How Can I Promote the Maintenance Profession to Attract Talented Employees?
In my last post, I discussed ways to find good employees for your maintenance positions. In this post, I’ll identify some bigger issues that contribute to the current employment climate, and how maintenance managers can make a difference for everyone in the field. Manpower Group recently surveyed more than 1,000 U.S. employers, and found respondents had difficulty filling open positions for skilled trades positions because candidates lack technical competencies/hard skills (48 percent); candidates lack workplace competencies/soft skills (33 percent); and because of a lack of/no available candidates (32 percent). Those numbers aren’t likely to surprise any maintenance manager. But what can we do about it? I believe maintainers are often our own worst enemy because we do not promote our profession. In this blog I’ll identify some of the problems and offer some suggestions for change. Problem #1: Poor Public Image Let’s face it—the public perception of maintenance personnel is poor. Maintenance technicians are the guys with the dangling tool belt and pocket ruler. Becoming a maintenance technician is not a job classification a young person aspires to. If they did, they wouldn’t admit it. Most people are simply looking for a job when they enter the maintenance field. They stumble upon our profession accidentally. Solution #1: Promote Your Team Raise the level of awareness of your maintenance program. Look for opportunities to share your projects, goals, accomplishments, and results. Don’t be afraid to self-promote wherever you can, from the local media to national trade press. (Because— trust me—the marketing department doesn’t even know where your office is!) Problem #2: Unclear Career Path The maintenance career path typically goes from custodian to technician to engineer to lead to foreman to manager to director to VP. That’s eight steps. But there’s no industry recognition of these steps or consistent requirements for moving from one to the next. That makes maintenance work a tough sell for young people who are looking for profession with a well-defined career path. Solution #2: Invest in Professional Development It’s time to define the maintenance career path ourselves. Join or start a chapter of a professional association (like the Association for Maintenance Professionals or the International Facility Management Association) in your area. Find out what’s going on at other plants or facilities. Get your staff involved in service clubs and organizations. Encourage your team members to give back to their communities. These outreach activities are great ways to promote what maintenance technicians do and how much people rely on them. Problem #3: Lack of Educational Requirements I mentioned how low pay is problem for recruiting new employees in my last post. One cause of low pay is the lack of educational requirements for entry or promotion within the maintenance field. We may call ourselves maintenance engineers, but very few have the credentials to back it up. Most of us learned on the job. Solution #3: Get Involved Get involved with your local education institutions. Advocate for trades and industry education. Find out what is happening in both secondary and post-secondary education related to our profession. Participate in work study and intern programs. Remember the only thing harder to do than find a good employee is to replace a good employee. Invest in the maintenance community, and we’ll all benefit!
How Can I Find Good Employees for My Maintenance Team?
Last week I was talking with a long-time MPulse customer about his top priorities as a maintenance manager at a large production facility. “Brad,” I asked, “what’s your biggest challenge in the next 12 months?” Brad didn’t mention common problems like technology issues or budget constraints. Instead, he said, “Two of my most experienced team members are retiring, and I need to find someone who can fill their shoes.” Brad knows that finding good people for maintenance jobs isn’t easy. And he’s not alone. [related-content] In the past, maintenance technicians were promoted from custodial or laborer positions and given on-the-job training in specific tasks. Today, though, it’s tough to find the right people with skills we need in the maintenance department. According to the Manpower Group’s latest Talent Shortage Survey, skilled trades positions are the most difficult to fill, and have ranked #1 for the past four years. So how can a maintenance manager like Brad find good people for his maintenance team? In this blog, I’ll identify some of the problems and offer some suggestions for overcoming them. Problem #1: Aging Workforce The average age of a maintenance worker is 50 years. Our work processes, requirements, and perceived value are seriously out of date for the Instagram, Twitter, and Facebook age. And many “old school” industrial employers are wary of mobile technology. So if we’re lucky enough to hire young people, we ask them to leave their tablets in their lockers and we restrict their cell phone use. Solution #1: Make Maintenance Work Attractive to Younger People Maintenance managers need to go out of their way to hire younger employees. Start by embracing technology, especially mobile devices. Empower your younger staff members by asking for their suggestions on better ways to integrate technology in your maintenance workflows. Eliminate paper. Promote the technical side of maintenance work. These things are important to younger workers, and they’ll make your positions more appealing. Problem #2: Low Pay Often, maintenance work is undervalued. As a result, the pay scale for maintenance personnel is typically lower than similar positions in production. Do you want to understand the real value of your maintenance personnel? Just ask yourself what they’re worth when a breakdown has your production line at a stand still. Solution #2: Promote Your Department’s Value Make sure the people in positions of power understand what your maintenance program does and the value you bring to the organization. Share your projects, goals, accomplishments, and results for both the department and for your team members. If you show your maintenance team’s impact on the bottom line, it’s easier to get approval for pay increases. Problem #3: Lack of Training Though the options for maintenance training are growing, few traditional educational tracks exist to prepare people for the maintenance world. Most maintainers pick up isolated skills from community colleges, trade schools, and on-the-job training. These skills include welding, metal working, carpentry, machining, mechanics, hydraulics, and more. Solution #3: Develop an Internal Training Program Create a professional growth/training program for your maintenance staff. Professional growth programs are a great recruiting tool. Work with management to provide compensation for tuition, books, and fees. Reward strong work performance with additional opportunities for education. These ideas are a good start, but I’m the first to admit change needs to happen on a broader scale. In my next blog, I’ll discuss how maintenance managers like Brad can tackle the bigger issues in our field.
