In today’s business setup, there are times when less is more. As such, companies practice a specific business strategy called lean operations. Lean operations need proper maintenance and scheduling to maximize the outcome.
During lean operations, businesses do a minimalist approach to maximize the outcome. The key to that is efficiency.
We’ll discuss how you can incorporate efficiency in maintenance planning and scheduling. Keep an eye out for this article because we will talk more about maintenance planning and scheduling for lean operations.
Lean Operations in Today’s Business Market
Today’s business landscape focuses on the efficient use of resources. However, this is no easy feat. When General Motors used lean operations in Japanese Toyota manufacturing, they were met with some challenges.
Lean operations bring challenges in identifying wasteful parts of your operations. Thus, maintenance planning and scheduling bring in more organized management of lean operations.
Lean operation is focused on two main principles:
- Identifying and eliminating “waste” in operations.
- Create “value” that customers are willing to pay for.
In a lean operation, a “waste” in operations is something that does not add value to the process. On the other hand, something is of “value” when it makes the customer spend more on your products. When organizations focus on these two main principles of maintenance planning and scheduling, they can do more with less.
But when you take lean operations too narrow, companies tend to stumble. Businesses focus too much on the production aspect that they forget the value it brings to their customers. As such, they have mediocre products that consumers won’t buy.
This is where maintenance planning and scheduling come into play.
Importance of Maintenance Planning and Scheduling in Lean Operations Management
Business operations can be a highly complicated process. It is mostly focused on maintenance management, but it can also include preventive maintenance, maintenance on equipment, etc. When you switch to lean operations, the planning and scheduling should aim to streamline your products for the customers.
Lean operations management involves two things: planning and scheduling. The main difference between maintenance planning and scheduling is the receiving end. For maintenance planning in lean operations, the optimizations define what and how things are. On the other hand, maintenance scheduling defines when and who works on the optimization.
Maintenance Planning in Lean Operations: WHAT and HOW
The What
The planning part of switching to lean operations is as crucial as any other part. Planning for the maintenance work is what sets your lean operations on the right path. A well-thought lean operations plan can maximize the efficiency of your business.
Ask your employees what they think of your current operations. Besides, since they work there, they would know how to fully optimize the operations. Do a thorough reliability assessment and figure out what you need to change.
- What do customers find valuable and useful from your product?
- What parts of your operation can be optimized?
- What steps of the operation are considered waste?
The How
Maintenance planning requires your team to sit on the topic and talk about the specifics. Talk about how you are going to execute the maintenance on equipment, preventive maintenance, and other operations. Plan the whole plant maintenance and how you are going to do it.
- Identify what critical assets in your company need maintenance.
- Talk with the operators and brainstorm on how to do maintenance checkups.
- Determine the frequency of the maintenance work. Sort this based on the importance of the equipment.
- Decide how to execute the maintenance plans and how to distribute the work to operators.
Maintenance Scheduling in Lean Operations: WHO and WHEN
The Who
Scheduling and planning are two different things. Maintenance scheduling in lean operations identifies the person in charge (PIC) for the maintenance work. Since maintenance is a repetitive process, the PIC for each maintenance work must be replaced.
Maintenance scheduling deals with the rotation of maintenance workers on maintenance management and reliability assessment. It would be cruel to assign all maintenance work to just one operator. Thus, in lean operations management, you have to schedule the maintenance and assign it to different employees who are knowledgeable in maintenance work.
The When
Since we are talking about maintenance scheduling, the timing for each maintenance work is important. You have to make sure that the maintenance schedules do not overlap with each other. Also, scheduling the maintenance of equipment reduces production costs.
Proper maintenance scheduling relies on a well-thought maintenance plan. If you know what you want to do with your operations, scheduling the maintenance is easier. Maintenance scheduling and planning reduce safety hazards and provide sustainable solutions.
Align Maintenance Planning and Scheduling Goals to Your Business Goals
Switching to a lean approach in business requires you to change your business goals. Since you want to get better results from efficient use of resources, maintenance management should have the same goals. As we said earlier, the goal of lean management is to identify the value and waste in the operations.
Remember to focus your goals depending on your customer’s needs. Do not sacrifice the value of your product just because you want to make your operations lean. A lot of companies want to optimize their operations so much that they forget the product’s quality.
Conclusion
For businesses that want to make their operations more efficient, following our tips can help you. Switching to lean operations helps make your production more efficient, reduce production costs, and improve your value proposition. It also makes your business aware of the problems and removes them.
Lean operations also have multiple benefits to different operations. These include:
- Optimized employee allocation to minimize downtime.
- Streamlined processes reduce downtime and miscommunication.
- A higher production rate leads to more revenue.
- Ensures that your business has long-term industry viability.
However, you have to focus on identifying the value of your products. You don’t want to sacrifice the quality of your products because of operations management. Only remove the unnecessary steps in your production process to make sure that lean strategies work.
Finally, you also have to manage the maintenance of your operations to prevent downtime. This is especially useful if you are in retail or manufacturing operations. It can be pretty tricky at first, but you can personalize how you deploy lean operations. Remember to always stick to your company goals as you progress.
Also Read Interesting Articles At: The Test Tech.
