TABLE OF CONTENTS A weekly schedule proves to be most effective for maintenance and reliability departments because it is sufficiently flexible to handle most unexpected delays resulting from emergency work, schedule break work, weather, etc. The goal of maintenance scheduling is to develop a comprehensive schedule of all maintenance activities for all areas of the plant or facility. If this is accomplished, the schedule becomes a very powerful communication tool. This insures that maintenance, operations, facilities, engineering, production, and management all understand what maintenance activities are scheduled and when they will be executed.
A weekly work scheduling process highlights all resources that are required within a specified time period. This process covers not only maintenance labor, but also the equipment and other assets, as well as the time that they will be required to be shut down or available for service. Because the equipment and assets are involved, the process will require a review of the production requirements and sales projections. This review will guarantee that any equipment downtime required for maintenance will not impact the company's profitability. As a result, the balancing and assignment of resources will be agreed to by the maintenance department, the operations department, and the engineering department. For this reason, it is imperative that the maintenance schedule be accurate because it will be the main communication tool.
For the scheduling process to be effective, a backlog or pool of work is required. In this way, the proper amount of work can be drawn up for...