CMMS Setup: Get it Right the First Time
Many MPulse customers get so excited about their new CMMS software they want to jump in with both feet and start entering data right away. I get it. I feel the same way when I start a new project. But the old adage “garbage in, garbage out” says it all when it comes to setting up CMMS software for the first time. It’s important not to get carried away importing outdated, incorrect, or insufficient information. To get the most out of your CMMS investment, you need to proceed carefully so you have a solid foundation of good data that will build in value over time. If your CMMS software gets bogged down with bad data, you’ll never get truly meaningful information about your assets—which is why you bought the software in the first place. So how do you setup your CMMS software right the first time? Here are a few tips I’ve picked up through years of experience. Step 1: Identify Your Key Assets Start by making a list of 10-20 of your important assets. You can always add more assets later, but first pick the ones that play the largest part in your operations. They’re likely to be the ones your maintenance team works on most, so a quick review of your past year’s work orders should show you where to focus. Step 2: Determine Each Asset’s Maintenance Policy Next determine the best maintenance policy for each asset. Plant Services contributing editor David Berger, in his 2013 article, “How to determine the best maintenance policy,” outlines three ways maintenance can be triggered: use-based maintenance, fail-based maintenance, or condition-based maintenance. Use-based maintenance (UBM) is triggered by time, meter, or event. This type of maintenance is pretty common in maintenance departments, as preventive maintenance programs are based on a certain time, meter, or event triggers—such as changing the oil every 3,000 miles or every 3 months. Fail-based maintenance (FBM) is running an asset to failure. A simple example would be replacing a burned out lightbulb. While the point of CMMS is to reduce fail-based maintenance in favor of a more proactive maintenance plan, there are some exceptions. Plus, if your assets have been maintained based on failure in the past, you have important data that can help you predict future failures. Condition-based maintenance (CBM) is triggered based on meters and gauges on assets. When an asset’s condition changes outside of a specified range, maintenance events are triggered. CBM data can be gathered manually or automatically. Step 3: Build a Work Plan Once you have determined each asset’s maintenance policy, you can use your CMMS to build work plans. For assets on a UBM policy, you’ll build a work plan and schedule maintenance tasks based on the factors you’ve chosen. For CBM, you’ll create a range of conditions that will form the basis of a work plan and schedule as well as forecast when CBM will likely occur. Last, but not least, while it’s hard to plan for FBM, you can forecast when failure is likely to happen and ensure you’re ready to react, with the right parts in stock and repair procedures in place. Step 4: Support the Maintenance Plan with the Right Data Next you’ll decide what data you need to capture to support your plans. Some may be available in your archives, but much of it will need to be collected from this point forward. And that’s okay, because over time, it will grow in quantity and in value. If you choose the right data, it won’t be long before you realize its value—and you’ll be glad you took the time to get it right. Creating a solid foundation with good CMMS data will make everything run more smoothly and successfully. Don’t create more work for yourself by taking shortcuts on the front side just because you’re in a hurry. Take the extra time to get it right the first time, and your CMMS investment will pay dividends for years.
