Work Management Overview

The work management process is important to understand if maintenance work is going to be accomplished and improved. Figure 2-1 shows an overview of the work management process. The work management process begins with work identification, which is identifying work that needs to be performed. The maintenance and reliability work that needs to be performed can come from many different sources. For example, it may come from the maintenance department itself. It can be in the form of preventive maintenance, where the condition is detected by preventive maintenance activities. The work may involve corrective maintenance activities that are a result of preventive or predictive activities, or even modifications to the equipment that have been identified by the maintenance department.

Figure 2-1: Work Management Process

The operations department is another area from which maintenance work can be generated. The operations department may identify work based on current operating conditions of the equipment. The work may be required based on poor performance of the equipment, or even based on a quality issue that needs to be resolved by a maintenance activity being performed on the equipment.

Additional areas where maintenance work may be generated are related to environmental, health, and safety issues. Maintenance work may also be generated as part of an engineering project or from the equipment improvement suggestions. The list of potential sources from which work can be originated is listed...