Review: The Maintenance Planning and Scheduling Handbook by Doc Palmer

Book being reviewed is “Maintenance Planning and Scheduling Handbook 3/E” by Doc Palmer and published by McGraw Hill, presents the recommended way to plan for a maintenance crew.

Keywords: maintenance planning, scheduling, planner, performance, productivity, planner.

The book begins with the sentence – “The Maintenance Planning and Scheduling Handbook shows how to improve dramatically the productivity of maintenance.”

But what else would you expect the author to say? However, the book soon starts quoting verifiable productivity improvements of 50% above the results achieved when not using planning.

The planner and the scheduler

Doc Palmer separates planning and scheduling.

For each, he gives 6 principles to work by. He sees planning as an entirely distinct step to scheduling. The planner is located separately to the maintenance department so he cannot be diverted from the job of planning by sudden problems.

The planner is not the scheduler. The maintenance supervisor schedules.

The planner provides a complete work package – purchased materials, tool list, procedures, drawings, past equipment history, job times, manning requirements and external resource requirements such as cranes – and then walks away to prepare the next work order.

Breakdown jobs cannot be planned and Doc advises that breakdowns go directly to the maintenance supervisor to run with.

The planner does not become involved in breakdowns or in any job once started. The planner is there to get ahead of the day-to-day work so that fresh work is always prepared for the crew before they finish their current jobs.

If the crew find a problem once a planned job is started the crew solves the problem themselves without involving the planner. The planner is advised of the problem in the report when the work order is returned.

He makes a note in the plant records so he can plan and prepare for it next time.

Productivity is maximised because all the planning, parts and information is provided and the tradesmen can be immediately put into the tools to do the job.

Doc also indicates that a good planner has particular attributes that are critical for success and provides a useful list of them in the appendix to his book.

Mike Sondalini – Maintenance Engineer

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