Tracking activities

Project evaluation review techniques

Now, let me ask you this. How would you approach this task? How much manpower does it take in your plant? What skills do each of them require to perform these tasks effectively?

It is surprising how few plants know the answer to this basic question. How, then, can plant management expect to manage the organization and effectively use their resources? Some of you may disagree with the need to address these issues. Some managers are convinced that no matter how many employees currently staff your maintenance organization, more are needed. Others believe that the current level is adequate for the job requirements. How do you know?

Have you ever really evaluated the task requirements that are needed to fulfill your mission? Or, have you determined the actual manpower requirement for each task? If you are honest, the answer is that you have not.

This first step toward this basic understanding is defining the specific tasks clearly that must be performed to meet the mission of a specific plant function--here, maintenance. If you stop to think about it, this is not a trivial exercise.

Take a minute and list every task that you personally must perform each day to fulfill your job function. Now, expand this list to include the tasks that your department must complete. Finally, complete the list for a full year. Wait, you are not through yet. We still have not determined how much manpower is required to maintain critical plant system effectively.

The next step in the process is evaluating each machine, piece of equipment, and system used in your plant. You must determine the specific tasks and frequencies that each of these require using the vendor's manuals, maintenance histories, and other reference material.

On average, it takes about four hours for each simple machine-train and may require days or weeks for each process system. Once you have finished this phase of the evaluation, evaluate each of the identified tasks to determine the maintenance skills required.

This approach, called a duty-task analysis, provides the basic knowledge required to develop a project evaluation review technique (PERT) diagram and answers our clients' question regarding manpower requirements. As in the first task, this is not a trivial exercise.

Few plants have the historical data needed to define the basic requirements of specific production or maintenance tasks. As a case in point, most maintenance outage plans use two millwrights and four hours as the most common definition of task requirements. Actually, the task may require substantially more or less time and manpower, but neither historical data nor knowledge of the task provides a better definition of the task.

This same knowledge also provides a manager with the factual knowledge required to use his resources effectively. If you know the time, manpower and skills required to complete each of the tasks required to meet the mission of your plant function, activity scheduling and resource management becomes relatively straightforward.

Developed in 1958, the PERT methodology was designed to plan and control Department of Defense projects. It combines events and activities into a network of interrelated actions that can be evaluated easily, adjusted, and managed to ensure completion of the project. Few of us would question the use of PERT  logic for complex projects, but until recently it was not considered a management tool for day-to-day operation of plant functions. When you consider the complexity of a typical maintenance or production organization, a tool like PERT or activity-based management is a logical step.

Over the past several years, a new management concept called activity-based management or activity-based costing has been publicized widely as an effective means of managing plant functions. A growing number of managers have begun to accept these concepts as a means to reveal the true cost of doing business and to react to changes better in a competitive environment. In many cases, this is the first time that they attempted to develop a true cost for the many individual activities that comprise a working plant.

Simply stated, activity-based management is a technique that focuses on individual tasks or groups of activities that are required to operate or maintain critical plant systems or functions
effectively. For years, good project management focused on activities or tasks, particularly in terms of schedule, resource allocation, and cost. In any project, you have finite resources, specific tasks that must be performed, and a specific end date for completion. To ensure timely, cost-effective completion of the project, you develop a project plan and schedule that lists each of the required tasks, resources that each require, the inter-dependency of tasks, and an estimated task cost.

I have never understood how anyone could manage a plant function without a thorough understanding of the specific activities required. Without a duty-task analysis and an effective management tool like PERT, it seems an impossible task.

Simply stated, if you don't know what has to be done, there is no way to manage the activity. Like many of you, I have managed a number of very complex projects ranging from installation of new process systems to $100 million information management systems. I would never have attempted any of these projects without a very detailed, project plan and schedule.

To me, plant functions such as maintenance or production are just as complex as a $100 million system implementation. Why would anyone attempt to manage one of these functions without the same discipline and tools?

If you elect to implement an activity-based management program in your plant, do it the right way. As in many other performance improvement programs, plant personnel tend to shortcut or omit many of the tasks that are critical to success.

For example, few plants take the time and effort required to develop a full duty-task analysis. Instead, they estimate the criteria, such as manpower, cost, and duration of well-known tasks, without a true evaluation of the functional requirements of the plant function or area. In thirty years of experience, this is the most frequent argument that we have with clients. Few, if any, understand the need for this level of detail. But without it, little can be accomplished. Until one truly understands the unique tasks and groups of tasks required to operate or maintain a plant effectively, it cannot be managed effectively.

Nothing of value is ever easy. If you want to become more effective or improve resource utilization in your plant, this approach helps, but you must use the methodology correctly and completely.