MAINTENANCE MANAGEMENT
Helpful benchmarking data does exist

RATIO OF MAINTENANCE CRAFTSPEOPLE TO STORES EMPLOYEES. Previously in our conversation, I had been helping the mill manager clarify data from a corporate benchmarking exercise. This confusing data included the ratio of planners to craftspeople and the average ratio of craftspeople to total hourly employees. We had also discussed maintenance cost as percent of sales, the ratio of material cost to labor, and maintenance cost as percent of estimated replacement value (ERV). Now, the mill manager turned to yet another confusing ratio.

"Is it good to have low or high ratio of maintenance craftspeople to stores employees?" asked the mill manager. "Ours is one-sixteenth."

"I do not think this is a good measurement," I replied. "In my opinion, you should look at how well the stores perform instead. This ratio only tells you a ratio, but you do not know anything about the stores' performance."

"To measure the stores' performance, you should use the service factor," I advised. "This is the percentage of times that maintenance will get the right part when they need it. If this service factor is maintained at around 97% at the same time as the stores management manages to reduce the stores value, you have a good stores performance."

"The ratio of maintenance craftspeople to stores people does not indicate if performance is good or not," I continued to emphasize. "In fact, I worked with an excellent maintenance organization that had no one working in the spare parts stores. In this organization, it worked fine to have the craftspeople manage the stores. They did most of their own planning and scheduling and could manage this because they were supported by excellent documentation and well established systems and procedures. They were also supported by a management philosophy that believed in empowering their very skilled employees".

"Another thing I would promote and measure is parts delivery from stores," I concluded. "In a good organization, around 90% of all parts are delivered to the locations where the parts are going to be used."

"You mean that it is more important to measure continuous improvement of our own performance than to compare ratios," said the mill manager. "So, why do we have all these comparisons from corporate?"

"Benchmarking and comparisons are of an educational value in some casesÑthis discussion is an example of that," I explained. "However, remember the fairy tale about the Emperor's new clothes. Perhaps nobody has ever asked your question because the benchmarking data are produced and requested by experts and higher authorities."

GOOD BENCHMARKING INFORMATION. "So far, we have only talked about what we both agree to be questionable data," continued the mill manager. "Can you give me example of some good data we can use to compare with other plants that are similar to ours?"

"I think you said the key wordÑsimilarÑ when it comes to comparisons of hard data," I replied. "Hard data such as the different ratios we just discussed can only be compared if the manufacturing process and volume and the company management philosophy are identical or very close. For example, you can not compare hard data between a newsprint operation with a tissue or fine paper mill or a steel plant."

"Hard data is also very different in companies with different management philosophies," I further explained. "Some of the best operations I have seen will not qualify for the National Award for Maintenance Excellence because they do not have traditional maintenance organizations and use more innovative ways than others."

"That's fine," said the mill manager. "I have discovered this during our discussion and that has made the benchmarking exercise valuable to me, but please give me some good data to compare."

"Assuming that you compare the same manufacturing processes such as tissue, linerboard, pulp, newsprint, converting, steel, etc. with the same volume of production output, good performance indicators you can compare include the following," I concluded by listing the information below:

Results indicators

• Overall equipment efficiency (OEE)

• Productivity of operations and maintenance employees (quality production output per employee hour)

• Competitiveness (quality production output per cost unit).

Action indicators

• Level of planning and scheduling performance

• Content and completion of preventive maintenance programs

• Quality of maintenance work.

COMMENTS. I do not expect all readers to agree with everything I write in this column, so your comments are welcome!.