Maintenance Planning Techniques

Chahak Nagpal | Deepali Pandit | Lovely Gupta | Rashmi Dhara |

Shikhar Maurya
DFT - VI

What is Planning?
Planning is the process by which the elements required
to perform a task are determined in advance of the job
start.
It contributes in minimizing the waste of time and
resources used in caring for an operations physical
assets, so production can be maximized.
For effective and efficient working of any system, it is
necessary to plan and schedule its activities.

What is Maintenance Planning?

Reduced maintenance cost.
Improved utilization of the maintenance workforce by reducing delays
and interruptions.
Improved quality of maintenance work by adopting the best methods
and procedures and assigning the most qualified workers for the job.

Objective
Minimizing the idle time of maintenance workers.
Maximizing the efficient use of work time, material, and equipment.
Maintaining the operating equipment at a responsive level to the need
of production in terms of delivery schedule and quality.

An essential part of planning and scheduling is to forecast future

work and to balance the workload between these categories.
The maintenance management system should aim to have over 90%
of the maintenance work planned and scheduled.

Planning Procedure
It involves 4 steps:
1. Organising maintenance resources to ensure their
effectiveness in future.
2. Scheduling the resources for planned period.
3. Executing the plans according to schedules.
4. Establishing a feedback system for all the above
processes to know the deficiencies of each process.

Functions
Job Distribution
Optimum Cost
Man Power Allocation
Staffing Maintenance Function

Job Distribution
First and foremost step towards maintenance planning.
Balancing over/under utilization.
It should incorporates following components:
Organizational goals
Policies
Procedures

Programme
A maintenance programme is a well formulated
combination of available skills and resources that
ensures optimum utilisation to successful to
successfully complete the work.
Objective: To reduce cost and provide quality services.
Involves 3 Steps:
1. Selection of Activities
2. Determination of preventive maintenance frequency
3. Repair vs Replacement

Manpower Allocation
Most important task.
Done according to:
Work content
Nature of work.
Skill and expertise level.
Train the workers if required.

Staffing Maintenance Function

It depends on the ability of the organization to handle
both preventive and emergency maintenance
requirements at the same time.
To assess the effectiveness of this function the methods
used are:
1. Work time vs Idle Time
2. Control of labour performance
3. Utilization of equipment

Types
1. Long Range Planning
2. Short Range Planning
3. Immediate Activity Planning

Long Range Planning

Goals are set, strategies are developed and operational
programmes are advised for a period of 5-10 yrs.
More involvement of top management.
The plan should be flexible and adapts to changes:
Adapts technology upgradation in equipment's
Automation
Include emergency planning.
The planning function must be carefully coordinated
with planning of organization.

Short Range Planning

It covers a period of 1 day to 1 week.
Emphasis on nature of jobs that require routine check
ups and inspections.
It may concern with
1. Installation of equipment's,
2. Cyclic work and
3. Preventive maintenance work.

Immediate Activity Planning

Daily routine based planning.
Planning done by ground staff/in-charge or supervisors.
It is done for period of maximum 4 hours.
It may concern with:
Sudden breakdown
Work time error
Unpredictable stoppage of equipments

Planning Techniques
Planning techniques are required to develop the overall
master plan and for scheduling the major work of
planning and execution.
Some of the techniques are:
1. Gantt Chart
2. Milestone Method
3. CPM
4. PERT

Gantt Chart
Henry Gantt around 1910 1915.
A Gantt chart is a graphical representation of the duration
of tasks against the progression of time.

 Common technique for representing the phases and

activities of a project work breakdown structure.
Illustrates a project schedule; the start and finish dates of
the terminal elements and summary elements of a
project.
Limitations
Do not clearly indicate details regarding the progress of
activities.
Do not give a clear indication of interrelation ship
between the separate activities.
Cannot indicate the delays occurring in the project.

Milestone Method
This is an improved version of Gantt Chart.
A milestone chart depicts key events along a timescale.
A milestone chart traditionally used triangles to depict a
specific event.
A milestone on a milestone chart can depict a specific
event or a culmination of events.

 Provide big picture of project in progress.

Milestone charts can be used to summarize the tasks.
Milestone charts are simple, quick, and easy to do.
Keep you focused on major deadlines.
Best suited for short projects with only a few
participants.

Limitations
They do not reflect any interrelationships and
dependencies among the various tasks.
They do not give any indication of which tasks might be
the most important for completing the project on
schedule.
They give no indication as to when a task should begin.

CPM
Developed by Du Pont (1957)
Originally developed to solve scheduling problem in
industrial organization.
Emphasis on critical jobs is given so that overall timing
of project can be minimized.
Activity-on-node network construction.
Deterministic task times.
Repetitive nature of jobs

Activity

Duration

Required Predecessor

Design guide on history teaching

5 months

None

Identify schools to participate in

testing of the new guide.

1 month

None

Translate preliminary guide

2 months

Print and distribute guide to pilot

schools.

3 months

A, B

xxxx

2 months

Train sample of trainers

3 months

yyyyy

4 months

zzzz

2 months

B,E

oooo

1 month

Write project report

1 month

F,G,I

 CPM focuses on:

the interrelationships and dependencies among
individual tasks.
Identification of those tasks or activities that are critical
to completing the project on time.

Methods

PERT
Developed by US Navy (1958).
The use of PERT is very common and can be applied to
all industrial projects.
This technique can be applied to maintenance work
where uncertainties very much prevail.
It helps to find the initial time for the completion of job.

 It assumes 3 type of cost estimates:

1. Optimistic time estimates (to)
2. Pessimistic time estimates (tp)
3. Most likely time estimates (tm)
.The average time can be calculated as:

Benefits of CPM/PERT
Useful at many stages of project management.
Mathematically simple.
Give critical path and slack time.
Provide project documentation.
Useful in monitoring costs.

Limitations of CPM/PERT
Clearly defined, independent and stable activities.
Specified precedence relationships.
Over emphasis on critical paths.

Estimation of Maintenance Work

During planning, its important to estimate the quality
and quantity of the maintenance work.
This helps in adequate resource allocation.
It helps in comparing estimated cost and actual cost.
It can be done by following methods:
Measurement by estimates
Measurement by historical data
Measurement by Conventional Standard Time Data.

Planning Inputs
Like other jobs maintenance planning needs acquisition of
certain information of planning inputs. It includes:
Nature of equipment to be maintained and their number.
Resources required for maintenance job.
Maintenance activities and time required for these activities.
Information of availability of skilled manpower.
Information on hiring and contract services.
Information on maintenance tools.
Maintenance instruction manuals.
A possible maintenance control policy.

Estimation of Maintenance Work

It is important to estimate the quantity and quality of
maintenance work. This will help in allocation of
manpower.
The following 3 methods can be used:
1. Measurement by Estimates
2. Measurement by Historical Data
3. Measurement by Conventional Standard Time Data