How to Support an Asset Management Plan with CMMS
In an earlier post, we met Bill and John—two MPulse customers who discovered how their CMMS data could support long-term asset management planning. While Bill needed to make some adjustments to his approach, John made a proactive decision early on to set his CMMS up right—and it paid off. Of course, we’d all like to be in John’s shoes, so let’s talk about how he set up MPulse to support an asset management plan—and how you can too. If you recall, Keith Mobley, a member of the Society for Maintenance and Reliability Professionals (SMRP), defines an asset management plan as a comprehensive strategic plan designed to help your organization get the maximum value from the assets it owns. Asset management isn’t just for your accounting folks though. It affects your maintenance team because their work impacts the uptime and total lifecycle cost of those assets. And that’s valuable information for your whole organization. Start Your Asset Management Plan with Data Tracking While supporting an asset management plan might sound complicated, in John’s case—and potentially yours—it actually boils down to making a few key decisions about your MPulse data. Here’s what John did: Use Your Asset Management Plan to Make an Informed Decision When the time came for management to decide whether to repair or replace a failed asset, John had the data right in MPulse Software to make an informed decision. With MPulse’s easy-to-use User-Definable Graphic Reporting, John quickly calculated the cost of maintenance by month/year, and he saw the overall cost trends for the asset were steady. With a little help from his accounting department on the estimated replacement cost and productivity improvements, John saw it was better to repair the sheet metal press than buy a new one—at least this time. After this experience, John decided to take the next step by linking his MPulse CMMS data to his organization’s asset register software with MPulse’s DataLink Integration Adapter. He’s seen the value of his MPulse CMMS data, and he wants to take it even further by supporting a company-wide asset management plan. Whether or not you’re a current MPulse customer, you can learn from John’s experience. Take a look at your CMMS data with an asset management mindset. You can create a wealth of asset information, helping your organization make more informed decisions, and potentially saving it a lot of money. Give us a call anytime if you’d like to learn more about how to get it done. We’re here to help.
CMMS Asset Management: Why Should I Care?
If your maintenance team supports a large organization, you may already have a formal CMMS asset management plan in place. If you’re in a small or medium-sized business, though, chances are you don’t have one. So why use asset management? While you’ve probably heard or read the term “asset management,” you might not be sure how it differs from the maintenance management you’re already doing. I mean, you are maintaining assets, right? Today I’d like to try and clear up some of the confusion—first by helping you understand what a CMMS asset management plan is, and second by explaining why it matters to you. Keith Mobley, a member of the Society for Maintenance and Reliability Professionals (SMRP), defines an asset management plan as a comprehensive strategic plan designed to help your organization get the maximum value from the assets it owns. Often, this is measured by financial professionals as Return on Net Assets (RoNA), and it’s roughly calculated as total productive output minus total asset cost during an asset’s lifecycle. And that’s all well and good for the folks in finance and accounting, but you’re probably thinking right now, “Why should I care?” You should care because setting up your CMMS with an asset management frame of mind is a great way to get the most out of it as a maintenance manager. If you’re thinking in terms of maximum uptime and total lifecycle cost, you’ll move beyond using your CMMS as a simple work order tracker and PM scheduler. Let me give you an example, a tale of two customers, Bill and John. Asset Management: Repair or Replace? Both Bill and John came to me on two separate occasions with the same question from their bosses: “Should we keep repairing that sheet metal stamping press, or should we buy a new one?” Bill called me in a panic. “The boss wants an answer today,” he said, “and I don’t know where to get it. We’ve been using MPulse for 8 years now. Can you help me figure this out?” “Calm down,” I said. “That should be easy to calculate.” We just needed to answer a few questions using the data in his MPulse database: What was the purchase price of the press? When did we acquire it? How much has it cost to maintain it, especially in the past year? How much downtime is the asset experiencing lately? By answering these questions, Bill could show how much the press was costing his company, currently, on an annual basis, as well as the average annual cost over the life of the asset. With a little help from the operations manager, we could also calculate the opportunity cost due to downtime. Comparing that to the estimated cost (and potential added productivity) of a new press would get us our answer. Unfortunately for Bill, that information wasn’t available. To “save time,” he hadn’t recorded the acquisition date and purchase price in MPulse. And, while he had recorded planned and unplanned maintenance, he hadn’t bothered to record parts costs. It pained me to tell him, “Bill, I’m afraid the best you’re going to be able to do is SWAG it.” Document Your Asset Data Thankfully, my experience with John had a better outcome. Like Bill, John had been using MPulse for many years. But John had taken the time to better document the assets he wanted to track—recording each one’s acquisition date and purchase price. John didn’t track every asset his company owns; instead, he focused on the important ones that he knew would take a significant investment to replace. Over the years, John tracked each asset’s planned and unplanned maintenance costs, just like Bill. But John also recorded parts costs by automatically linking the inventory used with assets, which allowed him to calculate how much money his stamping press had cost to maintain. With a quick phone call to his ops manager, John compiled a report in about 30 minutes that showed his boss the old stamping press was pretty cost effective—even though it needed more frequent repair. And John saved his company thousands of dollars. Bill and John were using the same MPulse Software, Inc, yet their outcomes were completely different. By taking just a few extra steps—and thinking about things with an asset management mindset—John created a wealth of asset information that allowed his company to make more informed decisions, eventually saving it a lot of money thanks to our asset management software. I know you’d rather be in John’s position than Bill’s. Keep an eye out for a future post, where I’ll explain how John set up MPulse to form the basis of an asset management plan—and how you can too.
