Work Management

Deliver maintenance at the lowest possible cost

Enable your people to do the right work, the right way, at the right time

We have found across many industries that that it is common for maintenance teams get stuck in a reactive maintenance cycle where they are:

  1. Constantly responding to breakdowns and unplanned outages
    The preventive maintenance (PM) schedule completion rate is generally poor, and as a result the equipment reliability sufferers causing an increase in breakdowns and unplanned outages.
  2. There is no credible forward schedule of work
    Operations and other stakeholders have no confidence or visibility of when work is going to be done and most work is raised as urgent. There is no system for appropriate prioritisation of work that is aligned to business drivers and provides value to the organisation. The squeaky wheel syndrome prevails and your backlog of work keeps growing with no end in sight. The right work is not being done at the right time that provides the most value to your organisation.
  3. The management of maintenance work is ad hoc and feels out of control
    There are no standard processes, rules, roles and responsibilities to specify and control the end to end process for managing maintenance work from work identification, planning and scheduling, execution and feedback to the close out of each job.

In a reactive cycle environment, you don’t have the information you need to make appropriate decisions to deliver maintenance at the lowest possible cost that still meets your required performance targets.

  1. You do not have the information captured to perform continuous improvement, and reliability engineering to drive out waste.
  2. You cannot get meaningful performance reports to run your business

Develop an effective work management process

Work management is the process of initiating, planning, scheduling, undertaking maintenance and work feedback, as well as performing reliability analysis and continual improvement of your physical assets.

The purpose of work management is to establish a process and requirements for a systemic approach that will ensure all work is completed in a timely manner, appropriate to its priority and in keeping with budget and resources constraints. The work management processes are aligned with your information systems and can be updated at any future date as systems are modified or changed out.

Establishing a standardised approach to work management has been proven in the past to provide significant efficiency gains as well as improved asset reliability. A systemic approach to work management allows people to do the right work at the right time in the most efficient way that provides the most value for your organisation.

The work that is being done is systematically prioritised and aligned with your business drivers to meet your performance requirements.

The cycle of reactive maintenance is transitioned out of through proper planning, scheduling and achievement of maintenance schedules, including your preventive maintenance regime which in turn increases plant reliability, reduces unplanned downtime and gets you out of your reactive maintenance cycle.

You transition your work management maturity into a continual improvement organisation that is delivering effective maintenance at the lowest possible cost. You are performing reliability engineering, delivering reliable assets and driving out waste by understanding and effectively managing equipment performance.

So how does it work and what do you get?

We will understand your organisation

  • Understand your information systems. We will work with your team to review and understand your information systems and how they are currently utilised in the work management processes. We will work within the systems architecture and configuration and will  provide advice if changes are required, mainly around work order type, priority and status configuration. We will also advise if there are improvement opportunities in the systems architecture and configuration.
  • Understand your organisational structure. We will review and understand your organisational structure and build the work management processes to best fit within your current structures. We will advise if any changes are required. We have found in the past that changes are minor if required at all, and mostly around the planning and continual improvement functions.
  • Understand your current processes and practice. We will review your current work management processes and practice to understand your current state. We do not re-invent the wheel. If you have areas in your current practice that is working we will build on these areas of strength and move your organisation forward towards improving your work management approach.

Develop and validate the top-level end to end process

  • We will develop the top-level end to end process for work management to best fit your organisation
  • We will validate the top-level process with you and your team to ensure alignment with your organisation

Work identification and approval

We will develop a detailed work management process for how your organisation will capture defects and requests for work in a consistent and timely manner and managing the approval of work where required, ensuring data is entered into your information systems to allow effective planning and scheduling of work.

Work planning process

We will develop a detailed work management process for how your organisation will plan work through specification of detailed work instructions, planned time, resources and materials required to complete a Work Order.

Work scheduling

We will develop a detailed work management process for how your organisation will schedule work thought the identification, approval and allocation of the schedule of work to be performed by a maintenance resource within a specified time interval; while ensuring that:

  • Access to the assets is available;
  • The time allocation of the resource to do the work is achievable;
  • Parts are ready for work to commence;
  • Preventive maintenance is completed within the acceptable tolerance; and
  • New work is appropriately prioritised.

Work execution

We will develop a detailed work management process for how your organisation will dispatch work to individual maintenance personnel, completing all work to a safe and acceptable standard, ensuring approved work is adequately resourced and prioritising unscheduled (urgent break-in work) and opportune maintenance requirements.

Work completion feedback and recording

We will develop a detailed work management process for how your organisation will manage the completion of work and recording information to provide the details of all work completed, delays encountered, resources used, final asset condition and asset data updates in a timely manner into your asset information system to support business financial functions and continuous improvement.

Performance measurement (KPI’s)

We will develop key KPI’s and processes for the way work management performance is measured to encourage good performance and correct poor performance.

Reliability analysis and continual improvement

We will develop a detailed work management process for how your organisation will manage the improvement and reliability of equipment and the approach to maintenance by continually analysing equipment performance, equipment condition and maintenance system data, resulting in an understanding of major component life, reduction in equipment breakdowns and well defined system generated jobs (PMs) that maintain equipment to operating standards.

We will develop the detailed work management processes and manual

We will develop a comprehensive work management manual that will integrate the detailed work management processes with the use of your information systems. The work management manual is built to be practical and relevant as a job guide. The manual also includes a standard meeting framework and standard meeting agendas.

Develop general awareness and role specific training material

We will develop training materials for the change management process that is role specific as well as general awareness training materials.

Develop the change management plans

We will work with you and your team to develop a change management plan over an achievable improvement horizon. The  change management plan will be developed utilising the Prosci ADKAR Change Management Process. Change planning is crucial in implementing work management change as you will be asking individuals in your organisation to change the way they work. Managing this change successfully will require a plan on how this change will be achieved.

We will work with you to prepare for change management by identifying:

  • The nature of the changes required based on the new work management processes
  • The stakeholders that are being changed
  • The change team and sponsor model
  • The tactics for change including communication, training, mentoring, coaching and resistance management
  • The model to reinforce and sustain change through measurement and feedback

We will then work with you develop the following change management plans:

  • Communication plan
  • Sponsor roadmap
  • Training plan
  • Coaching plan
  • Resistance management plan

Managing and reinforcing change

We have Prosci Certified Change Managers and experienced training facilitators that will help you with managing and reinforcing the change to your work management practice. We will work with your team to implement the change management plans.

We have also found past success in implementing a train-the-trainers approach to coaching and mentoring that is cost effective for organisations. The train-the-trainers approach requires that during the change management planning process and initial implementation, champions are found that are trained to a higher level, who will act as mentors and trainers for their peers in the workplace. We have found that when change is supported and driven within the organisation, it has a higher rate of success. This approach also keeps the consultancy and advisory cost down, whilst increasing the change management capability within your own team.

Covaris will work with you in reinforcing the change process through:

  • Compliance audits and employee feedback
  • Corrective action and managing resistance
  • After action review and transition management