period.”

For effective maintenance, planning and scheduling are critical parts. Choosing the right maintenance is significant but some things are essential to do and some shall be ignored that we will discuss in this blog. So let us begin!

What Are the Benefits of Maintenance Planning and Scheduling?

The benefits of maintenance planning and scheduling are given below:

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1. Increased asset life
2. Minimized sudden breakdown
3. Enhanced asset performance
4. Decreased maintenance expenses
5. Increased productivity
6. Improved workflow
7. Better coordination
8. Decreased asset downtime

Now you might think all these benefits will increase productivity by just a few percent is not going to impact your bottom line! But when you see its benefits on the ground you will notice its impact on improved operation better coordination, better customer engagement.

What Are the Do's of Maintenance Planning and Scheduling?

Below we have mentioned do's of maintenance planning and scheduling:

1. Choose the Right Maintenance Planner

The maintenance planner is the most important person for maintenance execution. He has the most important role to play in maintenance.

Maintenance should be effective so that technician's work orders are completed effectively. Maintenance planners must be skilled, knowledgeable, and experienced in maintenance.

2. Train Maintenance Planner

For effective maintenance planning and scheduling, the maintenance planner must know how does maintenance operation works. That is why training is essential for maintenance planners.

Skill, knowledge, and experience is not just enough maintenance planner need to know how does the procedure works.

Also Read: In Terms of Saving Money How Crucial Preventive Maintenance Is?

3. Keep Maintenance History

Maintenance history can help in letting know the current issue of the asset. Maintenance history is the key to increasing the efficiency of assets and equipment. It is one of the most important for maintenance planning and scheduling.

Proactive maintenance needs more planning and reactive maintenance requires less planning compared to proactive maintenance. For instance, when you are using proactive maintenance then you can use asset history for effective maintenance planning and scheduling.

4. Check Equipment & Inventory Availability

Types of equipment are required to deliver efficient maintenance. However, it has been seen that while performing maintenance equipment and inventory is not available and that hampers maintenance work.

Therefore, while maintenance scheduling and planning, the maintenance planners must make a list of required equipment and ensure that inventory is available. Maintenance technicians shall be cross-checked with list and inventory to see if there are any other item need to be added or not!

What Are the Don'ts of Maintenance Planning and Scheduling?

Below we have mentioned don'ts of maintenance planning and scheduling:

1. Don't Ignore KPI

Key performance indicators let you know how your asset is performing! You can compare current performance with previously collected data that will assist you in determining asset performance. Key performance indicators are significant for getting insight into maintenance work done in the past.

2. Don't Give Incomplete Information

Information is vital for every job, especially in a maintenance job. It is important that detailed information is provided otherwise quality work will not be delivered and work will suffer. Furthermore, a lot of time will be wasted because additional information will be required.

3. Don't Take Small Feedbacks

After every maintenance work, the organization and maintenance manager must know what are the activities that are done how much time it took what parts are changed. It is better to avoid a small or one-word answer. These feedbacks help in future maintenance and assist in upcoming maintenance work.

Conclusion

So these were the few important do's and don'ts of maintenance planning and scheduling. When assets are maintained then you can expect a better quality of work which leads to increased productivity.

Clients are happy when they get their delivery on time, all happen because of maintenance. So, maintenance is vital for the organization.

For effective maintenance, you can use computerized maintenance management software. This software can be the game-changer for your organization along with the precautions we mentioned above.

It assists managers in maintenance scheduling and planning. Furthermore, it provides several other benefits such as asset history, asset maintenance tracking along with asset tracking.

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Frequently Asked Questions (FAQs)

1. What is the need for planning maintenance work?‍

A. So that full utilization of asset can be done.
B. To decrease the sudden breakdown chances.
C. So that daily operation does not suffer.
D. Production delivery takes place on time.  

2. What are the responsibilities of a maintenance planner?‍

The maintenance planner has a lot of responsibilities that we have mentioned below:
A. Increase efficiency of the workforce.
B. Identifying Eliminating potential delay.
C. Planning and coordinating with maintenance technicians.
D. Ensuring equipment and inventory availability.
E. Planning and scheduling maintenance.

3. What is the difference between planning and scheduling?‍

Planning and scheduling are similar to each other, lots of people use them interchangeably. However, there is a difference between them.

Planning maintenance when you plan maintenance for a specific asset, gathering all equipment, ensuring inventory availability, what activities will be done, who will be performing it, when it will be done. All these activities come under planning maintenance.

Scheduling maintenance is the day & time execution of the maintenance plan. In simple words, when maintenance will be done is scheduled maintenance.