Work Management Subject Matter Experts for Energy, Utilities & Power Sectors - SRCN Solutions

MEASURE THE SYSTEM, NOT THE PEOPLE

Wed, 18 Mar 2026 03:30:37 -0700

At SRCN, we do not rely on wrench time or time in motion studies to justify change. Not because we think efficiency does not matter, but because the best improvements are usually visible and provable through flow, readiness, and schedule stability. These measures point to system issues, not effort issues, and they give leaders a much cleaner case for action.

This, the final article in the series, is about how to build that case.

Start with a different question

Instead of asking:

“How busy are our people?”

ask:

“Are we reliably converting demand into completed, high-value work?”

That is what organisations and leaders actually care about: safety, reliability, cost, and delivery. You only get those outcomes when work flows through the system without bottlenecks, rework, and constant priority churn.

Three measures that unlock the case for change

1. Workflow Measures

Workflow is how smoothly work moves from identified, to validated, to prepared, to scheduled, executed, and closed out.

Whilst a considerable amount of complexity can be introduced when looking to measure workflow, it is possible to glean considerable insight without getting overly complicated. A small number of signals can be used to show whether work is moving or stuck.

Examples of useful flow...Read More

HOW TO SPOT LOW WRENCH TIME WITH0UT A STUDY

Mon, 09 Mar 2026 05:22:18 -0700

At SRCN, we find that wrench time and time-in-motion studies usually confirm the same thing. The workforce is rarely the primary constraint. The process is.

If you want the insights these studies provide without the morale impact of introducing a stopwatch, you can usually spot the same underlying issues through signals already present in your work management routines, your CMMS, and your weekly forums. The key areas to focus on are:

1. Readiness confirmation is weak, so the week is built on hope

When work is repeatedly started and then stalls, it is almost always because it was not genuinely ready. This can typically show up as missing isolations, missing permits, missing materials, unclear job scope, or a task plan that has not been validated on the ground.

You do not need a study to see it. Ask one question in the scheduling meeting: How many of next week’s jobs are confirmed as ready to execute today?

If the answer is unclear, or if readiness is assumed rather than proven, this is almost certainly a cause of lost time.

2. The schedule is not protected, so the flow collapses

Low schedule attainment is rarely an execution effort problem. It is a disciplineand stability problem.

When the schedule changes mid-week, it introduces waiting, rework, and recoordination. People remain busy, but output drops because the system is constantly resetting. That is exactly the type of lost time a stopwatch records, but it cannot explain.

BACKLOG IS NOT JUST A LIST!

Wed, 04 Mar 2026 01:51:19 -0800

Backlog is not just a list! It is all work not executed by its risk date.

Backlog represents unassessed or unendorsed risk sitting inside your business.

Yes, it highlights inefficiency. But more importantly, 𝗶𝘁 𝗺𝗲𝗮𝗻𝘀 𝘁𝗵𝗲 𝗯𝘂𝘀𝗶𝗻𝗲𝘀𝘀 𝗶𝘀 𝗼𝗽𝗲𝗿𝗮𝘁𝗶𝗻𝗴 𝘄𝗶𝘁𝗵 𝘂𝗻𝗸𝗻𝗼𝘄𝗻 𝗮𝗻𝗱 𝘂𝗻𝗺𝗮𝗻𝗮𝗴𝗲𝗱 𝗿𝗶𝘀𝗸!

Unmanaged risk doesn’t wait politely. It shows up as:

❌Unexpected failures
❌Operational disruption
❌Reactive firefighting
❌Increased uncertainty

If you truly want to understand your organisation’s risk exposure, ask:

❓How do we define backlog?
❓How do we reassess overdue work?
❓What is our mechanism for re-evaluating consequence and likelihood?

Every backlog item should be reassessed, with consequence and likelihood reviewed and a revised Risk Date set. 𝗧𝗵𝗮𝘁’𝘀 𝗵𝗼𝘄 𝘆𝗼𝘂 𝗺𝗼𝘃𝗲 𝗿𝗶𝘀𝗸 𝗳𝗿𝗼𝗺 𝘂𝗻𝗸𝗻𝗼𝘄𝗻 𝘁𝗼 𝘂𝗻𝗱𝗲𝗿𝘀𝘁𝗼𝗼𝗱.

𝗕𝗮𝗰𝗸𝗹𝗼𝗴 𝗶𝘀𝗻’𝘁 𝗷𝘂𝘀𝘁 𝘄𝗼𝗿𝗸 𝘄𝗮𝗶𝘁𝗶𝗻𝗴 𝘁𝗼 𝗯𝗲 𝗱𝗼𝗻𝗲. 𝗜𝘁’𝘀 𝗿𝗶𝘀𝗸 𝘄𝗮𝗶𝘁𝗶𝗻𝗴 𝘁𝗼 𝗵𝗮𝗽𝗽𝗲𝗻. 🚨

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THE STOPWATCH ISN'T THE PROBLEM: WHAT WRENCH TIME STUDIES REALLY SIGNAL

Thu, 26 Feb 2026 03:54:35 -0800

At SRCN, we are often asked whether we run wrench time or time-in-motion studies. We do not, and that is by design.

