How to Overcome Maintenance Backlog
The solution lies in being able to prioritise work orders, manage your resources, plan for risks, building safe and efficient work orders, and keeping track of everything. PMS’s Asset Management System does just that! Using such powerful software allows you to seamlessly integrate maintenance modules to your pavement modelling software. This helps to minimise information gaps and boosts efficiency between engineers and operations. It can even automatically schedule maintenance teams to work sites in real time.
But first, let’s find out how we can begin to tackle backlog by taking a look at the key steps below.
What is maintenance backlog?
Maintenance backlog is the collection of planned work that has been approved and scheduled but is yet to be completed.
What are the steps to overcome work order backlog?
1. Ranking tasks by priority
The first thing is ranking tasks by priority and the way in which you do so depends on your business and maintenance goals. Here’s just one way to decide which tasks to do first:
1) Prioritise based on most critical assets.
2) Choose to work on critical assets by how late they are, i.e. how many times they were missed.
3) Determine the time frame and level of difficulty of remaining work orders. The work that is able to be done quickly or with less downtime should be prioritised.
2. Assessing resources
The next step is to examine what resources are available by asking the following questions:
What is the size of your team, and what are training, skills, and certifications do they possess? Your technicians’ capabilities will change what you do, the order you do it in, and how long it’ll take.
Do they have all the information required to do the job safely and properly in the specified timeframe?
Are all the parts, supplies, and safety equipment available for your work orders? And if not, how long will it take to get them?
How large are your maintenance windows?
3. Risk planning
Three kinds of risks can be found in high-risk backlog jobs:
1. Significant / large scale rebuilds
2. Long and complicated projects
3. Work your team hasn’t done in a while or have never done before
Be sure to analyse the risks of each and find ways to reduce them. Give technicians extra training, and that all WHS rules and risk management strategies are in place.
4. Building work orders that prioritise efficiency and safety
Creating great work orders helps you make the most of your time, staff, and budget. There are a key aspects of a work order that make this possible:
Have lists of clear, detailed, and concise tasks to remove confusion and wasted time
A list of required parts and PPE, including a bill of materials and where to locate those parts.
Provide manuals, diagrams, and pictures to cut time spent locating them or having to troubleshoot without them
An in-depth description of the problem in addition to completion notes, to help the technician to not make mistakes and waste time.
5. Keeping on top of everything
Measuring your progress allows you to adapt your strategy to new challenges as they come up and work is completed.
Ensure that you are staying up to date with your team and assisting them with the tasks you’ve assigned. You can do this by scheduling points of the day to check if your team are okay with the work, if they have all the resources/equipment needed, and what processes are working and what can be improved.
Reference
https://www.fiixsoftware.com/blog/six-steps-for-managing-maintenance-backlog/