The Pipework Maintenance Checklist (Guest Blog)
Thanks to our guest blogger, Amanda Hill from Commercial Industrial Supply, for this terrific article on planning for pipework maintenance. Combine her no-nonsense checklist with your CMMS maintenance system to maximize results. What’s On Your Pipework Maintenance Checklist? Every plant manager faces maintenance challenges, which is why we wrote this article to help highlight the most important plant manager responsibilities, particularly when it comes to plumbing and piping. However, you can minimize those challenges by adding a thorough preventive maintenance plan to your plant manager responsibilities. Routine inspections help your pipework maintenance team spot potential problems before they cause a slow-down or become a hazard. Use the following as a guide to help you in your plant manager responsibilities and come up with a pipework maintenance checklist that will keep your facility running smoothly. What Needs to be Checked Each Shift? To prevent slow-downs or work stoppages, your pipework maintenance engineers should make a round of your facility at the beginning of each shift. Industrial machinery is normally under a lot of stress, which makes small malfunctions quite common. Catching them early prevents larger disasters down the road. In addition to these plant manager responsibilities, make sure your pipework maintenance engineers check all pipes hooked up to vibrating machinery each day—particularly rigid piping like steel and copper. Threaded pipe, flanged fittings, bolts, brackets, and clamps can easily work loose. By tightening the connections before that happens, you can make sure that work doesn’t grind to a halt, and you’ll also prevent chemical spills and other safety hazards. Try a Free Demo Items for Your Daily Checklist Certain valves in your facility should be inspected on a daily basis. Flow control valves, since they are typically under pressure, are more prone to leaking than other types of valves. Make sure someone from your maintenance crew visually inspects the valve (particularly the gland nut) for leaks each day. Steam traps are another kind of high-pressure valve that can sometimes fail. Traps are generally bolted to flanged pipe, with the void between the pipe flange and the trap flange sealed by a gasket. Your engineers need to check the flanges for loose bolts and inspect the gasket to make sure it’s providing a tight seal. What Should be Checked Weekly? Unlike flow control valves, stop valves and isolation valves tend to be either open or closed most of the time. Since they are under less stress and see less wear, you can check these valves weekly. The most common failure point is the valve gland around the valve stem. When the valve gland wears out, you’ll find leaks around the valve stem or gland nut. Safety valves, pressure release valves, and pressure reducing valves don’t fail often, but they are essential for safety, which means they also need to be on your weekly maintenance checklist. Make a visual inspection, and if possible, perform safety tests to ensure that they are functioning properly. Quarterly Piping Checklist Your quarterly routine is the most extensive part of your plant manager responsibilities and your maintenance checklist. Have your pipework maintenance crew do all of the following: Check all threaded fittings and unions for leaks. Turn valves to make sure they aren’t seized or broken. Do a plant-wide inspection of clamps, brackets, flanges, and other fittings. Inspect all indoor piping—overhead, trenched piping, and piping in tunnels or crawlspaces. Loose or leaky fittings and malfunctioning valves will make themselves obvious during this inspection. What aren’t as obvious are the problems that may be developing in your pipework. The inspection should include pressure checks to make sure there aren’t buildups developing inside the piping, and you’ll also need to perform a visual inspection of the exterior of the piping. If there is steel, copper, or other metal piping in your facility, look for signs of rust and corrosion and make plans to repair or replace sections before a leak develops. What You’ll Need to Check Biannually Outdoor piping is typically stronger than indoor piping, but that doesn’t mean it should be ignored. Every six months, one of your plant manager responsibilities should be to follow the same routine as with indoor piping: Check exposed valves, connections, and pipes while looking for signs of wear, rust, and corrosion. As with indoor pipework maintenance, replace anything that is malfunctioning or is likely to fail sooner rather than later. Maintenance Checks Over the Long Haul All of the short-term checks are helpful, but there is one key area that is often overlooked: buried piping. If piping is under a concrete slab, it may not be worth the time, effort and money to excavate it without good cause. However, piping that is easier to excavate needs to be checked once every five years. Of course, the five-year rule isn’t a hard-and-fast rule, but depending on what kinds of