Maintenance
Case Studies and Examples of Improvements
Maintenance departments are different because the exact same tasks are seldom repeated. Organizing work in this area is best accomplished by grouping work into four to six different types of work rather than looking at all of the individual tasks.
Case Study #41
George is the Environmental Services Manager for a 420 unit retirement complex offering independent, assisted living and skilled nursing services. The community's four main residences were situated on five acres of forested reserve lands. The buildings were in decline and the grounds were considered high maintenance.
The first step in the program was to develop an inventory of all of the activities in the department. George came up with six types of work including Work Orders, Preventive Maintenance, Renovation, Suite Turnover and Renovation, Janitorial Tasks and Projects. Through observation, historical data and tally sheets, key volumes and times were collected for the major activities in each type of work. The data showed George that he needed a crew of 5 to accomplish all of the work. Currently there were nine. George knew that in order to accomplish this level of staffing he would have to organize himself and the department very differently.
The major changes adopted by George include the following:
Assignment of work was centralized. For example, a new system to collect, assign and perform Work Order tasks was adopted where George picked up work orders twice a day from 2 central locations. He prioritized, estimated the time required to perform the task and assigned the work orders. The Work Orders were assigned to be completed between 8 AM AND 12 NOON by one crew member and another performed work orders between 1 PM and 5 PM. George also introduced 'work order carts' which contained all of the typical materials required to complete work orders.
Suite Turnovers were systemized A check list of tasks to be completed on a suite turnover was developed so that George would view the suite, check what needed to be accomplished and estimated a time to accomplish the work. The job was then assigned to a crew member. At first George found it difficult following up with the crew to make sure they performed the work completely and timely. After a few weeks however, he found that the staff actually appreciated the attention and the more challenging structure and professionalism in their work day.
A new Communication System reduced lost travel time. The large campus was a perfect design for tradesmen to lose time travelling from one area to another, from the tool shed to the job sight and in communicating with one another. One tool to help reduce the amount of travel was walkie talkies.
Calendars were developed for each type of work to ensure that all work required in a given month was organized. George used a work order type system within each type of work to help him plan, assign, follow up and report to his General Manager on the department's progress each month.
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Read about how solutions where developed for each department. Click on any department in the column to the left.
You'll see why we say that every department and every operation can be improved.