Without proper planning and scheduling, work quality, equipment/asset uptime, and maintenance productivity will not be at levels to support required operating profiles. The reasons for this are:
- Excessive non-productive time incurred both during and between job tasks.
- Without effective planning, planners can also become non effective due to the number of technicians that are assigned to them.
- Overall maintenance costs also increase due to the acquisition and storage of unnecessary spare parts, and
- Energy consumption also increases due to poorly maintained equipment.
As can be seen, effective maintenance planning and scheduling is a cornerstone processes that can assist with attaining excellence in operations and subsequently be able to support constant production. The benefits of good maintenance planning and scheduling are numerous, and include:
- Increased productivity of tradespeople
- Reduced equipment downtime
- Lower spare parts holdings
- Less Maintenance rework
The figure shown highlights the effect effective Planning and Scheduling can have on a company’s Maintenance Maturity Continuum.