buried pipes your facility has, you may want to adhere to it closely. For instance, clay and iron drainage lines have a life span of approximately 50 to 60 years before they start to rust, crack, or shift. If you have pipes approaching this age, you can prevent many problems with some exploratory excavation. Even buried steel, copper, and plastic lines can suffer damage, so it’s wise to check them as often as your maintenance budget allows. To most plant managers, it doesn’t make sense to replace buried lines that aren’t leaking or broken—the cost just isn’t worth the benefit. However, there are cost-effective replacement options available. For instance, Class 125 PVC is inexpensive, and it works well for drains, vents, and other applications that don’t require much pressure. Rather than ignoring a potential underground problem, this kind of piping offers you an inexpensive way to prevent a disaster. Every facility is different, with unique plant manager responsibilities and pipework maintenance checklists. As you create a guide for your maintenance team to follow, don’t skip the pipework! If unnoticed or left untended, even a minor piping problem can turn into lost work hours, line shutdowns, or occupational hazards.
What You Really Want from Your CMMS Solution
Ever wonder how much a maintenance repair really costs you? Or maybe if your machines have been lubed as often as they should? Maybe you find yourself asking, “When should I replace that compressor instead of repairing it again?” You might find that you’re often wondering if you’re doing everything possible to improve efficiencies, keep production lines running, or keep facilities in top-notch condition. If you’re a maintenance manager without a CMMS solution, you’ve probably got lots of unanswered questions. Likewise, as the CEO of a CMMS software company, I think a lot about whether MPulse Software is doing everything possible to meet the real requirements of our customers. We work hard to understand what maintenance teams want and try to provide the best CMMS solution. We gather valuable data on what CMMS customers are demanding these days, data that will help MPulse continue to improve the software and services we provide our customers. Here’s what I learned. Why You’re Purchasing a CMMS Solution Efficiency is the key. In fact, improved efficiency is exactly what most buyers of computerized maintenance management system (CMMS) software are looking for. If I know what has happened in the past, I can make better decisions about what needs to be done in the future. This increase in efficiency comes from the use of technology to reduce manual tasks—in many cases, laborious paperwork. Let’s face it; maintenance work comes with its fair share of paper pushing that can take up more time than it should. CMMS software has become a powerful tool for maintenance teams to reduce those tedious tasks while at the same time providing key data for managers and executives to make better decisions. Yet Software Advice’s survey of potential CMMS buyers found 48 percent are still using manual methods to track their maintenance activity. Another 19 percent use nothing at all. Even though I know many maintenance teams don’t use a CMMS solution, it still perplexes me. The good news is these survey respondents are already thinking about making changes to improve their operations. I hope they can see the great strides we’ve made in CMMS technology, which should help relieve concerns about buying a new software system. But it’s clear we have some work to do. Improved CMMS software Implementation The good news is CMMS software has changed so much in the past few years that it’s never been easier to integrate it into an organization’s workflow. Plus, the user interface simply gets better and more intuitive, making training and implementation much faster. And if an organization foresees hurdles with implementation, CMMS vendors like MPulse Software now offer easily affordable services for implementation planning, data entry and migration, asset inventory, training, and much more. I found it interesting, and encouraging, that so many of the survey participants are from small maintenance operations—70 percent had teams of 10 people or fewer. I believe these organizations are exactly the ones that will benefit the most from the reduced costs of implementing CMMS. Now CMMS software isn’t just for the big operations—it’s more affordable and easier to integrate than ever before for small and medium-sized teams. Proactive vs. Reactive Maintenance There’s a larger trend indicated by Software Advice’s survey results—a fundamental shift among maintenance managers who see the importance of becoming a proactive organization rather than a reactive one. Instead of constantly putting out fires, modern maintenance operations can use CMMS to forecast, manage, and monitor maintenance activities. The goal is to keep assets running and unplanned maintenance to a minimum. Indeed, the survey showed preventive maintenance, work order, and asset management are required features across the