new valve to where the welder was and explained how far he had gotten along. Then Bill took his toolbox over to the demineralizer to be ready to go after lunch.
After lunch, Bill took the flanged connection apart at the demineralizer. In order to obtain access to the leaking flange, he had to disassemble two other connections as well. All three flanges looked like they had Teflon gaskets, so Bill went to the toolroom for material to cut gaskets. Since he was waiting in line at the toolroom, it was a good time to call the dentist to make an appointment for next month. With the gasket material in hand, Bill went to his workbench and cut three gaskets using one of the old gaskets as a template. Bill realized that with these gaskets, he could finish up this job in no time. He wondered what the next job would be if he went back to his supervisor. It would probably be cleaning under the auxiliary boiler. He hated that job. Why couldn’t he be given a pump job or something important? Well, there was no sense worrying about it. Bill gathered up his gaskets and started toward the job. On the way, he passed Gino, who was cutting out some gaskets at his workbench. After stopping to compare notes for a few minutes, they both noticed it was almost break time, so they decided just to stay in the shop and talk.
After break Bill started reassembling the flanges. Most of the bolts looked in good shape, but a couple looked a little ragged. Bill thought that he had a good handle on completing his assignment, so it would probably be a wise use of time to go to the toolroom and replace those bolts. The toolroom had an open crib for bolts, so he did not have to waste any time in line acquiring new bolts. Soon Bill finished the job, and he wiped down and cleaned up the area. He then reported to his supervisor so the work permit could be signed off and taken to the control room. By then, there was about an hour and a half left in the workday. It was customary that the crew could use the last 20 or 30 minutes of the day filling out time sheets and showering. Therefore, instead of starting a new job, the supervisor decided to have Bill go assist Jan, who was finishing up a job on a control valve. Bill helped Jan complete her job. Then he filled out a time sheet and headed to his car at the end of the day.
On the way out to his car, Bill thought about how you had to keep busy all day long just to finish one or two jobs. It just seemed that something was not right.
Did you see anything that could have been improved? Could these improvements apply to your work? Bill and his crew could have used several of the tools shared at www.maintenanceinsanity.com to have made their day a lot more productive.
So what is wrong with this picture and poor old Bill? To understand why people do not change, we will review some common characteristics that we all have:
Combine the time lost on these scheduled events with all your add-on and emergency work, and it is easy to see that Bill and his team are stuck in the insanity loop. How do we ever keep up? Can we improve? Now review this story one paragraph at a time and identify actions that could have been taken by the assigned P&S role (maintenance coordinator, productivity coordinator, planner, scheduler, team manager, material coordinator, store’s personnel, and mechanic) to improve this typical day. This simple story shows the justification and potential benefits for improving our P&S processes.
Need more to prove to yourself that a change is needed? Answer these questions. How often . . .
