Planning and Scheduling with Jeff Shiver

Planning and scheduling is a term often used in the organizations. It might be used together but there is a difference in ‘planning’ and ‘scheduling’. Planning is when you determine what jobs you have to do, develop a procedure to execute the job, assign resources, and then utilize those resources in the best way possible. Only when you have successfully planned a work-order, you can decide when to do it in the scheduling part. So both the processes go together and one can’t be completed successfully without the other. Only scheduling something is not going to help you successfully implement it.

Planning and scheduling is a term often used in the organizations. It might be used together but there is a difference in ‘planning’ and ‘scheduling’. Planning is when you determine what jobs you have to do, develop a procedure to execute the job, assign resources, and then utilize those resources in the best way possible. Only when you have successfully planned a work-order, you can decide when to do it in the scheduling part. So both the processes go together and one can’t be completed successfully without the other. Only scheduling something is not going to help you successfully implement it.

It all starts with planning. You need to identify the tasks at hand, prioritize those tasks, and then make decisions on who is going to it? How they are going to do it? How much time it would take to do it? And when you have done all of this, you can schedule your work in order to be implemented just as you planned. This will help you avoid all those delays and failures that occur in the work execution. It is not always the requirement to do extensive planning when the task is to just replace or fix something.

If a job will only take a short time, there is no need to plan that for hours. The amount of planning should be just enough to do the job at the right time and in the right way. It is not as simple as that because it is a step by step procedure as well. The process of planning and scheduling starts when someone makes a job request. Then it goes into the CMMS along with all the data. The planners have a look at it and they decide if the job will need planning or not.

They actually decide the scope of the job and then plan the resources accordingly. This is something that must be done in order to avoid wasting money and time. There are different approaches that different planners use but the main difficulty lies in getting everyone together to discuss the matter at hand and decide how to proceed further. There is always a communication gap among different departments in the organizations. For example operations personnel must be in touch with the production staff so that they would be familiar with how each department works. Only then they can plan their activities in a manner that would benefit everyone.

There should be someone who will establish this coordination between departments. The upper management and engineers have to be realistic as well. They don’t want to set goals that are unrealistic to achieve. They should be sure of what they want from the PMs and they should move one step a time. The thing is that Maintenance and Reliability is a journey. The planners need to understand that and everyone should be aware of where they stand on that journey. They can improve from there and change their behavior with time as well.

See Related Episodes:

• 10 – What Is Maintenance Planning & Scheduling?
• 97 – Planning and Scheduling with Brandon Weil

Eruditio Links:

• Eruditio
• HP Reliability
• Quantify Your Improvements with Maintenance Planning & Scheduling
• Test Planning with Purpose
• James Kovacevic’s LinkedIn

Jeff Shiver Links:

• People and Processes
• People and Processes LinkedIn
• Jeff Shiver Linkedin
• SMRP Annual Conference 2018
• SMRP

SMRP18 – Planning and Scheduling with Jeff ShiverJames Kovacevic

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