board. It’s just a short hop to taking CMMS even farther, perhaps by capturing real-time data and working toward predictive maintenance, where teams can monitor the health of the equipment and foresee problems before they happen. I feel heartened by those findings, because it means the benefits of using a CMMS solution are becoming more and more understood across all industries. Get More for Your Money Wouldn’t it be nice if you had as clear a picture of your maintenance operation as this data has given me of your requirements? You can with CMMS software. CMMS data is a powerful tool that helps maintenance professionals plan proactively—making staff members more successful at their jobs and keeping the organization at the top of its game. If you haven’t considered it in a while, it’s probably time to look again. Prices have dropped. Functionality and usability have improved. You get a lot for your money in a CMMS package these days. After 20 years in this business, I still get excited when maintenance teams see how CMMS can help them save money, improve response times, and keep assets running longer and more efficiently. We have come so far since the days of paper and pencil. I’m eager to show more people how modern CMMS software can change their operations for the better. Want to see how CMMS software can help your maintenance operations? Get a free trial of MPulse, or contact us with questions.
The Future of Maintenance Management: Data-Driven Management
It hasn’t been too long since most maintenance teams were primarily reactive organizations. The bulk of their day was spent answering phone calls and performing unplanned repairs. Making decisions on the fly meant sometimes prioritizing those repairs based on who was screaming the loudest. Today, though, things are rapidly changing in the maintenance office. Smart, proactive maintenance managers are taking advantage of modern technologies to forecast, manage, and monitor maintenance activities. And they’re using preventive and predictive maintenance tools and strategies to keep assets running and unplanned maintenance to a minimum. Their phones still ring, but it’s not just incoming repair requests anymore. Often those calls are from senior managers, CFOs, COOs, and even CEOs who want detailed, accurate information from the maintenance department on what’s impacting productivity, profitability, and corporate progress. What’s changed? It’s called data-driven management, and it’s a trend that’s here to stay. What is Data-Driven Management? “What gets measured gets done.” Data-driven management simply means making management decisions backed by reliable data. Technological advances continue to make more and more detailed, relevant data available. And with that increased capability comes increased opportunity to improve organizational performance at all levels, and in all departments. Expectations, too, are rising. Managers from the front lines to the corporate headquarters have ever-growing expectations that the data they ask their employees for will be accurate, reliable, and readily available. It’s no different for managers in the maintenance world. They should expect more from their employees and systems. They also should be ready to answer more and tougher questions from above. What Does This Mean for Maintenance Managers? As a maintenance manager eager to stay ahead of the curve and adopt a more data-driven approach, you’ll need to rely more and more on your computerized maintenance management system (CMMS) software. You’ll need to be sure your CMMS is set up to answer the questions that matter to you—and to your boss. It’s the best tool you have for gathering, analyzing, and reporting data about your equipment and your team. And by using that data, you can make decisions based on hard evidence, instead of perceptions or assumptions. What Do We Have to Gain? The power of CMMS data lies in the questions you can now answer, both for your department and your organization as a whole. Is it more cost effective to repair that forklift or replace it? Should you hire another staff member to reduce overtime costs? What are our biggest repair parts expenditures? Best of all, the cumulative nature of CMMS data means you can ask different questions in the future—ones you might not even think about today. Furthermore, data-driven management allows maintenance teams to communicate their value and contributions to the organization as a whole. It’s easy for upper management and other departments to see the value and efficiency of your team and their work when they can see the data—and the dollars—right in front of their eyes. You can use CMMS data to tell the story of your maintenance team’s contributions to the organization. Together, CMMS software and data-driven management give you the picture you need to accurately assess how your department is functioning and where you might make changes to improve. With good data to work from, your organization can make good decisions. And that will improve its ability to compete effectively and efficiently. Contact us!
