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Most of the maintenance crews are stuck in a reactive fire-fighting loop whereby breakdowns are unpredictable and end up in a daily operation mess. This unproductiveness causes the reason behind the wrench of time-the hours of actual work on the tools- to be relatively minimal at 25-35 on average, and it is a waste of resources.
Nevertheless, there is a significant change currently happening in that the teams no longer focus on repairing the broken but embrace the 3rd. Maintenance philosophy. This new system sees reliability as a strategic investment to be leveraged, as opposed to an inevitable cost to be kept to the lowest.
Cryotos CMMS is the critical online foundation to this change and will be the central hub of your data to ease business. We enable you to transform reactive firefighting to excellence that is proactive to make sure that your crew is not working harder but smarter.
The first step that you should take in order to avoid the reactive trap is to differentiate between the two pillars of maintenance management. They can be interchanged but they have very different purposes.
Planning involves the writing of the recipe and the purchase of ingredients.
The scheduler is arranging a timer for a cake which has not been mixed without planning. The two bodies together help in making sure that the right work, the right people, and the right resources are used to do the work.
Balance is the greatest obstacle. Teams have a hard time balancing between urgent and breakdown repairs and long-term objectives in terms of reliability. Even the best schedules are usually derailed by external distractors like never included parts, lack of clear roles or even mismanaged inventory.
Subjectivity is one of the largest problems of Step 2 (Identify and Priorities). Is job urgent, because it is critical or because somebody is screaming at you? This is solved by the use of the RIME (Ranking Index of Maintenance Expenditures) method, which uses a mathematical, non-biased scoring system.
RIME helps you rank every work order using a simple formula:
RIME Score = Asset Criticality × Work Class Priority
To make your bottom line better in the shortest time, there is no quicker option than improving wrench time without having to employ a single new technician. The calculation is simple: the more time your team doesn’t have to wait to receive parts and the more time to work on assets, the more your company has a so-called hidden workforce.
The Scenario: You have a group of 10 technicians who are on a 40-hour a week basis.
Gain = New Wrench Time % - Current Wrench Time % x Total Labor Cost
In this case, such a 20 percent growth will open 80 additional hours of productivity within each of these weeks. That would be equivalent to 2 free full-time technicians.
By optimizing planning, you aren't just saving time; you are recovering lost salary dollars and deferring the need for expensive contractor support.
Ready to optimize? Follow this 6-step roadmap to build a robust planning and scheduling engine.
You cannot keep track of you cannot keep it. Begin by recording the location, criticality, and technical history of all the assets. It is based on this single source of truth that is the basis of your maintenance program.
Stop treating every breakdown as an emergency. Move away from simple "High/Low" labels and use data-driven metrics to objectively prioritize work based on safety and production loss.
Technicians shouldn't waste hours searching for manuals or tools. Create detailed plans that define the scope, safety protocols (like Lockout/Tagout), and list "kitted" parts.
Develop a "frozen" weekly schedule. This is a locked-in plan that aligns maintenance needs with your operational capacity. By freezing the schedule (e.g., for the upcoming week), you reduce last-minute changes.
Paper logs are obsolete. Use mobile job sheets to track progress in real-time. This ensures work is completed to quality standards and allows supervisors to monitor status remotely.
The data is not captured until the job is done. Document the technical history and materials that are used in your CMMS. Apply this data to monitor KPIs such as Schedule Compliance to determine your achievement.
Although there are a plan and a prioritization technique to be followed, the teams tend to fall under the following trap:
Maintenance planning and maintenance scheduling are not only nice-to-have but necessary in every aspect of minimizing cost, enhancing safety, and increasing the life of your equipment.
Think out the work then plan the work. It is just that straightforward, and essential.
Ready to stop paying for downtime? Explore how Cryotos can integrate with your operations to automate your maintenance planning and protect your assets.
