Many maintenance and engineering organizations spend more than 50 percent of their labor hours performing emergency work. What is an emergency? Let’s define it as a situation in which an unscheduled shutdown of needed equipment has occurred or is imminent due to the danger of injury to personnel, critical harm to operations, or the potential for major equipment damage. This type of situation requires immediate response, and, if needed, overtime would be approved automatically to deal with it.
Not all maintenance work treated as an emergency fits this description. Yet this is the most expensive category of work. And “emergency” work that is done because of someone higher in the organization requests it — not because it truly is an emergency — only worsens the problem.
On the other hand, a growing number of maintenance departments now use planned maintenance programs based on preventive and predictive maintenance that optimize cost and reliability of equipment. In organizations with these techniques in place, less that 10 percent of the maintenance work is emergency, as defined above.
In a well-managed maintenance department, all of the supervisors and front-line technicians are used well, which means they are on work assignments when an emergency occurs. So communication with them by means of cell phone, pager, loudspeaker or a signal device is essential.
If a tradesperson already is in the area of the emergency, authorized operations personnel can advise the maintenance supervisor by phone that an emergency exists and that the requester has asked for assistance. The tradesperson does the work while the requester fills out or calls in a work order, which is given to the tradesperson before he or she leaves the job site. The worker completes the job, fills out the rest of the work order and returns it to the supervisor.
If no tradesperson is in the area, the requester advises the maintenance shop via phone that an emergency exists and describes the problem. The maintenance supervisor assigns a worker, and when the worker arrives at the job site, the requester gives him a work order. The work is completed, and the work order is closed in the CMMS as complete.
If the department enforces a “work order for every job” rule, the equipment record will be more complete, and the performance indices will be more accurate, due to a larger percentage of the work documented in the CMMS.
The only information not predictable about emergency situations is when they will occur. Experienced maintenance managers can predict all of the other factors — location, craft, type of work, tools, equipment and material needed — after giving some thought to the most likely occurrences.
Given these facts, managers can do much ahead of time to prepare for these events to ensure they are handled quickly and with a minimum of downtime and disruption. Here are steps managers can implement that will shorten emergency-response time without producing added costs:
Managers also can maximize technician effectiveness by ensuring technicians use good mechanical and electric diagnostic techniques. Managers will save on the related training costs tenfold or more in reduced downtime.
One such technique is to trace problems using functional failure analysis, rather than random troubleshooting. This technique will eliminate wasted time trying to find the component that failed. Functional failure analysis uses decision-tree logic to narrow down choices until the final choice yields the solution. Using the technique can minimize dead ends and backtracking.
Emergency work is less safe than routine maintenance, in part because everyone is in a hurry. But safety should remain the top priority. It must be instinctive, and it and will be if safety reminders are present in all areas of the shop and facility. Even in emergencies, managers can plan technicians’ action at the job site. Departments can train workers in advance to practice good safety measures because in the rush to get things back to normal and return facility activities to normal, technicians can resort to dangerous shortcuts. The practices to avoid include but are not limited to:
Failing to use safety net, safety lines or adequate safety railings when working overhead are also dangerous shortcuts that can cost lives. These practices are much more likely to to occur when someone is in a hurry than in routine repair situations.
The effect of emergency maintenance as a policy invariably will increase costs substantially. Consider this example: The policy of a facility that practices emergency maintenance is that the department must provide immediate response. So if the department receives 40 one-hour emergency requests for mechanical work at the same time, the staffing required is 40 mechanics.
On the other hand, if these 40 jobs are identified while they are still minor, routine, non-emergency work that can be spread over one week, they require one mechanic. Among the other adverse effects of emergencies are the following:
In the end, avoiding the costs associated with emergency maintenance might be the best argument for investments in planned, scheduled maintenance.
Communication that Pays
Even though a good preventive maintenance program exists, managers still will face an emergency situation occasionally. One of the most effective types of training for maintenance personnel and requesters addresses effectively requesting maintenance service, in particular emergency service. Emergency Maintenance Request Procedure
In an emergency, call extension xxx and give the information in this sequence: |
Scheduling and Emergencies: Addressing the Myths
Too many managers believe that maintenance work cannot be schedule because emergencies always cause interruptions. While some interruptions occur, they should not deter managers’ attempts at daily scheduling. Those who favor the breakdown-maintenance approach often say, “If my maintenance people are idle, I know everything is okay” and “I have people available right away if a breakdown occurs.” Here are several myths contained in these arguments: — Thomas A. Westerkamp |
