There has been a lot of discussion as to why we are asking technicians to write corrective work orders for problems found on a PM instead of fixing the issue on the spot. If we consider the example of the four machines below, it becomes clear why this is the case.
A technician is assigned a 2 hour PM for each of the machines below. As he checks #1, there are no issues found and the PM is completed with no corrective work order generated. As the inspection of #2 begins, he notices an issue. This issue is not very critical and could wait until next weekend. He decides to fix it anyway. The repair takes another 2 hours. He moves on to machine #3. There are no issues that demand immediate attention. Since the PM of #2 and the corrective work order to fix the issue have taken a total of 4 hours, it is now time to go home, and the PM for machine #4 does not get done.
The problem is, machine #4 has a failure in it that will shut the machine down in a day if not detected. The next shift coming in has it’s own list of things to do and will not get to the PM on machine #4 that the previous shift did not complete.
What we are trying to accomplish is to get as many failures detected as early on in the failure curve as possible. It is understood that some repairs need to happen as soon as the fault is detected. Most of the time this is not the case. With the chance to plan for a repair, all of the parts can be ordered and the job will take less time. We need to adapt to more of an inspection mindset when doing a PM and provide a clearly written corrective work order when a failure is detected. This is not the way things have been done in the past. We cannot continue to do things the same way and expect better results. We must change the way we operate in order to improve.
Great example! We hope this helps you with a topic to share or can be a model for a similar communication to your group as you chase after reliability.