This short article, the second in our wrench time series, is based on a simple question.

Why are these studies so unpopular, and what does that tell you?

Most of the resistance is not about the stopwatch. It is about what the stopwatch implies.

To the workforce, a wrench time study can feel intrusive, like Big Brother is watching. Someone standing nearby, recording movements, judging what counts as productive and what counts as waste. Even if the intent is improvement, the experience can feel like surveillance. It can also carry an unspoken message.

That is seldom the intention. It is frequently the interpretation. In maintenance and operations, most technicians already feel the pressure of backlogs, emergent failures, shifting priorities, and the daily reality of working around access, isolations, permits, and missing parts. When you then measure them as if the primary problem is effort, you instantly create defensiveness.

There is another point worth emphasising. These studies are almost always directed at the people in boiler suits, and rarely at those onshore or in the office.

Planning quality, materials management, isolation planning, permit workflow, prioritisation churn, and late changes to the weekly schedule. These are the factors that drive lost time offshore, yet they are seldom the focus of observation.

When scrutiny flows in only one direction, it feels less like improvement and more like blame. That perception quickly...Read More

WRENCH TIME VS. WORK MANAGEMENT: FOCUSING ON WHAT ACTUALLY DRIVES PERFORMANCE

Tue, 17 Feb 2026 05:10:55 -0800

At SRCN, we are frequently asked whether we conduct wrench-time or time-in-motion studies as part of our work management consulting. We do not, and that is by design, not an oversight.

Experience working across multiple asset-intensive industries has shown us that wrench-time metrics or time-in-motion studies do not deliver meaningful insight into value, reliability, or business performance. Instead, they conflate activity with outcomes. Wrench time is not a measure of value delivered. It is a measure of time accounted for, and that distinction matters.

Wrench time or even productive time tracks how people’s time is spent. It shows how much time they spent doing work that falls into specific categories. It does not show whether that effort reduced risk, improved reliability, or delivered business value.

Known Problems Don’t Require Stopwatch Studies

Most organisations already have a clear understanding ofwhere work execution breaks down.
Common issues include:

Work is not ready when scheduled
Breakdown in coordination across teams
Materials and access arrivinglate
Priorities shifting

These challenges are not hidden; they are visible symptoms of weak work management practices. No amount of time-in-motion observation will uncover something organisations don’t already know, yet many still default to activity measurement as a performance lever or a mechanism to justify action.

Why Wrench-Time Studies Can Be Counterproductive

In our experience, focusing on wrench time often results...Read More

SRCN BUILDS ON A STRONG 2025 AS IT ENTERS 2026 WITH MOMENTUM AND CLEAR FOCUS

Mon, 09 Feb 2026 03:44:11 -0800

SRCN is heading into 2026 with confidence and clear intent after a year marked by measurable impact, service expansion and industry contribution. Throughout 2025, the work management expert strengthened its position as a trusted partner to asset-intensive organisations by delivering practical solutions that improve efficiency, reduce risk and deliver measurable value.

2025 marked a milestone year for SRCN, defined by strong client delivery, growing capability, enhanced security assurance and meaningful industry collaboration.

Key Highlights from 2025

£3m+ in potential annual savings identified for new clients through our work management assessment services
First nuclear-sector project delivered, expanding SRCN’s industry footprint
Enhanced framework toolset to give clients clear, accessible maturity and change compliance tracking
Supported the Health & Safety Executive (HSE) by providing subject matter expertise to facilitate the continuous professional development of its staff
First university lecture delivered to help ensure Work Management awareness for future generationsof leaders– more of which is on the cards
500+ professionals trained via role-based, instructor-led, in-person courses
Achieved Cyber Essentials and Cyber Essentials Plus certification, providing verified assurance to clients and partners that robust cybersecurity measures are in place
Refreshed OEUK Maintenance Backlog guidance, which we originally authored in 2022, to provide clearer guidance on how to tackle and sustainably reduce maintenance...Read More

THE KPI MISCONCEPTION: WHY MANY 'LEADING' INDICATORS ARE ACTUALLY LAGGING.

Thu, 05 Feb 2026 02:27:41 -0800

The term leading Key Performance Indicator (KPI) is used frequently in the world of maintenance and asset management, but not always correctly. Many commonly reported metrics are considered as leading and widely accepted, even though they do not facilitate proactive decision-making. This misinterpretation creates an illusion of control, where organisations believe they are managing future performance while they are, in reality, reviewing past results.

Metrics such as Planned Maintenance (PM) compliance, emergency work volume, and wrench time are often presented as leading indicators. However, by the time these numbers are even made available, the outcome has already occurred. While they may highlight trends or expose systemic issues, they do not provide an opportunity to intervene before failure, delay, or disruption happens.

