Unlocking Synergy: How Combined Planning, Scheduling, and Condition‑Based Maintenance Multiply Benefits

While most maintenance departments recognize the importance of both planning & scheduling and condition‑based maintenance, the real advantage emerges only when these disciplines are integrated. This article explains how their combined application delivers results that far surpass what each can achieve on its own.

Maintenance planning and scheduling prioritize and organize work so it can be executed in a highly efficient fashion.

Managers and hourly employees across stores, accounting, purchasing, engineering, and production must buy into the concept and do their part for it to work. The major outcomes include:

• An organized approach to analyzing and executing any work identified.
• Detailed plans, rules and records for the evaluation and execution of work.
• Effective utilization of planners, supervisors and craftspeople.

These outcomes yield benefits such as:

• Cost savings through efficient use of maintenance labor hours.
• Increased production yield from faster execution of all jobs.
• Reduced injuries and less stress from a better workflow.

In short, it’s all about efficiency and organization.

When maintenance planning and scheduling are implemented alone, craftspeople often face emergencies caused by “surprise” breakdowns, forcing them to bypass the procedures they worked hard to deploy.

Next, let’s examine condition‑based maintenance.

Condition‑based maintenance, also known as predictive maintenance, can be defined in many ways, but it extends far beyond vibration analysis.

Figure 1. A Common Definition of Condition‑Based Maintenance

The outcome of condition‑based maintenance is to detect future failures before they manifest as equipment breakdowns. A breakdown is defined as the loss of the function a component was designed to accomplish – for example, when a pump stops pumping.

• It provides information – knowing that an item will break in the future. This alone does not prevent failures but allows you to:
• Gather information about the equipment and parts affected by the future breakdown.
• Plan and schedule the repair.
• Eliminate the cost of consequential damage caused by a functional failure.

When you repair before a breakdown develops, you typically save 50–90 percent, as shown in Figures 2 and 3.

Figure 2. Planning and Scheduling Without Condition‑Based Maintenance. When a breakdown is discovered, you must diagnose, plan and repair it immediately to get production back up and running. Typically no resources are spared at this time.
Figure 3. Planning and Scheduling and Condition‑Based Maintenance. When impending failure is discovered ahead of time, you have time to plan it, get parts, schedule and repair it before a breakdown occurs. This typically costs 50–90 percent less and can often be scheduled with other repairs for less production impact.

The degree of savings depends on how early you catch it, whether it can be repaired online, and the cost of repairs. For example, finding an impending failure on a standard motor you have in stock, scheduled for maintenance next Wednesday from 8 a.m. to 4 p.m., versus a non‑stock motor that fails at night and forces a shutdown. The latter scenario incurs far more cost due to scrambling for parts, overtime, production losses, and supplier contact.

Predictive maintenance alone often flags many items for repair, yet only some are actually addressed because maintenance lacks efficient work practices such as planning and scheduling. This can demoralize operators and craftspeople, as many flagged items still break down instead of being repaired when discovered.

When predictive maintenance and planning and scheduling are used together, they produce synergies such as:

• Reduced cost of spares and material.
• Increased labor productivity (primarily in maintenance but also for operators).
• Better job satisfaction.
• Increased production yield.
• Effective work practices.
• Improved production quality.

Thus, two plus two can equal eight when planning and scheduling and predictive maintenance work hand in hand.

Torbjörn (Tor) Idhammar is partner and vice president of reliability and maintenance management consultants for IDCON Inc. Michael Lippig is the business development manager. Tor’s primary responsibilities include training and implementation support for preventive maintenance/essential care and condition monitoring, planning and scheduling, spare parts management, and root cause problem elimination. He is the author of “Condition Monitoring Standards” (volumes 1 through 3). He earned a BS in industrial engineering from North Carolina State University and an MS in mechanical engineering from Lund University (Sweden). Contact Tor at 800‑849‑2041 or e‑mail info@idcon.com.
Management Consultants in Reliability and Maintenance – IDCON
www.idcon.com