The Future of Maintenance Management: Enter the “Digital Native”
A new breed of employees is beginning to enter the workforce, the “digital native” generation. Digital natives, with their inherent proficiency in technology, are transforming maintenance management by streamlining processes and optimizing efficiency through digital tools and platforms. And they’re no longer just joining Silicon Valley startups; they’re coming to a maintenance team near you. Having grown up surrounded by screens and fed by seemingly endless access to information, digital natives have a whole new relationship to technology—and they might just be your new best friends. Older employees can capitalize on the opportunities these younger “resources” present. It’s important to recognize their contributions to the workplace—skills that compliment and expand the maintenance team’s capabilities in a modern organization. What makes these digital natives different? How will they change the way maintenance gets done? And how can you put their skills to use to get better results from your maintenance management program? Comfort Level with Technology Because digital natives have spent their entire lives surrounded by everything from computers and videogames to MP3 players and cell phones, these employees have a greater understanding of technology and its capabilities. Their devices are a key part of their personal lives, and this translates to their professional lives as well. As such, these workers will not only embrace new technology in the workplace, but they will also expect it. While much of the resistance to new technology common in older generations is nonexistent with these team members, it is replaced by expectations that the company will keep its technology up to date in order for these workers to do their jobs. Communication and Collaboration with Digital Natives While older generations may pick up the phone or schedule an in-person meeting, younger workers may prefer virtual problem solving. From texting to videoconferencing to social networking, digital natives are familiar with and prefer other ways to communicate and collaborate. This preference affects everything from daily tasks to performance reviews. For example, younger workers have grown up with constant feedback, and they may need regular communication from their coworkers and bosses. They also might conduct research differently—eschewing the traditional phone book for a quick Google search, for example. Digital Native Scheduling and Multitasking Early technology adoption among younger generations has enabled them to develop skills in multitasking. They are used to surfing the Web while they talk on a cellphone and watch a program on television. This tendency affects their desire for variety in the workplace, and they may not like to stay too long on any one assignment. Younger generations also prefer flexibility in their work schedules. So they may be more open to working outside of the typical 8-5 workday in exchange for time off to pursue leisure activities. This flexibility can work in your favor, if you are willing to be creative in scheduling work during your equipment and assets’ downtime. As a maintenance management leader, you have a unique position to harness the possibilities that digital natives can bring to your organization. By investing in these new employees, you can bring new methods and ideas to your workplace. Leverage the technological experience and expectations of this new generation of workers to improve your team’s processes, efficiency, and motivation. It can be a win-win situation for your organization and your employees. Have questions? Contact us!
Don’t Use CMMS! (for Payroll Time Tracking)
It happens with some regularity. I send an MPulse trainer onsite to help a new customer configure their CMMS software, and the trainer returns to report the customer wants the CMMS to do payroll time tracking. In some cases, they want to replace an existing timecard system. In others, they’re eager to use their new software as their first time tracking system. In almost all cases, it’s a bad idea. Here are three good reasons not to do it: 1. You won’t capture all their work hours on work orders. A typical rule of thumb is that only about 65% of available hours accrue to work orders. This “wrench time” is the heart of what your maintenance technicians do, but it’s not all they do. Whether it’s safety meetings, shop cleanup, snow removal, or other time spent on non-work order activity, it won’t be captured for payroll. 2. You’ll create unnecessary administrative headaches. Integration between systems is easier than ever; so getting data from your CMMS into the accounting department’s payroll system would be a snap. But do you really want to volunteer to be the person responsible for ensuring they have perfect payroll data? As the CMMS system owner/administrator, that’s what you’re doing if you use CMMS for payroll time tracking. Do yourself—and your hourly wage employees—a favor, and leave that to the bean counters and the systems they’re responsible for. 3. You won’t get good CMMS data. It’s important to remember why you bought a CMMS in the first place. You want to work more efficiently and understand the true cost of maintaining and repairing assets. While labor costs are a big part of that, they’re not all of it. Work orders in a CMMS capture critical information about a whole range of variables beyond labor hours: asset identity and location, repair parts consumed, type of work performed, skill sets employed, service and part vendors involved, and more. Skewed emphasis on using work orders for payroll time tracking can divert employee attention from accurately capturing other critical data. You won’t often hear me advising people not to use CMMS software. In this case, though, it’s good advice. If you need to track labor hours for payroll, a search for “time tracking software” or “payroll tracking systems” on Google and it will give you more options than you might have hoped for. But for getting to the heart of what really matters in your maintenance operation, there’s no substitute for a full-featured work order system, like MPulse.