While metrics such as these can be indicators of a future trend that doesn't make them leading KPIs. To be a leading KPI they must tell you what is about to happen to allow you to step in, not just tell you how you've done previously. True leading KPIs serve a different purpose. They give early warning of what is about to happen, enabling action to be taken while there is still time to influence the outcome.

Understanding the difference between leading and lagging indicators is critical if maintenance teams want to move from reactive reporting to proactive control.

Some examples of true leading KPIs on the same theme could be:

PM backlog by age (identifies potential risk before failure occurs)
Schedule Load vs Available Capacity (gives an indication work is unlikely to be completed in line with schedule and allows intervention)
Repeat Failure Indicator i.e. defect work orders raised on the same asset within...Read More

SRCN SHARES WORK MANAGEMENT INSIGHTS WITH RGU ENGINEERING STUDENTS: LESSONS WITH CROSS-SECTOR RELEVANCE FOR THE NUCLEAR INDUSTRY

Wed, 12 Nov 2025 05:39:53 -0800

SRCN, a team of highly regarded experts with extensive experience across the energy and utility sectors, recently delivered a guest lecture to engineering students at The Robert Gordon University (RGU) on work
management and backlog reduction. The session explored the universal challenge of maintenance backlog, a topic of critical importance to high-reliability industries such as nuclear energy.

Drawing on SRCN’s experience developing the industry guidelines on backlog management commissioned by Offshore Energies UK (OEUK), the lecture introduced principles of work management. It focused on how effective work management frameworks can help organisations maintain safe, predictable and compliant operations, principles that apply equally to the nuclear sector.

To make the concept tangible, SRCN used its signature “bathtub” analogy, illustrating how the inflow of new work (demand), the current backlog (the water level), and the outflow (execution capacity) interact dynamically. This analogy helped students visualise the system behaviour that underpins maintenance performance and risk exposure.

“The issue of backlog is not confined to one sector; it’s a universal indicator of how well an organisation manages competing priorities, available capacity and asset integrity,” said Colin Wilson, Founder and
Managing Director, SRCN. “Whether you’re operating an offshore platform or a nuclear facility, backlog management is central to maintaining safety, compliance and long-term reliability.”

The lecture formed part of SRCN’s ongoing mission to share practical, cross-industry learning with the next generation of engineers and leaders. By translating operational insights into simple, teachable models, SRCN aims to strengthen the bridge between academic...Read More

IF IT WERE THAT EASY, WE'D ALL BE ROCKSTARS! WHY TRAINING MATTERS

Tue, 30 Sep 2025 01:10:04 -0700

In today’s fast-paced operational environments, leaders are under constant pressure to improve performance, streamline processes, and deliver more with less. Naturally, many look to process documentation as the answer: “If we’ve written it down clearly enough, people will follow it.”

But here’s the truth: a process on paper doesn’t create performance in practice.

Our Managing Director, Colin Wilson, was recently on a call with a prospective client who asked him a question he'd heard many times before:

“Why do I need to give my people training when they can just read the process?”

His answer was simple, and it stuck:

“Just because the words come up on the screen at Karaoke doesn’t mean I can sing.”

That analogy says it all.

Words alone don’t build skill, confidence, or consistency. Training does.

Training Is the Bridge Between Intent and Execution

You can redesign workflows, rewrite standard operating procedures, or revise maintenance strategies, but unless people are equipped to implement them, the changes won’t stick.

SRCN’s approach reinforces this. We don’t recommend change for the sake of change. Instead, we deploy fixed-price, fixed-scope, fixed-duration programs to:

Assess current work management maturity.
Identify where gaps exist and make recommendations for improvement.
Provide training & coaching to build capacity to embed and sustain current or
new ways of working.
Read More

SRCN LAUNCHES ON-DEMAND, FLEXIBLE SUPPORT SERVICE TO MEET EVOLVING CLIENT NEEDS

Wed, 13 Aug 2025 06:50:32 -0700

SRCN, The Work Management Experts, is proud to announce the launch of its On-Demand, Flexible Support Service, a new offering designed to provide clients with on-demand access to expert support tailored to their unique needs.

The new service introduces a monthly bank of hours, ranging from 5 to 15 hours, which clients can use for a wide variety of services, including:

Strategic consultations
Guidance for senior leadership or internal teams
Assistance with small-scale projects
Training sessions

In a move designed to maximise value and accessibility, any unused hours automatically roll over, remaining available throughout the duration of the client’s contract.

“This flexible model ensures that organisations of all sizes can benefit from specialist work management expertise without having to build that capability internally,” said Colin Wilson, Managing Director at SRCN. “It offers convenient, on-demand access to the right skills and insights, exactly when they’re needed, without the constraints of fixed staffing.”

Colin Wilson, Managing Director, SRCN

For more information or to activate your support plan, contact info@srcnsolutions.com.

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