PLANNING AND
SCHEDULING

Effective planning and scheduling is what elevates maintenance from an expense to an investment in asset performance.

Far from simply allocating jobs from the backlog of work orders to available resources, maintenance planning and scheduling is one of the most effective tools available to control costs and boost asset performance. When considered as part of a broader maintenance strategy, planning and scheduling results in higher resource utilisation and lays the foundation for preventive and predictive maintenance approaches.

Planning is the process of determining the resources required for future maintenance work. This includes determining the tasks, trades, minimum skill or qualifications, materials and tools required to complete the job safely and efficiently. Better planning leads to fewer breakdowns and improved asset performance.

Scheduling is the process of co-ordinating when the work can commence by allocating resources from the available labour pool (which may include third-party contractors), dispatching materials from stores and collecting any required tools. As scheduling improves, jobs are identified many weeks before they are executed and completed predictably.

As the planning and scheduling processes improve over time, the backlog of maintenance work decreases, and people have the time to do preventive and predictive maintenance. Without it, organisations tend to slip into a reactive maintenance state where most of their work is fixing equipment that breaks. This creates a downward spiral of increasing work backlog, reduced equipment reliability, and higher maintenance costs.

Clarita Solutions has helped organisations:

migrate from spreadsheet and whiteboard centric processes to systemised and collaborative approaches
identify dependencies and re-engineer work processes in a highly constrained operating environment to optimise scheduling and minimise plant shutdowns
develop complex crew rostering and scheduling solutions accommodating multiple award rules and conditions, individual preferences and fatigue management, while maintaining fairness and equality across the workforce.
improve job plans by removing redundant & ambiguous tasks, re-order tasks for efficient workflow, and identifying required inventory items

FEATURED CONTENT

Building smarter dispatch processes

Clarita has helped TasWater achieve their vision for a reimagined dispatch process that leverages location data and mapping for huge productivity returns.

Finding the asset management sweet spots

When systems are delivering on their potential, in alignment with the strategic plan, asset management sweet spots can be found across the business.

Efficiency
Better planning identifies constraints, which leads to fewer unexpected disruptions to the work schedule.
Collaboration
Work effectively with shared knowledge on where people, assets, and materials are and where they are supposed to be.

Work Tracking
Improved visibility helps identify the best resource to react to emergency work and to see the impact of that on the schedule.
Real-Time Information
Offline schedules are usually outdated as soon as the work day begins. Real-time scheduling helps visualise the impact of unplanned factors.

ebookAsset Management in Transport Infrastructure

Important insights for transport infrastructure asset operators about how smart, integrated asset information ecosystems can maximise their organisations’ infrastructure asset performance.

Download the Ebook